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CmdrKing
Oct 14, 2012

Maybe if I called it 'Interpretive Stabbing'...

Mazed posted:

A bit tangential here, but it seems like this was to help lend some weight to your choice at the end of the game (which is one of the things that made it so memorable): Be "good" and convince the extremely pissed-off dragon-god to spare humanity but at the same time let the villain run away, or be "bad" and get your revenge, but humankind is hosed, starting with your very own party members :cry:. Kinda hamfisted, but thematically it works well.

That always kinda bugged me in BoFIV really. Like... Fou-Lu can't really do THAT much damage until he merges with Ryu, so the fact that the team doesn't even try to figure out where Yuna might have gone. It didn't need to be much even! If they'd just had a short scene where hey, we searched the entire city and Yuna is gone, that'd be fine! Completely ignoring him just sat poorly with me.

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resurgam40
Jul 22, 2007

Battler, the literal stupidest man on earth. Why are you even here, Battler, why did you come back to this place so you could fuck literally everything up?

CmdrKing posted:

That always kinda bugged me in BoFIV really. Like... Fou-Lu can't really do THAT much damage until he merges with Ryu, so the fact that the team doesn't even try to figure out where Yuna might have gone. It didn't need to be much even! If they'd just had a short scene where hey, we searched the entire city and Yuna is gone, that'd be fine! Completely ignoring him just sat poorly with me.

If it makes you feel any better, in the manga at the end, when the group splits up, Ursula say specifically that she's gonna hunt Yuna down. Whether she found him or not remains ambiguous however, as that's the end of that plot thread.

Andymann
Sep 3, 2004
Awesome LP Elentor! I played this so long ago that I forgot that Rufus died here and that there was actually a proper Cait Sith reveal. I've always imagined he was controlled by some nosy janitor on the top floor who would log in to his robot puppet during smoke breaks.

And surely Nobuo Uematsu listened to jazz - Decisive Battle from FFVI is practically an homage to Dave Brubeck.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rH2aeRzO9xk&t=35s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iXOzwiJZjGg

Great Joe
Aug 13, 2008

You saying metalheads don't listen to jazz? There's a pretty big overlap between people who like metal and people who like jazz.

TozmaT
Apr 28, 2008

habeasdorkus posted:

Hey, the AV Club is making GBS threads all over FFVII like a hipster from 2005.

Best part isthat the author uses not waiting for Shadow at the Floating Continent as his example of why FFVI's so much better than VII, while completely ignoring the island scenes right afterwards. And the description of Aeris's death reads exactly like someone who hasn't played VII in decades... or exactly what Elentor is warning people about when it comes to bagging on the game.

The best part is actually that the author prefaces saying that Aeris' death had no emotional impact with "I’ve never paid much attention to the overarching story in Final Fantasy games" and that his emotional bond with the characters is formed exclusively by their combat abilities, what they look like, and whatever the gently caress "the quirks of their personalities" means the absence of story context. :psyduck:

TozmaT fucked around with this message at 23:38 on Aug 22, 2014

Code Jockey
Jan 24, 2006

69420 basic bytes free

Great Joe posted:

You saying metalheads don't listen to jazz? There's a pretty big overlap between people who like metal and people who like jazz.

I love metal and I love jazz, because metal rules and so does jazz. :colbert:

Silegna
Aug 20, 2013

Hey, heads up. I'm about to unleash my rage.

TozmaT posted:

The best part is actually that the author prefaces saying that Aeris' death had no emotional impact with "I’ve never paid much attention to the overarching story in Final Fantasy games" and that his emotional bond with the characters is formed exclusively by their combat abilities, what they look like, and whatever the gently caress "the quirks of their personalities" means the absence of story context. :psyduck:

But...that's not an emotional bond. That's like saying you are emotionally attached to Mewtwo because he's strong, and not for his motivations and character development from the movie.

Great Joe
Aug 13, 2008

Code Jockey posted:

I love metal and I love jazz, because metal rules and so does jazz. :colbert:
:hfive: good music-liking buddy.

FinalGamer
Aug 30, 2012

So the mystic script says.

Silegna posted:

But...that's not an emotional bond. That's like saying you are emotionally attached to Mewtwo because he's strong, and not for his motivations and character development from the movie.
Doing it for Pokémon is acceptable because they're YOUR team that you caught and raised as your own.

Doing that for any Final Fantasy other than the first, is abysmally loving stupid and legitimately the wrong way of playing the game.

Schwartzcough
Aug 12, 2009

Don't tease the Octopus, kids!
Well the author's logic didn't make a lot of sense either. First they establish how, in the meta-context of game rules, there was no reason to assume that selecting "Jump" when you first got to the airship would have any impact whatsoever on Shadow's story. Then later on, they base their argument on how "The death of Shadow had an impact because it said something about me. Specifically, it said that I was a coward." Uh, no it didn't? It said you didn't have a FAQ open telling you to select "Wait" when you had no other reason to.

Silegna
Aug 20, 2013

Hey, heads up. I'm about to unleash my rage.

Schwartzcough posted:

Well the author's logic didn't make a lot of sense either. First they establish how, in the meta-context of game rules, there was no reason to assume that selecting "Jump" when you first got to the airship would have any impact whatsoever on Shadow's story. Then later on, they base their argument on how "The death of Shadow had an impact because it said something about me. Specifically, it said that I was a coward." Uh, no it didn't? It said you didn't have a FAQ open telling you to select "Wait" when you had no other reason to.

Yeah, they made me go :psyduck:. It doesn't make sense. To any player of any RPG, that prompt is usually just there to tell you that this is where you're supposed to go.

Fister Roboto
Feb 21, 2008

Madmarker posted:

I still think FFV has the best death in gaming.

Galuf....good night, sweet prince :911:

That's a weird way of spelling Gilgamesh.

MR. J
Nov 22, 2011

Chuck and Fuck
Gilgamesh didn't die. :confused:

Silegna
Aug 20, 2013

Hey, heads up. I'm about to unleash my rage.

MR. J posted:

Gilgamesh didn't die. :confused:

I still hate they changed his line in FF8 to "Where is the dimensional Interval" from, "Bartz, is that you?"

MR. J
Nov 22, 2011

Chuck and Fuck
I don't. Comparing Squall to Bartz is an insult to the FFV cast.

MelvinBison
Nov 17, 2012

"Is this the ideal world that you envisioned?"
"I guess you could say that."

Pillbug

MR. J posted:

I don't. Comparing Squall to Bartz is an insult to the FFV cast.

I thought he was talking to Seifer.

swamp waste
Nov 4, 2009

There is some very sensual touching going on in the cutscene there. i don't actually think it means anything sexual but it's cool how it contrasts with modern ideas of what bad ass stuff should be like. It even seems authentic to some kind of chivalric masculine touching from a tyme longe gone
That article seems dumb but some of the stuff people are objecting too seems even sillier.

TozmaT posted:

The best part is actually that the author prefaces saying that Aeris' death had no emotional impact with "I’ve never paid much attention to the overarching story in Final Fantasy games" and that his emotional bond with the characters is formed exclusively by their combat abilities, what they look like, and whatever the gently caress "the quirks of their personalities" means the absence of story context. :psyduck:

He's saying the emotional bond is from how the characters play and how they look, and from their personalities as opposed to what's going on in the epic fantasy plot. That is a totally reasonable reaction to a video game character. Like do you not see how let's say Barret's personality is way more endearing than the contents of the final fantasy wikipedia page that describes all the plot stuff Barret does?

Schwartzcough posted:

Well the author's logic didn't make a lot of sense either. First they establish how, in the meta-context of game rules, there was no reason to assume that selecting "Jump" when you first got to the airship would have any impact whatsoever on Shadow's story. Then later on, they base their argument on how "The death of Shadow had an impact because it said something about me. Specifically, it said that I was a coward." Uh, no it didn't? It said you didn't have a FAQ open telling you to select "Wait" when you had no other reason to.

He's talking about not knowing how to "game" the situation and reacting based on fear, and getting results that he thought were shockingly appropriate. Every narrative contrivance is gonna seem trite if you go to gamefaqs to figure out how to play to the results you want in advance/

Schwartzcough
Aug 12, 2009

Don't tease the Octopus, kids!

swamp waste posted:

He's talking about not knowing how to "game" the situation and reacting based on fear, and getting results that he thought were shockingly appropriate. Every narrative contrivance is gonna seem trite if you go to gamefaqs to figure out how to play to the results you want in advance/

Except he said he felt no guilt on his first playthrough because he had no idea Shadow could survive or that his actions had any impact on it. By his own admission there was no connection between his actions and the outcome; hell, he didn't even know Shadow had died! The only reason the death had any impact on him at all was specifically from reading a strategy guide long after the game was over. That does not make for a powerful death scene. Hell, I'd argue Shadow's last scene if you DO save him is far more powerful.

Even if you're not a "coward" or reacting from "fear," you have no reason to select 'wait' when you get to the end of that section. It doesn't really say anything about the player, and trying to give your choice to "Jump!" or "wait" some deep moral meaning doesn't make any sense. Now if it said "Jump!" or "Wait for Shadow" the first time, and you get cold feet and jump at the 7 second point, that'd be one thing. But it doesn't.

Carbolic Smokeball
Nov 2, 2011
I'm curious how many people actually waited the first time they played. I know I didn't for sure. You get a subtle hint at the end credits in his menu pic floating, which it does for any character you failed to aquire in the WoR. But like most it was either the Internet or word of mouth for me to realize.

Zinco
Mar 27, 2005

Carbolic Smokeball posted:

I'm curious how many people actually waited the first time they played. I know I didn't for sure. You get a subtle hint at the end credits in his menu pic floating, which it does for any character you failed to aquire in the WoR. But like most it was either the Internet or word of mouth for me to realize.

Nintendo Power spelled it out, lucky for me. But I did kill Magus my first time through Chrono Trigger.

waah
Jun 20, 2011

Better stay in line when
You see a Pavel like me shinin

Zinco posted:

Nintendo Power spelled it out, lucky for me. But I did kill Magus my first time through Chrono Trigger.

You kinda have to because Frog is a bro and he deserves vengeance before you decide that Magus is too awesome not to have.

Vanrushal
Apr 2, 2005

I thought my Spitter was a Jockey!

MelvinBison posted:

I thought he was talking to Seifer.

This interpretation is even more unforgivable. :colbert:

On the subject of Shadow, if you're given an option, there's usually a reason for it to exist. You might not know that waiting allows Shadow to catch up, but you lose nothing by waiting around and you won't even get attacked if you just sit there. But no, the only reason "wait" could have possibly been an option was so you could run around on a tiny-rear end chunk of crumbling island for the hell of it. I mean poo poo, you get a save point right before Atma iirc, get blown up just to see if you get a different Game Over screen or something, it won't take you that long to get caught up.

FinalGamer
Aug 30, 2012

So the mystic script says.

waah posted:

You kinda have to because Frog is a bro and he deserves vengeance before you decide that Magus is too awesome not to have.
Also cuz I don't want Frog to turn back into a human because he's a goddamn frog swordmaster holy poo poo this is awesome...wait no hold on gently caress different timestream sorry

I'm so confused, I've played the first two hours of that game five times in one day. :sigh:

Tengames
Oct 29, 2008


Hedera Helix posted:

Tellah's death in FFIV was done better. :colbert:

Dude died just to cast a spell he was 1 mp short for, to accomplish nothing useful.

Carbolic Smokeball
Nov 2, 2011
But I tell you, when he remembers all his magic it's such a dick move to hear all these tantalizing tales about how great Meteo is and being fixed at 90 MP.

But it makes you feel wicked powerful at the end of the game when Rydia can throw it around like it's nothing. It'd still not that great because of its absurd casting time, but still.

Silegna
Aug 20, 2013

Hey, heads up. I'm about to unleash my rage.

Carbolic Smokeball posted:

But I tell you, when he remembers all his magic it's such a dick move to hear all these tantalizing tales about how great Meteo is and being fixed at 90 MP.

But it makes you feel wicked powerful at the end of the game when Rydia can throw it around like it's nothing. It'd still not that great because of its absurd casting time, but still.

Unless your playing on the GBA, which for some reason, has it pretty much instantaneous.

Fur20
Nov 14, 2007

すご▞い!
君は働か░い
フ▙▓ズなんだね!

Silegna posted:

Unless your playing on the GBA, which for some reason, has it pretty much instantaneous.
iirc FF4-SNES (and, by extension, GBA) has a hidden ATB/Charge Time for spells and poo poo, not unlike the visible ones in the DS version. The GBA has a double-turn glitch, though, where the character who just acted will automatically get a full ATB--and in the case of spells, rather than getting an extra action, they instantly complete the casting.

Silegna
Aug 20, 2013

Hey, heads up. I'm about to unleash my rage.

The White Dragon posted:

iirc FF4-SNES (and, by extension, GBA) has a hidden ATB/Charge Time for spells and poo poo, not unlike the visible ones in the DS version. The GBA has a double-turn glitch, though, where the character who just acted will automatically get a full ATB--and in the case of spells, rather than getting an extra action, they instantly complete the casting.

I did not know this. That explains why it was the easiest of the games. Aside from Easy Type version of course. Granted, anything is easy compared to the ball buster that is FF4DS.

dis astranagant
Dec 14, 2006

Great Joe posted:

You saying metalheads don't listen to jazz? There's a pretty big overlap between people who like metal and people who like jazz.

And while we're talking odd sounding associations, German opera is basically 19th century power metal so there's a lot of overlap there.

NikkolasKing
Apr 3, 2010



MelvinBison posted:

I thought he was talking to Seifer.

He was. Gilg says "you gave me the fourth one" or something similar and since it wasn't Squall who chopped Odin in half, he couldn't be talking to anyone but Seifer who inadvertently helped him get Zantetsuken.

Shame he lost it again by FFXII.

Glazius posted:

Hojo. Hojo. loving HOJO.

I submit that Hojo is the actual villain of this piece. Sephiroth is just his Frankenstein's Monster. Hojo is the one who looks at the guy contacting the thing that wrecked the planet back in old times and says "yes, more of that". Hojo would be fine with the world getting destroyed because it meant no one would ever surpass him.

Exactly. Everything bad in this game is just kind of fallout from his madness.

I bet our heroes wish they had just, ya know, killed him when he was suntanning at Costa del Sol. He was alone and helpless and it would have saved everyone a lot of trouble.

Mazed posted:

Anyway, you just know that Hojo was roomies in evil science college with Lord Yuna, and probably Krelian from Xenogears too.

But Krelian wasn't evil - he loved people more than anyone else.

NikkolasKing fucked around with this message at 14:05 on Aug 23, 2014

Nihilarian
Oct 2, 2013


NikkolasKing posted:

I bet our heroes wish they had just, ya know, killed him when he was suntanning at Costa del Sol. He was alone and helpless and it would have saved everyone a lot of trouble.
Well, I wouldn't say he was alone...

Scalding Coffee
Jun 26, 2006

You're already dead

Carbolic Smokeball posted:

I'm curious how many people actually waited the first time they played. I know I didn't for sure. You get a subtle hint at the end credits in his menu pic floating, which it does for any character you failed to aquire in the WoR. But like most it was either the Internet or word of mouth for me to realize.
That was a great troll on me. A game over first time and then seeing his portrait moving across the screen as a final insult. What do you want from 11 year-old me, game? You wanted 14 year-old me to leave the spot and activate the next flag instead of standing in place for minutes.


Tengames posted:

Dude died just to cast a spell he was 1 mp short for, to accomplish nothing useful.
Not when I play him.

ShallowKnave
Sep 9, 2011
Fun Shoe

Olesh posted:

The FFVI Aria vs Aeris's thing? It's three notes - not three measures. Not even "measures", plural. It's a drat arpeggio (a chord played in sequence, not simultaneously). Three notes, PLUS you're comparing the melody of one song to the accompaniment of another.

Well, there's the first three notes, and also a similarity in the nine note runs that end each of those first phrases. I'd call it a quote due to that, but probably not a remake.

NikkolasKing
Apr 3, 2010



Nihilarian posted:

Well, I wouldn't say he was alone...

Do you mean the two bikini babes he had with him? At least I remember a girl or two hanging out around him. In any case, by alone I just meant he didn't have any sort of protection like a Turk or soldier or anything. Cloud could have chopped off his head then and there, avenging himself, Aeris, Red XIII, Vincent, Sephiroth...hell, pretty much everyone in the world be better off if our heroes had directed their violence instead of flashy displays like blowing up reactors.

Spielmeister
Mar 31, 2014

Carbolic Smokeball posted:

I'm curious how many people actually waited the first time they played. I know I didn't for sure. You get a subtle hint at the end credits in his menu pic floating, which it does for any character you failed to aquire in the WoR. But like most it was either the Internet or word of mouth for me to realize.

The first time I got to that part I knew that Shadow could survive, but I didn't know that everything would proceed automatically when time was about to run out. I didn't want to go risk having to go through Atma Weapon again so I ended up jumping 1 second before he would have arrived. :negative:

hectorgrey
Oct 14, 2011
To be fair, this is a JRPG; the two girls could be hiding all kinds of weapons in there...

Kanfy
Jan 9, 2012

Just gotta keep walking down that road.
The team probably just figured he's level 50 or something and would just kick their asses.

Mazed
Oct 23, 2010

:blizz:


NikkolasKing posted:

But Krelian wasn't evil - he loved people more than anyone else.

He didn't love people, he loved the freaky mutant space-god DNA inside of people. :science:

NikkolasKing
Apr 3, 2010



Details, details.

Say what you will about Square, they produce some great mad scientists. Hojo, Krelian, Dr. Cid... Well Krelian was my least favorite major antagonist from Xenogears but that's mostly because XG sports a phenomenal cast of baddies. How am I supposed to have any room left to care about him when there's Grahf and Miang and Ramsus?

Anyway, point is, mad scientists never get old and Square does them pretty good.

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Scalding Coffee
Jun 26, 2006

You're already dead

NikkolasKing posted:

Do you mean the two bikini babes he had with him? At least I remember a girl or two hanging out around him. In any case, by alone I just meant he didn't have any sort of protection like a Turk or soldier or anything. Cloud could have chopped off his head then and there, avenging himself, Aeris, Red XIII, Vincent, Sephiroth...hell, pretty much everyone in the world be better off if our heroes had directed their violence instead of flashy displays like blowing up reactors.
It was strange that when they were a ruthless humanitarian organization, they spent their time blowing up stuff that killed innocent people, but they never seemed to take a chance to assassinate important figures and minimize collateral.

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