Final Fantasy general

Isekai is such a weird term. It's all all everywhere now but it just sounds like Fushigi Yuugi or Inuyasha, big time series forever ago.

I did get an explanation of some of the differences but still dumb.

Edited by Nikkolas on Feb 10th 2019 at 6:49:44 AM

It's an old trope that got beaten into a specific mold that everyone's using now.

There is a Final Fantasy Isekai manga actually. "Lost Stranger" I think it's called. Probably not very good.

I still think it's weird that 8 had an anime battle school before that genre became a proper thing.

Surprised it took as long as it did to be a genre if that's the case.

Cool kids with swords and high school are about as anime as anything gets

Spira sucked so much Yevon Isekai'd Zanarkand in a eternal dream to have something better. Then he grinded down into a mindless tick.

Isekai is pretty engrained into Japanese culture with examples from ancient literature. It just didn't have that name until recently.

Isekai stories in the most general sense can be found from tons of countries and time periods, because it's a simple idea with broad utility. The word isekai isn't even special word, it's just the Japanese word for "other world". It just took a bunch of hack web novel writers endlessly copying the same premise and tropes to create a sub-genre that's pervasive and repetitive enough that people had to come up with a name to talk about it, and isekai is short and decribes the most obvious commonality in the genre.

Also similarly, while "magic school where kids learn to fight" with all the light novel/anime tropes you're thinking of didn't really become a thing until around the late 00's, the setting idea of "magic school" or "special school where kids learn a particular skill" is basic enough that you can find earlier stories and non-Japanese stories with that premise. FFVIII does happen to line up with the specific "teenagers learn to fight with weapons and magic to become soldiers" premise light novels use though. But its application is pretty different in that light novels and anime use this premise so they have easy excuses for the characters to meet, be around each all the time, have powers, and get into fights, while FFVIII almost begins with the characters graduating and spends most of the game adventuring around the world like in most JRPGs.

Yeah I was gonna say calling VIII 'magic school' is a bit of a reach because the characters graduate in, like, the first hour of gameplay

Been a looooooooooooooong time I've last played VIII, but wasn't See D a military academy?

Yeah, but Balamb Garden specializes in training with Junctioning.

i.e. magic

They are also training to fight sorceresses like Edea and Ultmecia.

Yeah, I meant to bring this up, too.

Not to mention Time Compression.

I got into a weird dumb argument on another forum about that.

Like, it's totally racist and unfair Sorceresses are persecuted in FFVIII. This is supposedly one of Ultimecia's motives. (The other is simple fear of being killed by the legendary See D.) But at the same time... Ultimecia herself is largely responsible for that. By going back in time and doing tons of evil shit she ensured Sorceresses would be viewed as evil.

It doesn't help FFVIII is a poorly written mess. FFX certainly handled racism better.

Edited by Nikkolas on Feb 11th 2019 at 8:09:04 AM

... Whatever.

My favorite character in that was always Quistis, continuing my trend of enjoying the character with the least focus.

I always liked Rinoa if only because long black hair is my weakness, blue's my favourite colour, her design in general is gorgeous and her wrist-mounted dog cannon is the best weapon ever

Angelo Cannon was the one move that made my jaw drop, despite the game including a bevy of overly intricate Summon Magic cutscenes.

Speaking of FF8, here's a Legends of Localization article about Squall's famous "...Whatever"s.

Edited by Moth13 on Feb 12th 2019 at 2:34:26 PM

So I was doing a playthrough of VII a while back, and I still intend to finish the game, but I got a bit lost and don't feel like picking it back up at this exact moment. I'll probably watch an LP or something to remind me of all the plot I experienced so I remember what's going on.

Instead, I decided to do something I've been putting off for years: finish FFVI. I've started the game countless times but never got further than the first half hour or so. Not because I disliked it or anything but I always got caught up with something or other.

I have to say that I'm enjoying this more than I expected. I didn't expect to dislike it of course, but I thought that to one extent or another Seinfeld Is Unfunny would be at play. I'm not too far but I found quite a few things I enjoy about it already.

For instance, I picked the Locke scenario when the party gets split after Ultros, and thought it was pretty cute how you're supposed to steal clothes from the soldier and merchant in order to progress. I found this out by complete accident since I just naturally try to steal from every enemy, so it was quite a pleasant surprise.

My one complaint with it is the same I have for most early FF games: the ATB is a really dull battle system. I actually put it on active out of curiosity(I normally set it to Wait), and it doesn't make the combat any more engaging. The charming writing and audiovisual presentation are strong points of this game so far, but the gameplay is definitely not one of them IMO.

Before you get Magicite and the system gets ruined by everyone being able to learn and use every spell all the time, VI's combat system had some potential, ATB aside. Everyone having at least one unique command is a good idea, and I'd like to see them revisit it without necessarily having jobs with very specific stat builds tied to them.

Locke's scenario is one of three-ish times they integrate a character's unique gameplay command into progression like that, and it's pretty memorable for it.

I do think the unique command thing was a good idea. I got a bit mad that I couldn't figure out how to use Sabin's Blitz at first, but once I looked it up online it turned out to be pretty simple.

Edited by Draghinazzo on Feb 12th 2019 at 5:05:22 AM

Part of Final Fantasy's charm has always been its willingness to throw random shit into the game's battle systems and not give a crap about the game balance.

"Hey, we're gonna make this character's special attack require the player to make fighting game inputs."

"Yeah sure."

It's how we got stuff like Revive Kills Zombie so I'm all for it.

The fighting game inputs don't seem like a bad idea really (just the opposite, it's very creative), I just couldn't figure out how to input them the correct way until I googled it.

Revive kills zombies is from D and D - positive energy (the same kind of stuff a Cleric's Channel Energy or a Paladin's Lay on Hands uses for healing) being deadly to zombies and ghosts and whatnot

But I also remember seeing it in FF first and I don't think even tabletop games let you insta-kill things with reviving spells or phoenix downs or whatever.

So I just got to Figaro after Terra went super saiyan and left, and I got a flashback involving Sabin and Edgar. I'm taking it this wouldn't have happened if I hadn't both of them in the party? I didn't even think about it really, I just wanted them both because they're useful.