Final Fantasy general

So a couple weeks ago on Reddit I was bitching about the new gameplay direction for the FF series. Never gonna stop.

But anyway, somehow FFX came up. Probably because I was praising it as I tend to do. Somebody countered my pro turn-based stance with "they didn't even want FFX to be like how we got it." As his source, he linked to the Brady Games guide for FFX. You an find it online at the Internet Archive but it's just the guide, they remove the exclusive interviews at the back with Kitase and others.

So I bought this guide to confirm what they were saying and also just because I love FFX and want to learn more about it.

Specifically it was Tetsu Tsukamoto (Monster Designer) whos said:

Q: Were any specific ideas or concepts from previous FF installments (especially from FFVII, FFVIII or FFIX) used in FFX?

A: We planned on a major reworking of the look of combat, but due to hardware - and system-related issues, it ended up pretty much the same. We planned on having wandering monsters that would approach and assault the party, freedom of movement during combat, and a seamless transition into every battle. We even designed monsters especially for these features. They'd mimic characters' actions, become invisible, and attack from different levels of the landscape. Oh well, there's always next time.

I guess this guide is also the source for Alexander Smith's comments on the difficulty of lip flaps. But he also has excellent taste.

Q: Did you have a favorite character? If so, who and why?

A: While I feel that all the characters in the main party have a lot to offer, and the acting was fantastic overall, my personal favorites are all the little characters that pop up here and there to give you information or get in your way. From a writing perspective, I had the most fun with Maechen, and could easily listen n to his richly textured voice for hours. Mika and Kelk Ronso are two my other favorite voices. For attitude, Dona wins hands down with lines like "Touch me with that hand and I'll remove it!"

I remember most of X's dialogue but that line from Dona is so unforgettably great. That lady had perfect delivery.

As for Kitase...

Q: Some of the Cloister of Trials puzzles are real mind-benders. Did you specifically want to make the acquisition of the aeons challenging?

A: I wanted the challenge, or trial, to the player to mirror the challenge of Yuna's trials.

Ah, this explains why Bevelle's Cloister is a nightmarish hell of confusion. It reflects Yuna's state at the time. This is some Kojima or Taro level metagaming.

Q: Were any specific ideas or concepts from previous FF installments (especially from FFVII, FFVIII or FFIX) used in FFX?

A: Nothing in particular. Actually, we followed a theme of avoiding popular elements from previous installments. The elimination of the world map and ATB system are examples of this. In terms of story, there might be similarities between the worlds of FFVII and FFX.

In sum, FFX is the best and however it came to be the way it is, I'm glad it did.

Edited by Nikkolas on Jan 16th 2021 at 12:22:46 PM

So basically they wanted it to be like XII and just weren't able to get it working back then.

hmm...you know, is it weird that of the final fantasies, the XIII saga is still stuck in the ps3 era? its been almost about 2 gens since we last saw Lightning and co, are they avoiding XIII on purpose?

Well, they are on Steam.

The Steam port of XIII is pretty janky, though.

That would make sense

The XIII Engine was pretty much a bog of doom

XIII's port is perfection compared to XIII-2 which requires about 4 different things to get running and even then can freeze up at points.

I blame this for why it has the lowest rating on Steam when it is clearly the best game in the trilogy.

Yeah but isn't XIII like a ton of gigs on any hard drive because Squenix don't know bout compression?

And then XII:TZA comes along and the game is one file.

huh? The XIII port is extremely jank on Steam even now, almost constant streaming data issues if you do not have an ssd.

XIII-2’s port is honestly fine for me, it doesn’t have the best frame rate out of battle but it’s nowhere near XIII’s level.

LR is where SE managed to figure out pc porting better. That port is quite good and really established what they needed to do for X’s port.

compression and the fact that you are downloading basically 2 games, the dual audio data includes the Japanese fmvs and lip movement data among other things.

Edited by Memers on Jan 17th 2021 at 11:31:07 AM

I never had any problem with XIII's port. I didn't play it for long but I did play it.

With XIII-2, you literally can't play it for more than five minutes without it freezing. It froze 100% of the time on the intro fight with Caius. It needs a bunch of stuff I have saved in a special folder just for when I reinstall it to run at all.

I played at least an hour of XIII Pc which is still 55 minutes more than XIII-2 managed.

Edited by Nikkolas on Jan 17th 2021 at 1:21:47 AM

XIII on steam is absurdly huge but it runs perfectly fine for me.

Made some more progress in FFVII today: I did the Temple of the Ancients, the Wutai sidequest, and bore witness to the scene. As memetic as the scene is, I still personally think it's very sad (though I'm not sure how I feel about the music still going into the fight with Jenova*LIFE), and a fantastic way to end off Disc 1.

Yeah, even if you know it's coming, the buildup to it is still done really well.

Replaying FFX, I came up with a good analogy for why I don't buy into the revisionism in FFXV. This sort of anti-gods narrative just isn't supported in the game and here is why.

There is absolutely no moment where our heroes are like "everything I've believed in and worshipped is a lie." FFX had it, FFXIII had it, FFXV emphatically does not have it. From the tutorial with Carbuncle to the end of the game, the gods are presented as pretty awesome and worthy of veneration. Ifrit helped build the greatest civilization in history, Shiva is right there helping Luna and you even after humans murdered her, Ramuh just asked us to walk around a bit and then comes in and zaps Imperials and Red Giants for us.... Titan was more or less just testing you.

Leviathan was the only hostile one and even she becomes an ally.

The final stretch of the game, the final mission, is bestowed upon you by Bahamut and the game doesn't question it at all. This is what Noct has to do and he saved the world thanks to Bahamut setting all this in motion.

If the Ardyn DLC is to be believed, then it be like if FFX ended with the Final ummoning. Yuna did her Pilgrimage as she was intended to do and defeated Sin and everyone was happy. And THEN you got a DLC about Yevon being evil and Yunalesca lying.

Edited by Nikkolas on Jan 19th 2021 at 12:08:07 PM

It would be if FFX was actually about Braska's journey and Yuna's journey was DLC.

X's probably the closest you can make the analogy too

since sacrifice is a major theme of the ending

XV's ending would basically be like X's if the Fayth were very blunt that by doing this Sin will be gone but Tidus will die... and No hint of a resurrection as gratitude for helping save Spira.

Hell I remember a time ago people argued Tidus being revived Cheapened the Ending.

Now suddenly you have a sacrifice ending played straight and its too much to bear

Wild theory: it probably isn't the same people arguing those two different things.

Edited by Perseus on Jan 20th 2021 at 3:14:17 AM

People really like when someone dies if their death carries weight with it.

While XV certainly wanted to reach that, it didn't really feel that way especially with the Happily Ever After in the afterlife with Noctis showing Luna Cidneya chest or Cup Noodles.

Compared to say Tidus where he realized what would happen on its own, no preordained destiny, no true archmesia, and stopping Sin by sacrificing himself was as much as saving the woman he loved and his father, as it was for everyone else.

Edit: Also that Yuna has her own journey shes going through with him while Luna is barely a very important character.

Not surprising people got invested in the DLC where Ignis declares how he doesnt want Noct to die, or Ardyns own and the shit sandwich he got served.

Edited by OmegaRadiance on Jan 19th 2021 at 8:23:03 AM

Unironically, I cared more about how Ignis felt about Noctis than anything else regarding the boy band.

I'm still surprised by how profitable XV apparently ended up being if it's in second place sales wise, with FFVIIR yet to catch up to it.

Does anyone else think the fayth were kinda selfish to just leave Spira to deal with its massive power vacuum? They have at least a thousand years of knowledge to call upon that could have helped Spira ease into the Eternal Calm. If they can hang around to give Tidus a full life then they could have also stopped a lot of conflict and probably dealt with Vegnagun sooner.

I thought it was Bahamut specifically who stuck around so Tidus could.

Tbf the Fayth have been stuck in a state of forced lucid dreaming for 1000 years. They are very, very tired.

Besides, the game has a running theme of how the older generations need to let go of power and trust the youth. As Auron said in the end, this is their world now.

I sided with New Yevon in X-2. If only this was a WRPG and that faction choice mattered a bit more.

Edited by Nikkolas on Jan 20th 2021 at 3:11:51 AM