The version of the forced loss battle that's always, always stuck out so very badly for me, is Vile in MegaMan X. Others may be worse from a gameplay perspective, but it's always felt so bad to me that the boss at the end of the intro stage is not just an unwinnable fight, but a fight that is unwinnable in the exact same way that the same boss is when you're at the end of the 1st Sigma stage, having had the chance to get literally every single power up and reach the max strength in the game. And of course, all of these fights are generally trying to do something with the narrative, but when nothing changes it can even significantly undercut the games' narrative.
To be clear, that last bit is a criticism directed towards Vile significantly more than Beatrix, but there's a reason that the Forced Failure scenario/Forced Loss Boss Battle is so loathed as a video game trope. And the more that trick gets pulled with the same character in the same game, the worse it gets.
I remember Skies of Arcadia, released around the same time as FF9 incidentally, had some really bad examples of Unwinnable Bosses. Them having infinite HP being the main reason they're unwinnable at all
I remember Skies of Arcadia, released around the same time as FF9 incidentally, had some really bad examples of Unwinnable Bosses. Them having infinite HP being the main reason they're unwinnable at all
...Huh. Even prompted, I'm not remembering any examples of unwinnable bosses there? Granted, I only played the Gamecube version; maybe that changed that.
(Or I could just be misremembering, but that at least would seem to suggest I didn't find them "really pad", personally...)
...Huh. Even prompted, I'm not remembering any examples of unwinnable bosses there? Granted, I only played the Gamecube version; maybe that changed that.
(Or I could just be misremembering, but that at least would seem to suggest I didn't find them "really pad", personally...)
There's a skies of arcadia LP on the LP archive- there's very specifically a fight that would be completely reasonable to win, except the boss is just arbitrarily unkillable.
and thus it's actively natural to find yourself having to throw the fight because you just can't advance until you lose.
...Yeah, this is ringing... no bells, not for anything that clearly fits, at least.
... Now I'm wondering if I was somehow bad enough at the combat system that I just didn't notice winning would have been reasonable.
It's odd, though, as I didn't think I was that bad at Skies of Arcadia's. Hm. [shrugs] Oh well.
Honestly regarding Trance I see it as simply a marker for PC-ness and otherwise simply ignore the lack of enemies being able to Trance. It's a super mode, special people like PCs have super modes and other people don't.
Final Fantasy VIII: Mods de Chocobo
Final Fantasy IX: Ukulele de Chocobo
Final Fantasy VII: Fiddle de Chocobo (racing theme)
Final Fantasy V: Mambo de Chocobo
Final Fantasy VI: Techno de Chocobo
Final Fantasy IV: Chocobo Chocobo
Final Fantasy III: Chocobos!
Final Fantasy II: Chocobo Theme
Final Fantasy VII: Cinco de Chocobo (Riding theme; I apologize to all you music heads but 5/4 provokes some kind of deep physical unease within my chest and brain)
(All NES/SNES versions are Pixel Remaster versions)
To the point that I suspect that there may be some property of the clay that made it better breading than normal flour, perhaps by absorbing more off the egg mixture and thus sticking better to the chicken???
There are at least two studies I've found via Google that inquired about the positive effects of kaolinite on the gastrointestinal health of live chickens...so it's all rather full circle.
It occurs to me that Trance seems to shift someone towards an idealized version of themselves - the version they are in their head. I think we have textual evidence that Quina wants to become a master chef, and he definitely looks the part. Steiner actually becomes someone who looks worthy of a grand title like 'Captain of the Pluto Knights'. Freya gets a glow-up - does she wind up looking anything more like Fratley? I wouldn't be surprised. I wouldn't be surprised to learn that poor Vivi wishes he were a grand mage who didn't fall down all the time, or at least had a nicer hat. Dagger I can't remember off the top of my head, but I expect she moves from princess to adventurer.
Belonging seems like a really clear and related theme. If Vivi were a powerful mage, he'd probably have a family and know where he came from. Steiner the Pluto Knight would be where he wanted to be in life, and everything would finally fit. Quina the chef would have achieved his goal and get to go home.
I can't help but wonder where it is that Zidane feels he'd belong, what his idealized self might look like, and why turning into more of a monkey brings him closer to that goal.
[Lights on; VIVI steps forward, singing.]
Butterfly in the sky, I can go twice as high.
Take a look, it's in a book,
A reading rainbow!
I can go anywhere,
Friends to know, and ways to grow,
A reading rainbow!
I can be anything,
Take a look, it's in a book,
A reading rainbow!
Reading rainbow!
[Zidane, Steiner, Freya and Dagger applaud; lights out.]
Last time, we dealt with absolute devastation, the ruin of all our efforts, and villainous victory, leaving our heroes to scramble to save the last thing they might — Dagger herself, who is held in Alexandria Castle. We last saw Zidane's crew teleporting away, and we'll be leaving them for now as we draw our attention back to Alexandria…
I. Foucault's Pendulum
Where Steiner and Marcus are both held prisoner, not in anything so mundane as a cell, but in a suspended cage. Why be this extra about it? I don't know, but it's cool.
It's not just cool, though. It's also a very stupid idea that our heroes are about to use to their advantage, as Marcus is suddenly struck with an idea.
Not to put too fine a point on it but the cage's bars are also so wide that Zidane and Vivi could literally just slip through. This is not a well-designed prison.
We get a minigame in which Steiner and Marcus (both relatively heavy guys) grab onto the cell's bars and shift their weight from side to side, causing the cell to swing like a pendulum until finally…
…it crashes into one of the galleries, breaking the bars at the same time and allowing Steiner and Marcus to escape. We gain control of the two-man team (seriously, Marcus has a shocking endurance as a playable character) and the Alexandrian soldiers immediately come rushing in to fight us, to predictable result (we roll over them).
The Alexandrians are actually more of a threat to Steiner and Marcus than they were to our other party, simply because Steiner has been left behind for a while and is much lower in level… But they're just so weak it doesn't ultimately make a difference. We run through several encounters with them until we reach the stairs out of the dungeon.
I'm curious as to the meaning of these symbols.
Here, however, is where Marcus shows that his priorities differ from Steiner's; as the knight calls out to her, Marcus tells him he's outta here — he's going to Evil Forest to save his bro. One might judge him as callous for leaving Steiner alone to save Dagger and perhaps fail, but… Well, put a pin in that.
Steiner, of course, shouts angrily at him for being a 'heartless cur', only to turn around in surprise as three orbs of light descend from the ceiling.
Steiner: "You!!! Wh-What are you doing here!?" Zidane: "Steiner! Is this Alexandria!?" Steiner: "What!? I have no time for your silly questions! I must escape this wretched dungeon of Alexandria and rescue the princess!" Zidane: "Enough said! Let's go!"
[Zidane, Freya, and Vivi move out while Steiner stares baffled.] Steiner: "Why is everyone leaving me behind!?"
[The group suddenly reappears.] Zidane: "Hurry up, Rusty! Dagger's life is in danger!" Steiner: "What are you talking about!? Enough with this nonsense!!!" Vivi: "It's true." [Steiner turns to listen to him.] "We were just on the Red Rose, and we overheard Brahne talking. She said once she returns to Alexandria, she is going to have Dagger execute." Steiner: "...Is this really true?" Zidane: "Yeah!!! We've got 30 minutes before Brahne arrives! Let's go!"
[A 30 minute countdown appears.]
How do you know it's 30 minutes, Zidane. Where did you pull this knowledge from. Also, Cleyra and Alexandria are 30 minutes away in airship? Are you serious?
Weird contrivances aside, I do really like how the moment Vivi tells Steiner about Brahne's plan, he immediately drops all the angry shouting and gesticulating and denial. He might not fully believe it yet, or might not have fully grasped with the implications of the truth, but he would never accuse Vivi of lying to him. He takes it for granted that whatever Vivi tells him is the truth as best as Vivi knows it. It's genuine respect for the 'Master Wizard,' and it's nice to see Steiner's positive qualities get a chance to shine again.
As our group leaves, they run into Marcus, who seems largely unfazed to see everyone just manifest out of the aether in front of him. He warns the party to stand clear as he pulls a lever, dropping a gate in front of pursuing Alexandrian soldiers and buying them a few seconds to talk — though of course, time is of the essence.
Zidane: "What are you doing here?" Marcus: "It's a long story. I'm gonna go to Evil Forest now and help Blank." Zidane: "Good luck! We're gonna go find Dagger!"
[The split up.]
…like I said, it's short. Of course, given that this is a time mission, we wouldn't necessarily want it to be wasted on dialogue, but… Well, it's the same reason Marcus left the moment he and Steiner were free; the game needed to free up his party slot so he had to leave immediately, even though it came across weirdly and even though we would meet him again immediately after. And similarly the game keeps preventing Zidane from having a reunion with his old friends, so the timer makes a perfect excuse for not having time for them to talk at all. It's a little contrived, but whatever.
II. Having Fun Storming The Castle
And there it is: For the first time since the game's opening, we have free range of Alexandria Castle! Or, well. "Free range." The 30 minute timer makes exploring a fraught prospect. And of course, the guards are still after us.
A detail I appreciate is that these are not random encounters. On every screen, the guards are there, turning around in a very basic watch pattern, and if they see us they'll run after us; combat only starts if their model reaches ours. This means that, if we are swift and decisive, we can avoid wasting time on guard encounters, but if we dither and don't know where to go, we'll inevitably end up in time-consuming fights.
Zidane, pursued by two guards.
There isn't much loot to be found in the castle, which combined with the time limit means there's little reason to explore and you ideally want to gun straight for the destination. Of course, if you, hypothetically… Completely forgot the layout of Alexandria Castle in the fifteen hours since you last were there… You might still end up running into nearly every single room in the castle before you find the one you actually want. Not that that would happen to me, haha.
If you do get lost, however, several rooms have NPCs who provide pointers; one of the chefs tells us that the queensroom is on the 3rd floor, for instance. The others have flavor dialogue; the Ovenmeister informs us that Queen Brahne's favorite dish is…
…deep-fried bat!? What the Christ.
Also, the fact that the Qu who was the kitchen master during the theatre performance and shared Quina's model isn't there anymore makes me think maybe they were in fact intended to be an early Quina cameo this whole time?
I am posting this battle intro screenshot because it's the cleanest look we've gotten at what is presumably a portrait of Queen Brahne carrying her… Cat? Thing? This portrait is subtly different from how she looks today (a little slimmer, for instance), but it looks like she was always some kind of monster clown person.
We can revisit several places by daytime and empty now, like the theatre stands, Brahne's special balcony, or Dagger's room. We can also meet some of the Knights of Pluto!
The Pluto Knights are scattered all throughout the castle, and unlike the soldiers, they make no motion to attack us and instead are helpful, providing us with directions.
From this and Beatrix's comments about Steiner, one gets the impression that the Alexandrian garrison got into its head the idea that Steiner had gone rogue, in a kind of morally ambiguous way that was treasonous but also kinda romantic? It's hard to parse exactly what they thought, but Beatrix seemed to think Steiner had gone off on some quest to "follow his heart," and that the Pluto Knight secretly approved. Which, for us who know Steiner, is kind of hilarious.
There is also, if we go really out of our way to the library, some crucial plot dialogue that is completely missable and which clarifies stuff which would otherwise probably have been explained later or perhaps never:
Scholar 1: "The queen is trying to collect the jewels? The jewels you speak of are actually not a whole jewel, but shards of a single jewel." Scholar 2: "It seems that the jewel was divided into several pieces." Scholar 3: "Alexandria, Lindblum, and Cleyra each received a piece of the jewel for safekeeping."
And now we know why Beatrix was after Cleyra's magic stone, and how all this ties into what Doctor Tot explained in a flashback about a legendary "jewel" associated with eidolons but that Alexandria's royal pendant was "too small" to be the legendary jewel.
The Jewel, a stone associated with the immense power of eidolons, was once a single stone, which was broken into three pieces. One is Alexandria's royal pendant. One is Cleyra's magic stone set into the harp. And the final one is, no doubt, Cid's Falcon Claw pendant. Which means we now know exactly where Beatrix is headed: Lindblum, to steal the Falcon Claw. Once Brahne has all three jewels, she'll be able to reform the Jewel and probably unlock ultimate summon power of some kind — or Kuja will steal it from her now that she has served her purpose to serve his own nefarious ends, either works.
That definitely helps clarify the stakes and our antagonists' motivations and it's kind of maddening that this dialogue is relegated to a side room during a timed mission. I get that FFIX is sort of committing to a "Zidane has no time for this nonsense and is focused on solving the problem in front of him rather than interrogating deeper causes or exploring the worldbuilding," but like… I'm not Zidane. I wanna know that stuff.
Ah, well.
There is something else in the library.
III.Omicron babbles on about combat mechanics for 1,876 words [Unskippable]
If we approach one of the bookshelves and examines it, Zidane "hears someone talking." If we choose to listen more closely, a voice offers us a challenge.
Of course, I'm not one to back down from that kind of thing. Let's go.
EVIL SENTIENT BOOK.
It looks like we just found our first optional boss fight. And no, the time limit doesn't stop for this — if we want this fight, we need to beat the boss in the 30 minute time window, then finish the rest of the sequence in the remaining time. Will that be difficult? Well…
The book opens the fight with "Paper Storm," a flurry of pages that deals devastating physical damage and instantly takes out both our front row characters. Moments later, Freya fires Reis's Wind — too late to be any help to Zidane or Steiner. This leaves us to try and scramble to get the two back up, which…
The book casts Doom on Vivi, putting a 10-count above his head that goes down at a pretty quick rhythm, ending in certain death when it reaches 0, so stalling for time isn't going to work.
At this point, attacking the book isn't going to do much, but Vivi had a Fira queued before this disaster and it's firing now, which gives us a look at the core mechanic of the book fight:
The book has incredibly high defense against everything, and every time it takes damage, it opens to a page corresponding to the cumulative damage of our attacks. So here, Vivi dealt 41 damage, so the book opens on page 41, with the message "Nothing on this page." Afterwards, Freya Jumps, landing with 42 damage. This causes the book to open on page 41+42= 83, also with "nothing on this page."
Shortly after, the battle ends.
It actually takes a while; due to her Jumps, Regen, and being in the backrow, Freya has incredible survivability. It's only when she is afflicted with Doom that I need to try raising the other characters, but there's just not enough time to raise and heal the whole team.
So. It seems clear that the goal of the battle is to "advance" through the book's pages using damage, until it lands on a page which has something in it, and that something will reveal the book's weakness that we might exploit to actually defeat it. Interesting!
Of course, in order to deal enough damage to reach the right page, we need to first be able to survive the book's onslaught. Unfortunately, Quina no longer being with us means we can't rely on Mighty Guard to easily shore up our defenses. In fact, with Dagger not in the party, we don't have any defensive abilities; we have Reis's Wind and that's it. We gotta rawdog this fight.
Which doesn't mean we can't adjust our tactics. First off: The book (whose name is Tantarian), being a book, is vulnerable to fire. That means that Vivi's Fira and Steiner's Fire Sword are our reliable damage dealers. Several characters can use Auto-Potion, regenerating after each attack. So we can do fairly well as long as characters don't go down instantly to Paper Storm, which is mostly RNG luck of the draw. On our next turn, Zidane goes down but Steiner survives, allowing us to pump damage into the book until he goes down to a second Paper Storm.
He had a Doom counter at 1, so he was going down regardless.
This hurts pretty bad, but at this point the book is on Page 140, so we're getting close. I have Freya take flight, Vivi tosses a Phoenix Pinion at Zidane, who miraculously dodges Tantarian's physical Edge attack, Zidane raises Steiner, and Freya falls like a meteor, bringing the book to page 183.
…for such a murderous thing it's inexplicably cute.
This is the true face of Tantarian, the fiend hiding within the book. While exposed, it is significantly less powerful, taking full damage from our attacks and being only able to cast Poison on our party.
At first, this seems like a gimme. We're dealing 1,500+ damage per attack, and Poison is weak and easily counterattacked by the screen-wide Regen applied by Reis's Wind.
But Tantarian has… A lot… Of HP. And if it is targeted by a physical attack, it immediately withdraws back into the book and forces us to manually advance to the right page range against. That means Zidane is sitting out the DPS race on Steal and Item duty, and Freya can only use Lancer.
Still, we have a decent supply of Elixirs, so we can shortcut our way out of the danger zone by tossing them at Zidane and Steiner so they're at no threat from anything, and then throw as many Firas, Fire Swords and Lancers as we can, dealing easily ten thousand damage over multiple rounds.
But Tantarian has more than ten thousand HP.
Eventually, Tantarian withdraws into its book regardless of whether we used physical attacks. And that means a return to the painstaking page-turning process and to Tantarian's strongest attacks. Plus, as you may note from this screenshot, both Steiner and Vivi are out of MP at the worst possible time; I'll need to take two turns off to toss Ethers at them. Meanwhile, Freya is on her last Lancer, though it did give me one of the best screenshots in this entire LP.
Unfortunately, there's a problem. Despite using Elixirs to top up Zidane and Steiner, they're already down a few hundred HP each… Because I didn't realize that Regen has a limited duration that is only indicated by a color tinge applied to the character model. Regen ran out several turns ago, but Poison never runs out, so Poison has slowly been eroding Zidane and Steiner's HP.
Putting them right into Paper-Storm one-hit kill range.
Never mind that. Are we two party members down? Yes. But Paper Storm triggered a dual Trance. This book is cooked. We are finally getting to see Trance Freya in action. She Jumps into the air while Vivi blasts the book with a Fira. We bring the book to Page 116; it fires a Paper Storm, nearly enough to take out Vivi but not quite, and he Auto-Potions and Freya descends…
…
One thing I've been noticing with FF9 is that it has weird problems with queuing. Problems I do not remember from either of the 3D games that preceded it. ATB has always been a weird mess, but IX is very strange about it. For instance: If ATB is set to Wait, then when you're in a menu, ATB won't advance, and actions that were already inputted will trigger… Except when they won't? If you go into Wait while someone is casting Fira, Fira will complete, but if you queued someone to make an Attack after that, the attack will only play out after you close the menu. This makes it very difficult at times to know exactly when individual moves will fire.
Now, here's the thing. Trance changes one of the character's Commands. Vivi's Black Magic becomes Double Black, Zidane's Skill becomes Dyne. But what happens if you already queued an action before the attack that triggers Trance?
Here in this case, Vivi had a Fira queued. So he Tranced, and continued on his action queue, single-casting Fira.
And Freya?
Because we ordered her to Jump before the attack that triggered her Trance, she performs a normal, non-enhanced Jump.
Now, this wastes about a third to half of her Trance gauge, but it's fine. It's just fine. It's no problem. Her un-enhanced Jump pushed the book to Page 161; it opens, revealing Tantarian. So I queue a Doublecast Fira and a special, Trance Jump from Freya. She leaps into the air…
…and Vivi's Fira takes out the enemy while Freya is in the air.
The battle is over before she completes her Trance Jump.
This is the third time in the game that Freya enters Trance, and we have never seen her actual Trance ability even once.
I feel so normal about Trance mechanics, you guys. So. Normal.
People will refer to Tantarian as a "boss" and it is indeed much, much stronger than any opponent we've faced so far, but technically it's not a boss: The game plays the normal encounter music, and Tantarian gives XP. A lot of XP. Like, "Vivi and Freya just jumped three levels each and are now two levels ahead of Zidane" amounts of XP.
As the battle ends, the book declares "You are worthy…"
And yeah. Damn right I am. We won this fair and square.
…
But we can win it better, can't we?
First off: We actually heal everyone so they're at full HP and MP before the fight. Then we equip Steiner with Ice Brand, our strongest weapon, a whopping 50% stronger than the sword Steiner had equipped previously. Then, we equip everyone with Antibody, a cheap early ability that makes characters immune to Poison and which has never been particularly useful until exactly now.
Zidane eats an early Doom and is KO'd before the book opens. This time, though, I'm doing things differently: As we saw last time, we need to kill the Tantarian before it closes its book again, and that means we need to maximize damage while it's open, not before.
That means Vivi stays on standby using Focus repeatedly while Steiner and Freya are the ones who deal damage to open the book. This makes opening the book slightly slower, but that just means we get more time to raise Zidane from down, and when the book opens, we can just blast Tantarian seven ways to hell:
Unfortunately, even with Zidane up and with repeated reloading, we are unable to steal the Tantarian's high value items: It is our first opponent to have four steals, which are Ether, Elixir, Silver Fork, and Demon's Mail. Third tier steals are already extremely hard to obtain, and fourth tier ones are a no-go. So I give up and just explode the book fiend to smithereens.
Clean victory.
The first time we fought this battle, it was overwhelming and wiped the floor with us before we even found the fiend within the book. The second time, we adjusted our strategy and fought a tense, difficult battle, finishing on an ambiguous win with two party members down and two in Trance clutching out the win. The third time, we refined our strategy again (and lucked into the less brutal enemy attacks), and won a total blowout victory.
I wish every major story boss in the game was like this. I know they won't be, but the "optional extra-hard challenge" of Tantarian is the kind of scenario where I feel like I am genuinely getting the most out of FFIX's combat system and gameplay. Even if it also highlights all the frustrating elements of how ATB, action queuing and Trance interact in ways that make even victories sometimes frustrating.
We get enough XP for everyone to get a full level up, Running Shoes, thousands of gil, and we are left with 17 minutes on the counter. Can we make it to Dagger in that time frame?
Let's find out.
IV. I knew Kefka. You, sirs, are no Kefkas.
We dash straight for the Queensroom, which is furnished with rose motifs that I had never really paid attention to before; between this and the queen's airship being the Red Rose, it feels like a theme the Queen is going for. Now, roses are associated with beauty, and much is made of Queen Brahne's ugliness (sigh), so maybe this is like, supposed to be a kind of ironic contrast…?
Man I just really don't like this whole angle of Queen Brahne's character design.
At the other end of the room is a lamp with an odd purple flame; its lighting is animated to fluctuate, so it already drew my attention during the scene where Dagger confronted the Queen, but just in case you missed it there's a Pluto Knight who brings it up in the library. We examine it and…
Presto! Secret passage!
Cut for image count.
Final Fantasy IX, Part 12.B: Escape from Castle AlexandriaNew
There's a minor puzzle here, with a platform that rotates in a certain pattern; we need to jump on and off of it at the right time if we want to access those two chests which contain an Ice Brand and a Tent. Then we go down those winding stairs…
This whole complex shares the same architectural sensibilities as the tunnels at the end of the Gargan Roo; it seems likely they predate modern Alexandria by a long time. Their architecture is significantly more monumental than modern Alexandria's daintier sensibilities. I wonder if there is more to it than that, though.
And at last, we enter the Spooky Chamber.
And here we arrive in the Eidolon Extraction Room, where Zorn and Thorn stand over Dagger's body. As soon as we enter, they approach to confront Zidane: "How meddlesome you are! Mercy no more!"
As if we had anything to fear for the likes of them. .
13 minutes seems ample time to win this fight, which has only one gimmick mechanic: Zorn and Thorn act as a pair. They are either on the ground swaying, or bouncing up and down, which indicates their gameplay state. Each turn, one of them will charge the other one with spell power: Either Thorn gives Zorn meteor power, or Zorn gives Thorn flare power. Then, we have a brief window where we can attack the character who is charged up, knocking them out of their bounce animation and wasting their power. That means it's entirely possible to stunlock Zorn and Thorn out of doing anything. On the other hand, the battle ends as soon as either Zorn and Thorn reach 0 HP, so if we want to just race to the finish it's more efficient to just direct all our attacks at a single clown and ignore the spells coming our way. In that case, Flare is single-target, moderate damage, Meteorite is moderate damage to the full party, but Thorn has less HP and Zorn has more HP, so we either decide to take the most damage but deal with the quickest enemy to kill, or take the least damage but take the longest to kill the boss. There's the bones of an interesting trade-off but ultimately, any way you choose to play it the battle is a cakewalk. The only real issue is making sure we steal a Stardust Rod off one of the twins — the other items we already have.
Now, I actually fought Zorn and Thorn twice due to the vagaries of reloading save states to try the Tantarian fight. The first time I fought them, their final Meteor triggered Trance on three characters, Zidane, Vivi, and Freya. The battle then immediately ended because I had a Fira queued from Vivi; I won before I even got to open the menu on each of any of these three Tranced characters. On my second run, I wrapped up the battle more quickly, and saved those Trance bars so that maybe, maybe I might get some actual use out of them.
Don't look up "Shaggy Dog Story" on Wikipedia or anything.
Zorn and Thorn exclaim that it doesn't matter what we do, they're already finished with Garnet, and saunter away without any real effort to stop them. Whatever. Our only concern here is Dagger, and Zidane and the other rush to the dais where Zorn and Thorn have left her.
Everyone calls out Dagger's name, shouts to her, Vivi whispers a little "oh no…", Steiner dramatically bellows "PRINCESS!!! NOOOO!!!" before going to weep in a corner.
Steiner: "Princess, please forgive me!!! I don't deserve to be a knight! I don't deserve to live!" Freya: "Her heart's still beating." Zidane: "Yeah. I know… Let's get out of here. Dagger, you're gonna be all right."
I'm starting to see the pattern here. Steiner, the hidebound knight who can't imagine breaking the rules, doesn't want his world to change, and struggles to see past his cliché, is the one who always reacts to tragedy with shock and vibrant, dramatic displays of emotion. Sometimes it's pure comedy, like when he thought Dagger died during the play, and sometimes it's a lot more genuine, like here, where by all appearances Dagger is indeed in the throes of a magical coma. Meanwhile, Zidane, the free spirit who always acts impulsively, reacts to tragedy by going into "work mode" and going for the next achievable objective, regardless of how sensible it is or how it might feel to the people who are trying to process their emotions. Burmecia wiped out? Immediately jump and attack Beatrix. Cleyra destroyed? Immediately look for someone to stab. Dagger in a coma? Just tell yourself it's going to be alright and immediately move her somewhere else. Almost as if Zidane doesn't want to let himself feel his feelings.
The character who is defined by rigidity is the one who allows himself genuine, dramatic expressions of passion, the one who is defined by freedom reacts to emotional threats by seizing on an objective to accomplish immediately instead of pausing to feel. That's definitely interesting.
As the group picks Dagger up, a new mandatory ATE plays: "Friendship."
Marcus is running through Evil Forest.
Marcus is tired, but berates himself to keep going, tells his Bro he's coming. He trips, and gets himself back up.
I know I said I would stop interrogating the timeline of this game but in order for this to happen, Marcus needs to have reached Evil Forest from Alexandria Castle in less than thirty minutes. That is the explicit time frame we were given. Let's just… Think about that for a moment.
V. Lucy told me that this time she wouldn't pull away the football
We control Zidane carrying Dagger, which is honestly a sweet way to emphasize the moment, the uncertain fate of Dagger, Zidane's feelings for her. A moogle has popped up, who we can give letters to (I know I'm not transcribing those letters each time but honestly most of those just… Aren't actually interesting) so we can save and Tent, and then we leave, carrying Dagger all the way.
And we make it back to the Queensroom, where the group takes a moment to breathe.
Steiner: "My queen… Why have you done this… I have devoted my life to serving you and the princess…! Why did you harm the princess!!!? Why!!!?"
[He slumps over in despair.] Zidane: "Steiner…"
[Vivi approaches Zidane; Hearing him, Steiner turns around to listen.] Vivi: "Zidane. Do you think she'll ever wake up?" Zidane: "Of course. She's asleep because she's tired. That's all. I wanna let Dagger rest a little. Do you guys mind?" [No objection.] "Thanks."
[Zidane lays Dagger to rest on the sofa.]
Zidane, that is very sweet, but you are inside the queen's bedroom- Ah, whatever. We established the queen was on her way right now, there's only one way out of the dungeon, Zorn and Thorn have just escaped so they know where we are, so stopping to rest in this room is the dumbest possible decision you could make right now but I guess the plot demands it. Plus, it's very clear that Zidane is in denial, Steiner is struggling to process his queen's betrayal, Freya has barely said a single word since Cleyra and is clearly still in shock, and Vivi is a child. I don't disbelieve that they would make a mistake like this.
Zidane: "If only I had gotten here sooner… I'm sorry…" Steiner: "What happened to you? You are not your usual self. Go on… Blame my incompetence! Tell me it's my fault!" Zidane: [Talking over him] "No!" Zidane: "I can't… I… I don't know what I feel right now… I can't even shed a tear…" Steiner: "....."
I like how Steiner and Zidane have, at this point, fallen in such a routine that Steiner realizes that something is off when Zidane doesn't try to foist the fault on him. More than that, bickering with Zidane seems to have become part of Steiner's expectation of how things are supposed to be, and he's disturbed that it's not happening.
Then, Zorn and Thorn walk back in. But they are followed by someone else.
Beatrix enters.
Beatrix: "Welcome back, Steiner. Where have you been all this time? Don't tell me you have been enjoying the company of these scoundrels." Zidane: "What the hell!? The only scoundrels around here are you and your fat queen!" Beatrix: "Fools like you will never learn."
[Battle begins.]
Alright.
Third time against Beatrix. Let's do this. We've gone through two battles already, doing better the second time than the first, we're defending Dagger, Steiner is in the party and has this whole rivalry shtick with Beatrix, it's time to finally beat her ass.
God FUCKING dammit.
Look, there's nothing to say here. Beatrix is the same boss she was the previous two times we fought her. She carries a Survival Vest, which is a new item, but Zidane Trances early into the fight and I decide I'd rather test out his new Trance abilities, such as Scoop Art, which has a sick animation and deals enormous damage. This leads to Beatrix pulling a Limit Break again (Climhazard, one of Cloud's Limit Breaks in VII), reducing everyone to 1 HP and ending the battle again.
This, of course, causes Vivi and Freya to enter Trance just before the battle ends, wasting their gauges entirely.
…
You can do a forced loss once. You can even do it twice. You can't do the same forced loss, three times in a row, without changing anything about the execution. Our characters have grown in level, but there is no acknowledgment of this. Every time we meet Beatrix, she contemptuously declare us to be beneath her notice, then we obliterate her actual boss fight, and she uses a special move that ends the fight. There's no acknowledgment of growing strength, no further difficulty for her, nothing about her tactics or toolkit has changed, she's not picked up a new magic sword or anything.
It's just "Beatrix enters, you lose (even though she's an easy boss fight the second and third times)," three times in a row.
I'm kinda upset because Beatrix should be hype, but at this point the frustration has overcome the heat, like a pro wrestler management does a bad job of putting over and who draws the ire of the crowd for getting handed victories too easily.
Whatever.
Beatrix: "Your pathetic powers are useless against me." Zidane: [Down on one knee] "Hey, wait a minute… You're the general of this kingdom."
[Zidane stands up.] Zidane: "As the general of Alexandria, what is your sworn duty!? Isn't it to protect Dagger — your Princess Garnet? I'm sure you know who's sitting over there." Beatrix: [Looking at Dagger] "It can't be…" [She approaches her.] "Princess… So, it was true. The queen really did mean to kill her." Steiner: "WHAT!? No! The queen would never do such a thing!" Beatrix: "Steiner, it is time for you to accept the truth." Beatrix: "...My heart is set. All this time, I have been mistaken…" Zidane: "I hate to say it, but the lady's right, Rusty. You'd better learn to accept it." Beatrix: "...Citizens of Burmecia, please forgive me."
That was a quick turnaround.
And now she's stealing Steiner's character development by beating him to the realization that Queen Brahne is evil! Pick a lane, lady!
God, the change in translation has damaged this scene so much. As we know from @Adloquium's breakdown of the JP script, in the original script, Beatrix on the Red Rose expresses actual doubt about the morality of her actions and how she is blindly following orders, which is clearly set-up for her change of heart. But that's… Totally absent from the EN script, where Beatrix's characterization is dominated by pride/arrogance, and she's upset because Queen Brahne is using black mages instead of the peerless swordswoman Beatrix has built herself to be. And that, in turn, makes this sudden heel-face turn baffling. Beatrix was an enthusiastic participant in the eradication of the Burmecian people, and now she's asking for forgiveness?
At least Freya isn't so quick to give it to her.
Freya: "It's too late to seek forgiveness! …But you can still save Dagger." Zidane: "Freya…" Freya: "I tell you this because I acknowledge your powers. Help your princess." Beatrix: "I don't know if I can… but I will give it a try." [She kneels in front of Dagger.] "I hope this will work."
This is something you might have seen coming by paying attention to Beatrix's ability to cast Cure on herself in the second battle: Beatrix isn't just a knight, she's a paladin. She knows White Magic on top of her sword abilities. This ties into her whole arc about finding out she was working for the wrong side and yada yada.
She repeatedly casts white magic on Dagger, trying to rouse her from her slumber, while Zorn ad Thorn gloat that the spell they cast is irrevocable and her efforts are useless. They're as wrong about that as they are about everything else.
Beatrix: "Princess, are you alright?" Dagger: "...Oh, my head… What happened…" Zidane: "Dagger!" Vivi: "Yay!" Steiner: "Princess!" Dagger: "You're all here." Off-screen voice: "What is all this ruckus!?"
[Queen Brahne enters.]
And there it is. Once again, Dagger confronts her mother, only now the truth is fully out. For the first time, Steiner is put face to face with his queen, now knowing her evil. As does Beatrix, who has just rebelled against Brahne's will. What does Queen Brahne have to say? She is silent for a moment, seemingly pondering the situation. Finally, she turns to Zorn and Thorn:
Brahne: "Have you extracted all the eidolons from her?" Zorn/Thorn: "We have, Your Majesty!" Brahne: [She turns her back to the party.] "Then, what are you waiting for? Take Garnet and throw her in prison!" Zorn/Thorn: "Yes, Your Majesty!"
[Beatrix steps forward.] Beatrix: "I won't allow that." Brahne: "Oh? Are you defying me as well?" Beatrix: "Your Majesty, it is my duty to protect the princess. I beg you, reconsider. Please do not harm the princess anymore." [She turns to the party.] "All of you, leave here at once!" [She turns back to Brahne and readies to draw her blade.]
The two foes standing together against the greater evil.
Freya: "I'm staying! Zidane, go. Now!" Brahne: "You two are joining forces? How amusing…" [She turns to Zorn and Thorn.] "Get rid of them."
[Brahne turns to leave the room.] Dagger: "Mother!"
[Brahne leaves without a word or even looking at her.]
Man.
Man it really feels like this should be Steiner's beat. That he should be the one to say his duty is to protect the princess and stand up to Queen Brahne in that moment. But at least Freya gets to step up and make a stand against the ones who ordered the massacres of Burmecia and Cleyra… Alongside the one who conducted those massacres. Well.
Not that it's going to matter.
VI. The Sword Saint, Redux
Zidane, Vivi and Dagger all leave back through the hidden door to the dungeon (how do they know there's even an exit down there?) and Steiner sticks around for a moment, clearly hesitating, before telling them to wait for him and heading after them. Zorn and Thorn face against Freya and Burmecia. It would be a laughable opposition, but they don't intend to fight themselves; instead, they call upon a monster.
Zorn/Thorn: "Bandersnatch, bite their heads off!"
The ugliest puppy in the whole wide world.
And there we go.
This fight: Starring Guest Character Beatrix.
Like Marcus and the Tantalus crew, Beatrix lacks a Trance gauge, a visual indicator that she's not a permanent character. But unlike Marcus, whose guest character status left him less than the others, with no custom skill of his own, Beatrix is using this guest character status to hand the player a goddamned nuke.
Beatrix's Commands are White Magic, which includes Holy, and Seiken, her sword arts. This means we can deploy Thunder Slash, Shock, Stock Break and Climhazard. This makes Freya's contribution to the fight wholly irrelevant: Beatrix can instantly obliterate the enemy in a single move.
I wish the battles against Beatrix had be better handled, because this would be a real hype moment to have join her the party after struggling against her so much. As it is, it's still kinda hype, but… It could be better.
I'm not going to lie, she's still really fucking cool.
After this boss fight, we regain control of Zidane, escaping through the dungeons pursued by another Bandersnatch, though it's easy enough to give it the slip by jumping across the moving platform.
We continue running down the stairs, but then, surprise! Black Mages!
These are "Type C" black mages, dressed even more gaudily than the Type Bs. There's not much to say about them, they cast Fira and then die immediately to being lightly breathed upon, let's move on.
Wait, no, hold on, just one thing first.
We are escaping with Dagger. Which means that, for the first time since Gargan Roo, she is playable again…
…and she's still lv 10.
They did not include any kind of catch-up mechanic. She is just left behind to forever languish as the lowest level party member. Incredible choices.
While we were fighting the black mages, however, the Bandersnatch stuck above found its way down by leaping on the platforms, and jumps in our way, forcing a fight.
Two of them, even! What a party! Anyway we just tear through them and move on.
On the next screen, we find that Steiner is having a crisis of conscience and is lagging behind.
Steiner: "What am I doing here…?" Zidane: "What's the matter?" Steiner: "Beatrix served the queen all these years, and now she is turning against her… Freya lost her comrades, yet she insists on protecting the princess… The queen will never forgive them. She will kill them both…" Steiner: "Zidane, I have a request." Zidane: "What? Why are you goin' all formal all of a sudden?" Steiner: "I want you to escort the princess out of Alexandria and take her to Doctor Tot. I'm sure Doctor Tot can come up with a plan to help us and our kingdom." Zidane: "Piece of cake. I'm an escape artist." Vivi: "Don't worry, Steiner. We'll get her there." Steiner: "Zidane, Master Vivi, I'm counting on you." [He runs up the stairs, then turns around midway up and does a salute.] "Princess, I bid you farewell!"
[He leaves.] Dagger: "Steiner… Everybody is fighting for me…" Zidane: "That's right. They're all fighting for you… and for Alexandria… They're moving forward, giving everything they've got! So we have to move on, just like they are. We can't stop now! Come on!" Dagger: "But…"
Dagger's doubts are interrupted by another Bandersnatch, which we obliterate and quickly move on. The party continues heading down the stairs, but the camera shifts back up, to where Freya and Beatrix are waging a fighting retreat.
In another fun display of character abilities mattering to the cutscene, Freya straight up skips the puzzle, dragoon-jumping off the platform to join Beatrix before the Bandersnatches can corner them.
Freya: "What do you think?" Beatrix: "It's not going to be easy…"
[Fight begins.]
This battle has a funny quirk: The Bandersnatches have a Tongue attack that inflicts Sleep. Now, the traditional answer to Sleep in Final Fantasy is either an item or simply to attack your party member. The thing is…
…FFIX doesn't have "deal reduced damage to teammates" mechanics, so Freya just completely explodes Beatrix's HP while trying to gently tap her to wake her up.
I choose to believe that this is diegetic and Freya taking out her anger about the Burmecia massacre on her new friend Erwina Rommel.
This means I now have to raise Beatrix, and then the Bandersnatches put Freya asleep, and then they put Beatrix asleep again, so I have to just sit on my ass waiting for Sleep to end before I can finally input a Beatrix attack and instantly end the fight.
Climhazzard for days.
More Bandersnatches come down the stairs, and the two comment that they aren't out of trouble yet, but just then, Steiner arrives!
Beatrix: "Steiner! What are you doing here!?" Steiner: "I am Captain Adelbert Steiner of Alexandria. Grant me the honor of assisting you brave knights!"
[The Bandersnatches jump down and flank the party.] Freya: "Enough with your babble! Fight!"
Battle begins, Climhazzard, done.
This is a good moment for Steiner, slightly undercut by the fact that Beatrix being in the party makes his contribution irrelevant. But at last Steiner has found his line in the sand, seen where his true loyalties lie, he has, at last, made a decision for himself. Instead of going with the flow and sticking with Zidane's party, which would have been entirely justifiable since that's where Dagger is and his purpose is to protect her, he made the choice to trust Zidane with Dagger's safety and turn around to fight alongside the two knights whom he truly respects. There's even a shade of inferiority complex when he says "the honor of assisting you brave knights," which was evident in his previous scene with Beatrix at the start of the game, only now it's sublimated into an acknowledgment of their prowess and a desire to aid them.
He is, finally, growing as a person.
Now, this whole scene is made weird by the fact that, again, everyone is escaping towards the dungeons. There is no indication that they'll find an exit there. As it turns out, they will, because this dungeon connects directly to the Gargan Roo, but only Dagger would know that and she hasn't said so. But whatever, this is a nitpick.
What's less of a nitpick is that there is something else Dagger would know that she kinda didn't share with the class.
VI. The Fell For It Again Award
…
Yes, Zorn. Yes, they did indeed "fall for it again."
To add insult to injury, Thorn adds "Really stupid, they are!" at which point I am kind of white-knuckling my controller because I did not have the power not to take the stupid decision that our characters should have known to avoid because Dagger has literally fallen into this exact trap before.
Wait a fucking minute, how did Zorn and Thorn even beat us here!?
It's whatever. Unlike the first time there are no negative consequences to this so I guess it's fine. It's actually there to set up some long-delayed payoff: while Zorn and Thorn gloat, two people sneak up behind them…
Marcus and Blank knock out the clowns. This leads immediately into an ATE flashback, in which Marcus and Blank are running through the forest:
Marcus: "Bro, over here!" Blank: "Hold up. My body still feels kinda stiff." Marcus: "We gotta hurry! Zidane and Dagger are in big trouble!" Blank: "Who's Dagger? Zidane's new girl?" Marcus: "What? You don't know?" Blank: "Know what? What are you talking about?" Marcus: "Just keep running!" Blank: "Sheez…"
Back in the present, Blank says that they came "straight from Evil Forest," and Zidane replies "Man, I love you guys!" and the two thieves lower the gate so they can get out of the trap.
Or, well. They lower one of the gates, while leaving the gate facing the dungeon closed, so that they can't be pursued by their opponents. That's very clever!
It also means that Beatrix, Steiner and Freya's fighting retreat is going to end in them cornered in a cul de sac unless Marcus and Blank wait for them to open the door for them. Oops.
Okay but seriously, how close is Evil Forest to Alexandria Castle? Is that a breezy ten minute jog or what?
Anyway, that's why I said to put a pin in Marcus seeming kinda callous when he left Steiner behind at the start of this update: Marcus is just kind of a reserved guy, but it was his plan the entire time to get Blank and then immediately turn around to help Zidane and Dagger. It's also funny that Blank missed the entire plot of the game, so he has no idea who "Dagger" is because the last time he saw her she was still "Princess Garnet."
I kinda wish we had seen Blank's release from the petrification, considering how massively impactful the scene of him getting caught up by the forest was, but I'll take it. Seeing Zidane and the Tantalus crew being bros around one another is always sweet, it's a very different dynamic from the one he has with his other friends in the player party.
It's almost enough to make you not question how Marcus and Blank knew to find us in this specific spot at the bottom of the dungeons or how the hell they found a path to sneak in despite Marcus having only been here once and coming through a different entrance.
Dagger: "Blank… Marcus…" Blank: "Get out of here! We'll take care of this! There's more bad guys coming!" Zidane: "I owe you guys big time! Let's get outta here!"
[They all run.]
And with this, the party reaches Gargan Roo. Now, the first time we used it, we had to go through a long and complex sequence to activate it, call the bug, feed it, and manipulate the right doors; all of this is going to be skipped over for the sake of the plot this time around.
Dagger is looking oddly silent and thoughtful, and Zidane asks her if she's alright before saying "Forget I asked, I'm sure you have a lot on your mind;" just then, Vivi spots something approaching, and the gargant arrives and pulls up to the platform.
Vivi: "...We're riding this thing?" Zidane: "Yeah. Let's get going. We have no time to waste."
[Vivi climbs aboard, but Dagger does not move.] Zidane: "Dagger!" Dagger: [She turns around to look at him.] "I… I don't know what to do anymore…" Zidane: "Oh, come on! Why do you think everyone stayed behind!? Yeah, they're fighting for you, but also, they know, deep down inside, that they have to fight! Beatrix, Freya, Marcus, Blank, and even Steiner… Sometimes, you can't think everything out. You have to listen to your heart."
[Dagger says nothing, but she gets into the gargant trolley.] Zidane: "Alright…"
It's been a consistent character trait of Dagger's that she thinks and feels a lot but doesn't say much, and here it's sort of biting the plot in the back because of how much of this sequence is people speaking on her behalf, or explaining things to her, without her really replying or fully voicing her doubts and angst. This is a very mansplain-y update.
We're going to cut off here, but before we end things, I want to finish on a positive beat:
Zidane is so addicted to trying to look cool in front of girls that he lets the gargant start to ride just so he can run along the platform and jump into the trolley instead of just climbing aboard like a normal person. Funniest character of all time.
…
Well this was all kind of a mess, wasn't it?
Some really good and really important character beats in there, mixed in with some baffling writing choices and some utter contrivances. The game has never been so "the next thing happens because the plot needs it to happen" as with the dungeon sequence in which characters act on knowledge they should not possess and teleport around to wherever they are needed by the plot. We are given a very specific time frame for the events of the first part of the update, 30 minutes, which makes the pace at which characters are moving baffling. Beatrix's characterization was maimed in the translation, leading to the bizarre team-up of Freya with Miss Sword Genocide that is clearly trying to convey that they are bonding in the heat of battle despite, you know, the mass murder. This would still be a weird choice with the JP version of Beatrix who actually has moral doubts, but the version of Beatrix we are given is seemingly turning on Brahne only because Dagger is threatened and she decides her loyalty to the princess is above her loyalty to the queen. But also she asks the citizens of Burmecia to "forgive her" so she clearly does feel bad, it's a mess.
It doesn't help that this update features the first genuinely challenging and interesting fight in the game that is immediately followed by a series of total curb-stomp that we are meant to treat as serious threats. But I will give the game credit for one thing: Instead of the classic video game trope of "extremely powerful antagonist is nerfed the instant you recruit them as a playable character," Beatrix remains an absolute sword goddess who single-handedly clears every encounter she's in in a single move. And it did feel good to get to use her sword moves after so many forced losses against her, but it would feel better if she was better used narratively.
Also I have fully come around against Trance now. It sucks. It's a bad system. All the positive qualities it has are made worthless by the fact that you barely get to use it at all and that the game delights in having it trigger at the worst possible moments.
All in all, a very mixed update. I started writing it feeling a lot better about it than I did by the time I finished it. Still positive overall, but… Eh.
Anyway, Freya has at this point entered Trance three times in the game, all of which were too short for me to get a good, clean screenshot of her, so let's pull her picture off the Internet so we can actually talk about it:
VII. Ratwife, Dressed To Kill
The most remarkable thing about Trance Freya is that she has become a Dragon Knight. Not to say that she isn't one by default, but one of the signature traits of knights is that they tend to wear armor, and this is something that both Freya and Fratley, the only two dragon knights we know, pointedly do not do. Instead, they both favor practical clothing. And I think that's because they are both travelers. Both Freya and Fratley have been wandering the world for years, and armor simply isn't practical for that purpose (Steiner gets away with it because it's a video game), so they have ditched any armor they might have once had for traveling attire. But when Freya enters Trance, she becomes the ideal dragon knight, a knight in shining armor, polished and beautiful, with a full face-covering helm hiding her sorrow from the world, strong and proof against all blows and injuries that her exposed self keeps suffering.
There's another thing to note, though: Freya, Steiner, Vivi, and Quina's Trances all share the same color palette of gold and purple, and the same stylized geometric patterns. This is very curious, considering that they all come from different origins and cultures; it's almost like Trance taps into a shared power with a specific origin, rather than being unique to individuals. This is especially notable because Zidane and Dagger deviate from that pattern: Zidane's dominant color is pink and he lacks the geometric patterns, while Dagger is gold and has the patterns but is pink rather than purple, as if she were "halfway" between Zidane and the rest of the party.
I wonder if there's something rooted in the narrative about that, or whether it's just happenstance of aesthetic choices.
The Pluto Knights are scattered all throughout the castle, and unlike the soldiers, they make no motion to attack us and instead are helpful, providing us with directions.
From this and Beatrix's comments about Steiner, one gets the impression that the Alexandrian garrison got into its head the idea that Steiner had gone rogue, in a kind of morally ambiguous way that was treasonous but also kinda romantic? It's hard to parse exactly what they thought, but Beatrix seemed to think Steiner had gone off on some quest to "follow his heart," and that the Pluto Knight secretly approved. Which, for us who know Steiner, is kind of hilarious.
We dash straight for the Queensroom, which is furnished with rose motifs that I had never really paid attention to before; between this and the queen's airship being the Red Rose, it feels like a theme the Queen is going for. Now, roses are associated with beauty, and much is made of Queen Brahne's ugliness (sigh), so maybe this is like, supposed to be a kind of ironic contrast…?
Man I just really don't like this whole angle of Queen Brahne's character design.
My first thought is the Queen of Hearts from the animated movie Alice in Wonderland (1951). She had the whole red roses thing going too, and shares a similarly stout figure.
We dash straight for the Queensroom, which is furnished with rose motifs that I had never really paid attention to before; between this and the queen's airship being the Red Rose, it feels like a theme the Queen is going for. Now, roses are associated with beauty, and much is made of Queen Brahne's ugliness (sigh), so maybe this is like, supposed to be a kind of ironic contrast…?
Well, the lower left one is definitely a fleur-de-lis, so we know France exists. Not sure of the others, but I feel like I've seen the upper right one before, too.
I wonder if they might be intended to represent a four-nations kind of deal? Alexandria, Lindblum, and the paired symbols for Burmecia and Cleyra?
Also, the fact that the Qu who was the kitchen master during the theatre performance and shared Quina's model isn't there anymore makes me think maybe they were in fact intended to be an early Quina cameo this whole time?
"quina thinks the only acceptable cuisine is frogs because british 'cuisine' has eternally ruined their opinion of all non-french food" theory confirmed?????? shocking new revelations every moment of this lp!
I'm starting to see the pattern here. Steiner, the hidebound knight who can't imagine breaking the rules, doesn't want his world to change, and struggles to see past his cliché, is the one who always reacts to tragedy with shock and vibrant, dramatic displays of emotion. Sometimes it's pure comedy, like when he thought Dagger died during the play, and sometimes it's a lot more genuine, like here, where by all appearances Dagger is indeed in the throes of a magical coma. Meanwhile, Zidane, the free spirit who always acts impulsively, reacts to tragedy by going into "work mode" and going for the next achievable objective, regardless of how sensible it is or how it might feel to the people who are trying to process their emotions. Burmecia wiped out? Immediately jump and attack Beatrix. Cleyra destroyed? Immediately look for someone to stab. Dagger in a coma? Just tell yourself it's going to be alright and immediately move her somewhere else. Almost as if Zidane doesn't want to let himself feel his feelings.
You know, this subtle pattern of behavior has managed to do a lot more to establish Zidane as a genuine professional with years of experience working in high-stress enviroments (like heists for Tantalus or his adventures with Freya) than Final Fantasy ever sold me for Cloud or Squall, who very much want to be seen as professionals.
Which like, on one hand is incredibly appropriate given how the twist is that neither Cloud nor Squall actually really have that much actual experience compared to Zidane. But on the other hand is really funny, given how Zidane outwardly looks and acts the youngest of all of them.
There's another thing to note, though: Freya, Steiner, Vivi, and Quina's Trances all share the same color palette of gold and purple, and the same stylized geometric patterns. This is very curious, considering that they all come from different origins and cultures; it's almost like Trance taps into a shared power with a specific origin, rather than being unique to individuals. This is especially notable because Zidane and Dagger deviate from that pattern: Zidane's dominant color is pink and he lacks the geometric patterns, while Dagger is gold and has the patterns but is pink rather than purple, as if she were "halfway" between Zidane and the rest of the party.
Vivi having the same color scheme as the adventurer weirdos (but still very normal by the standards of adventurer weirdos) is definitely interesting, given how he's probably artificial in the same way as the other black mages. Even mysterious MacGuffin girl Garnet who has the potential to summon weapons of mass destruction inside her still shares notable motifs with the others.
What, then, does this imply about Zidane "I'm just a funny little guy trust me" Tribal?
When Trance works like it's supposed to, it can be an extremely fun mechanic that changes the way you approach an entire fight. Unfortunately, trance has steep pitfalls that keep it from working like it's supposed to. It can take awhile to build up. Some characters get more out of it than others. But most frustrating is that at the end of the battle a Tranced character dumps their entire gauge. This was a horrible decision that leads to wasted Trances left and right. It's genuinely the single most frustrating mechanic of the game. More bosses should have auto-trance built into them, like Vivi did for Black Waltz 2. Freya should automatically Trance when you confront Beatrix the first time, for example. Then you can build bosses around knowing that character will be Tranced and you can guarantee that players will get to engage with the mechanics.
Beatrix round 3 should not have been a fight. If you have to use the battle screen, it should load in and Beatrix immediately says "fuck this noise" and limit breaks. Some players would probably find that more annoying rather than less (I would find it funny, personally) but at least it would no longer involve Beatrix sandbagging, especially now. I don't particularly mind losing to Beatrix multiple times, but it does bother me that it's the same routine every time. Beatrix's face turn is a moment of controversy in the FF9 fandom, for obvious reasons. It has never really bothered me. I think because in videogame terms Beatrix hasn't really done much apart from slow us down with her boss fights. She hasn't actually personally killed anyone, her most villainous act being to steal Cleyra's jewel, a thing that was going to happen anyway with the black mage army on the march. I had long suspected that her speech on the Red Rose was supposed to carry the sentiment that what Alexandria was doing was wrong, as opposed to the extremely bizarre and hilarious "I don't get to do warcrimes anymore " especially given that this scene quickly follows. Beatrix's character is stained by evil, but it's not black.
Steiner going back for Freya and Beatrix is such a hype moment for me. It's the moment the Great Seal of Alexandria in Steiner's mind finally cracks in half. He's finally doing it for himself, not just following Dagger and passing responsibility. It's also the first time...
Steiner: "Zidane, I have a request." Zidane: "What? Why are you goin' all formal all of a sudden?"
...he speaks to Zidane with respect. And trusts him with a request to keep the princess safe. This is an enormous about-face for Adelbert Steiner. He's been told over and over again to think for himself, to be wary of his warlike queen, and finally he's getting it. Steiner has been Lawful Stupid for the entirety of the game thus far, but finally we're getting to see the Lawful Good coming out from beneath the crumbling rigidity.
These are "Type C" black mages, dressed even more gaudily than the Type Bs. There's not much to say about them, they cast Fira and then die immediately to being lightly breathed upon, let's move on.
Isn't it interesting how the black mage types mirror the Black Waltzes in design? Type A/Waltz 1 is an extremely simple creature, Type B/Waltz 2 wears a long, fancy coat, and now Type C/Waltz 3 both wield a magical staff. It looks like the Waltzes didn't improve on the previous one's performance, they were all prototypes for a production run of black mages.
Anyway, that's why I said to put a pin in Marcus seeming kinda callous when he left Steiner behind at the start of this update: Marcus is just kind of a reserved guy, but it was his plan the entire time to get Blank and then immediately turn around to help Zidane and Dagger. It's also funny that Blank missed the entire plot of the game, so he has no idea who "Dagger" is because the last time he saw her she was still "Princess Garnet."
This is one of those times that just keeping her name "Garnet" leads to hilarity, as Blank will ask "Garnet? Who's that?" And you kind of have to imagine Marcus just turning to Look at him until he gets it.
God, the change in translation has damaged this scene so much. As we know from Adloquium's breakdown of the JP script, in the original script, Beatrix on the Red Rose expresses actual doubt about the morality of her actions and how she is blindly following orders, which is clearly set-up for her change of heart. But that's… Totally absent from the EN script, where Beatrix's characterization is dominated by pride/arrogance, and she's upset because Queen Brahne is using black mages instead of the peerless swordswoman Beatrix has built herself to be. And that, in turn, makes this sudden heel-face turn baffling. Beatrix was an enthusiastic participant in the eradication of the Burmecian people, and now she's asking for forgiveness?
This frustrated me a lot when I first played the game way back when. I could acknowledge that the characters are at least aware they can't actually do anything against Beatrix ("We can't stop her any time we tried") but at the same time there's a feeling that for some reason they trust this immediate turn around. Like, Steiner has always been about the Princess, so him turning on the queen for his charge would be one thing, but miss genocide? Just...
I could acknowledge that the characters are at least aware they can't actually do anything against Beatrix ("We can't stop her any time we tried") but at the same time there's a feeling that for some reason they trust this immediate turn around.
I think it's more along the line of a "we can't stop her any time we've tried, so if she's turning around, let's not look the gifted horse in the mouth" kind of situation.
Like, while the latter fights were disappointing, the group really has no actual way to survive Climhazzard, so if Beatrix wanted them dead, they would be, and if she's now not against them anymore, whatever her reasons, they really can't afford to question her and risk her changing her mind again.
Yes, narratively, morally and emotionally, it's annoying that Beatrix gets to switch sides like this, but from the practical perspective, in the present moment they really have no choice but to accept the help and trust that it won't cost them something important later. There's a lot of pragmatism around the way the character of Beatrix is handled by the others, which might be annoying, but I do feel it makes the story more true to life.
She repeatedly casts white magic on Dagger, trying to rouse her from her slumber, while Zorn ad Thorn gloat that the spell they cast is irrevocable and her efforts are useless. They're as wrong about that as they are about everything else.
man. it's hard to feel bad for them given they are awful, but Zorn and Thorn are also just... the most consistent failures at everything, huh? Sucks to be them.
Trance would be perfect with the sole change of making it triggerable on command when the meter is full, rather than triggering automatically when the meter is full. The only real problem is the auto-trigger causing you to waste it (a wasting problem they haven't fully overcome to this day - at least the first installment of the FF7 remake had an issue where you would persistently fill up your Limit Break meter just as you reached an in-fight cutscene that empties the limit break gauge)
Well, that and Quina's Trance being completely useless in boss fights, but gotta compensate for how broken Blue Magic can be somehow I suppose
Trance would be perfect with the sole change of making it triggerable on command when the meter is full, rather than triggering automatically when the meter is full. The only real problem is the auto-trigger causing you to waste it (a wasting problem they haven't fully overcome to this day - at least the first installment of the FF7 remake had an issue where you would persistently fill up your Limit Break meter just as you reached an in-fight cutscene that empties the limit break gauge)
Well, that and Quina's Trance being completely useless in boss fights, but gotta compensate for how broken Blue Magic can be somehow I suppose
It's funny because the original FF7 had all of this worked out! That's exactly how limits worked! Sure not being able to use regular attacks if you wanted to bank your limits was annoying but there were plenty of ways around that.
It's like the people making these games just don't want to admit that their next bright idea actually makes something worse.
This update reminded me why I was so happy when I learned that the Moguri mod lets you turn Trance into a toggle, replacing the Change (row) button on the menu when the meter is full.
Trance being forced and impossible to save is a bit annoying, but thematically, the way the ability works it wouldn't really make sense if it could be "saved up", since it's supposed to be an explosion of emotion. The likely best solution would likely have been what was suggested by somebody else before - that if you end a fight while still in Trance, you get to keep almost the same total of Trance bar, instead of going down to zero (let's call it "the amount -1", so you can never START a battle already in Trance, which I think is thematically important), and then you never "waste" Trance, but still retain that "sudden surge of emotion" thematic facet of it.
Honestly, I don't find Quina's Trance being geared towards random encounters that annoying, it's just an indication of the theme of "different people are good at different things". I still hold that Freya's trance is the third best one, behind Garnet and Zidane but slightly above Vivi, but it too is better the larger the amount of enemies you're facing, ie, it's more effective in random encounters; that's just the nature of making each Trance unique, they're differently good at different things.
