Final Fantasy general

What can I say? Good discussions are hard to come up with.

Does anybody think the denial of the link between X/X-2 and VII is a bit of a cop-out?

I find the idea of a Final Fantasy about planetary colonisation very intriguing and I'd bet it would be popular with the current zeitgeist for colonising Mars.

I don't really feel the need to connect those two games. I can kinda see why people would like it but it never really had a purpose to me and I don't like retroactively making the Spira games prequels to VII. Planetary exploration may be an interesting concept for an FF but I don't really feel that stapling two games together based off a few Easter eggs and similar elements is actually doing much with that concept.

Yeah, it doesn't strike me as a cop-out because aside from breaking what's apparently a basic rule that no numbered ff game share the same setting, it doesn't add anything to any of the two games aside from "omg FFX's a prequel to VII!". Maybe you can find some accidental symbolism and parralels between the two, but the stories the games are trying to tell isn't made inherently better if X happened in the world of VII. Or rather, their stories doesn't lose anything if it turns out the games aren't connected.

Edited by Yumil on Dec 11th 2018 at 1:16:19 PM

There is a character called Shinra in X-2 and he discovers that the Farplane is a viable energy source and he starts a space program. The X-2 Ultimania is pretty clear that X-2 and VII are linked so the denial is more Retcon than a Jossed fan theory.

It doesn't have to be obvious that the space FF bridges X/X-2 and VII. The Ivalice Alliance games work perfectly fine on their own with Vagrant Story even being retroactively being brought into the fold.

I just think it was a decent premise they've thrown away that wouldn't have detracted from either X/X-2 or VII's story.

It doesn't add anything either other than a dumb "HEY I KNOW THAT THING" moment that contributes to neither world's lore. I'm glad they shut it down considering how quick they are to fellate past FFs lately.

It doesn't add anything

and it doesn't even make sense in universe

It was at best a cute meaningless connection

In FFVII a planets mako is pretty much a natural part of the ecosystem with formations, naturally occurring materia... Mako is pretty much lava/oil, Monsters are natural animals or mutations due to mako exposure

X's world doesn't work on the same mechanics

It adds a neat connection, that's not significant, but it's not nothing.

Anyway, I thought it had been confirmed a long time ago? What's this about a denial?

It's more or less a retcon like someone said.

Both Final Fantasy VII Ultimania Omega and the Final Fantasy X-2 Ultimania, suggest that Shinra of Final Fantasy X-2 has a connection to the company of the same name in Final Fantasy VII.

From Final Fantasy VII Ultimania Omega:

"Shinra is a boy who supports the Gullwings, the group which the main protagonist, Yuna, belongs to. He carries a name that gives him an association to the Shin-Ra Company, and he is researching a method that could utilize the energy of 'the life force that flows through our planet'. The results of this cannot be seen in FFX-2, but maybe one day his descendants will establish a 'company that supplies the energy of the planet'?"

In the Final Fantasy X-2 Ultimania Kazushige Nojima said the following:

"After quitting the Gullwings, Shinra received enormous financial support from Rin, and began trying to use Vegnagun to siphon Mako Energy from the Farplane. But, he is unable to complete the system for utilizing this energy in his generation, and in the future, when traveling to distant planets becomes possible, the Shin-Ra Company is founded on another world, or something like that....... That would happen about 1000 years after this story, I think."

Director of Final Fantasy VII, Yoshinori Kitase, has commented on this, saying Shinra in Final Fantasy X-2 was created by Kazushige Nojima who thought it might be good if people would imagine that Shinra would grow up and start the Shinra company. In an interview with EDAMAME Arcade Channel, Kitase confirmed that the world of Final Fantasy VII and Final Fantasy X are connected.

http://finalfantasy.wikia.com/wiki/Shinra_%28Final_Fantasy_X-2%29#Creation_and_development

Although it would contradict the fact that Cid from Final Fantasy 7 was the first man to make it to Space. On the other hand, this could be a potential good origin story for Jenova. Like I was thinking maybe the original planet of hers was Spira and she was the original goddess of it.

Vagrant Story is retroactively plugged into the Ivalice Alliance? I'm sure they mention established Ivalice locations in it, and that FFXII has some peripheral stuff in common with Vagrant Story (though XII was after Vagrant Story, right?).

Obligatory mention that Vagrant Story is one of the best games ever and you should play it if you haven't.

I think the fact that they were planning an X-3 (gotta be dead now) and the original writer of VII and X hated the connection and wrote the whole novel that reconned all of X-2 is the reason for the denial.

Yeah, the Al Bhed doing space travel kind of shits on Cid's whole subplot.

FFVII Land also doesn't look space age.

No but it comes very close,

Gaia is also notably lacking in anything remotely resembling Spiran culture, technology, clothing, etc.

Yeah...though it's possible that a lot of time has past and maybe that culture has been lost.

Meh. I'm not too attached to the idea. I mean, I'd have no issues if they were connected, but I also don't think it's a big deal that they are not.

The fact that someone hated it enough to go out of their way to Joss it says it's not super popular among creators.

Being like thousands of years in the future where society has collapsed and rose multiple times and driven the original natives to extinction would have been an interesting way to take the backstory of the FFVII world.

Huh. could it have worked that the Ancients were what was left of the old Spira Civilization?

There's still a lot about them we don't know.

Is it also possible the Cetra originated from Spira?

Nah the Cetra would be the original Gaia race the normal people are the colonialists from Spira, using some of Spira's technological concepts but so far removed from the Spira we know.

It could be really dark too ala Shinra ate Spira's life essence then colonized Gaia to do it again.

The worse retcon is calling VI Is world Gaia. It will always be The Planet to me.

I think the Spirans being the Cetra would work better, since the Cetra could naturally use magic like the Spirans, and I recall it being said in-game that the modern humans in VII are evolutions of the Cetra that hid instead of fighting Jenova and lost that ability without using Materia. There's also that whole theory about the Cetra being space-travelers, and the Promised Land is actually another planet.

But I don't really care for the VII-X connection anyway. It doesn't add anything to either game, except try to explain things from VII's history that don't need explaining.

Same here. Though it makes for a more engaging plot through theories.

Edited by superboy313 on Dec 12th 2018 at 11:08:03 AM