Final Fantasy general

If we go alternate timeline shenanigans since there is a timeline where Zack somehow survived his last stand, it's entirely possible there's a timeline where TIFA was retrieved by Shinra and put through experiments with Jenova cells along with Cloud and Zack.

Edited by RedHunter543 on Jun 9th 2023 at 6:17:29 PM

So there is a rather long video that's been posted on a few threads in this forum. Created by "Moon Channel," it's a look into why so many JRPGs feature the Kill the God trope. They examine the religious and cultural history of Japan ended up affecting modern Japanese society and making this particular trope so popular.

Paraphrasing a lot, it's noticed that a lot of it has to do with a "divinity cycle," where when an old system/god falls, another rises to take its place and promises a new age, only to be replaced as well when it fails to live up to its promises for one reason or another.

Around the 1:07:40 mark, they bring up Final Fantasy VII as a case study. They point out how a lot of Western audiences focus more on the environmentalist themes, but lack of knowledge of Japanese history and culture may lead them to overlook some other themes.

As most of you here know, VII has three primary antagonists: Shinra, Jenova, and Sephiroth. The video brings up the following points about each three in the context of the social issues that made the godslaying trope prevalent in Japanese games:

• Shinra is the "god-conglomerate," an all-encompassing keiretsu that controls the world. It is a "false god" of sorts that exploits the good in the world for profit, promising a "false heaven" to the people in order to suppress them and make them develop more power for Shinra's sake.
• Jenova is the alien "new god" that interrupted the natural order of things with her arrival. She was purported to be a blessing, but instead turned out to be a poison and curse upon the world. She is a representation of the idea that certain foreign ideologies embedded themselves in Japanese culture, promising a new "high age" but actually corrupting things.
• Sephiroth is the "child" of both Shinra and Jenova, combining the conglomerate's desire for power with the alien being that poisons the world around it. In short, the video purports that Sephiroth is a metaphor for the Japanese government; more specifically, he's a metaphor for how the government causes problems for the people due to a combination of the problems caused by the greed of a keiretsu and foreign ideology that promises a better future but fails to deliver it.

I'm very aware that I'm leaving a lot of stuff out, since Moon Channel has a LOT to say about this subject, but it is still an interesting look at the game through another set of lenses.

Edited by dragonfire5000 on Jun 9th 2023 at 3:59:54 AM

On that note, It's interesting how despite Sephiroth is a product of Shinra and Jenova, he ultimately defies them for his own play at power.

Like Shinra wants the promised land to build their neo Midgar but Sephiroth kills the President and fucks up their attempt at taking over the Northern Crater. Sephiroth is basically the real reason Shinra collapses.

On Jenova, while initially pledging loyalty to her in Nibelheim, Sephiroth eventually reduces his so-called mother into a puppet for him to enact his own plans to become a God. The fact that the Sephiroth we chase for most of the game is actually Jenova's corpse turned into a double of Sephiroth's own body drives this home.

What's interesting to me is that, in a way, Sephiroth is NOT free from Shinra and Jenova. He's a combination of their evils, having Shinra's ruthless desire for more power and Jenova's desire to consume the world. He seems like he's defying them, but he's also embodying both of their desires in his own way.

That's why Sephiroth works so well as the final boss; he's the ultimate product of both Shinra and Jenova and, by fighting him, you are also fighting the evils they represent.

Edited by dragonfire5000 on Jun 9th 2023 at 4:46:21 AM

Do remember FFVII was a cyberpunk story originally and grew from that.

Sephiroth is a Corporate Samurai gone wrong, but he still is a Corporate Samurai.

Yeah, something more apparent in the Remake when you see how Shinra operates in more detail and their desire for a sort of godhood is emphasized with their Neo Midgar projects and obsession with ancient texts regarding the promised land.

As you noted in the Politics thread a while back, Sephiroth destroying Shinra and enslaving Jenova also results in him taking their ideals to the next logical step.

I'm very interested in that story focusing on Sephiroth's childhood. Sephiroth to me doesn't seem like he's in-line with the corporate goals at least by the time of Crisis Core, but his villainous persona has a lot of parallels with Shinra's beliefs and goals.

Edited by RedHunter543 on Jun 9th 2023 at 7:52:08 PM

> I'm very interested in that story focusing on Sephiroth's childhood.

spoilers,he does'nt have one!

I wonder how similar it is to Homelander's childhood.

But no joke, there IS supposed to be a story focusing on Sephiroth's childhood.

I would expect a story of Sephiroth's childhood to further establish how bad Shinra is. Specifically, how their desire for power helped sow the seeds that would eventually bloom into the monster that Sephiroth becomes.

As I recall, he was raised from birth to be a super soldier and that he knew he was different and more special than other children.

He only met Angeal and Genesis some time after gaining enough fame as SOLDIER and those were the only two he had any kind of kinship with. I can't recall an exact timeframe for how long he knew them.

Yeah, this def would mess up any child growing up. Aside from being raised as a weapon, his only genuine friends were people from work because of his exploits as a SOLDIER.

How exactly he was raised beyond raised to kill for SHINRA is something that might be the focus since Aerith's and Tifa's childhoods were greatly expanded on in the book.

And to Sephiroth's credit, at least during Crisis Core before his breakdown, he was relatively a stable individual who could show compassion and treasured his friends. He wasn't a mindless puppet of Shinra and considered retiring from the Company before Nibelheim.

Edited by RedHunter543 on Jun 9th 2023 at 8:13:07 PM

The Four Job Fiesta for FFV started today. Holy crap did I roll unlucky on the jobs with the Meteor Run. First job I'm supposed to use? Mime. A job I can't use until I'm at the end of the game. Meaning I was stuck on Freelancer until Water Crystal. Next job? Beastmaster, something I couldn't get until Fire Crystal was done. So once again Freelancer until I got that done. Now I'm Beastmaster, and 3rd job I can use is Dragoon, something I don't get access to until the Earth Crystal.

Let me tell you, it's terrifying to have to go through the majority of the early game just using Attack, especially with the early difficulty until you gain access to your flight. At which point Healing Staff, Diamond Bell, and Ashura end up carrying you easily until the next crystal (should you have gotten them at Tycoon Castle). Beastmaster is nice, but until I get the Gourd later in the game, Catching is ridiculously hard.

Edited by ScubaWolf on Jun 18th 2023 at 10:41:07 AM

Hey, it doesn't look like it's been brought up yet, but Chocobo GP got stealth-updated so that you can unlock everything just by playing the game.

No more microtransactions, no more free-to-play bullcrud, no nothing. Yeah, they kinda dropped support back in December 2022, but apparently it's still pretty meaty regardless.

Edited by TargetmasterJoe on Jun 21st 2023 at 5:21:19 AM

Doesn't the online multiplayer still work?

Good!

I was happy to see the Final Fantasy crew have begged constantly to remake 6 but I saw Yoshinori Kitase and said NOPE.

What’s up with Kitase?

I think he's the one pushing for that AWFUL FF-10 3 thing and he made the FF 7 remake basically be a fanfic.

FF 7 Remake is amazing for what it does, IMO.

I love how fleshed out Midgar is, and I can't wait to see what happens next in Rebirth and the 3rd game.

I think that's more gameplay and that IS pretty damn important in a video game but I think the story is shit.

I mean, calling it a fanfic is weird since he was the director of the original FF VII.

Like I get his logic for making Remake into a semi sequel.

I know, all he had to do was just modify the characters so that they were fleshed out better and streamline the plot. Not add that moronic "The plot is about defying the stations of canon in the Original FF 7!" The worst part is that they did streamline and modify the plot to make it better and more appealing but have that shitty writing thing (I wont use fanfic since its the original writer) that brings the whole thing down.

Kitase has just been a producer/supervisor for the FF series as a whole ever since 2002. He doesn't really work directly on any games anymore, so while he has input and stuff happens under his watch it doesn't seem very useful to single him out for anything specific as if we was a writer or director.

Edited by KuroBaraHime on Jun 26th 2023 at 11:51:11 AM

I wasn't a fan of the Arbiters of Fate in FF7R, but I get what they were doing with it. They were essentially telling the fans not to expect a complete 1:1 remake anymore and expect new things thrown at us. Considering how Intergrade seems to strongly hint that there's another timeline with Zack alive going on at the same time that may be important to this story, we're definitely going to get some new unexpected things.

Personally, I wouldn't mind Kitase being in charge of the FF6 remake since he was the director of the original FF6. The game is so old that anything new may very well just be fleshing out what wasn't fleshed out originally.

Edited by ScubaWolf on Jun 26th 2023 at 11:54:55 AM

Ironically now that I think about it I agree that doing the Arbiters of Fate thing in FF 6 would actually be a GREAT IDEA? Why? Because I realized the original game had a really interesting idea that got shot down by the Kekfa taking over: The Espers making peace with humans. That is a beautiful plot and I loved Kefka and how things went but making a remake where you actually get to save the Espers and live in harmony after all would be amazing.

I was inspired by this post on Youtube:

Terra is easily the most fascinating FF character for me, and my perception of her has changed dramatically since I first played the game. Growing up, I was nauseated by her simplistic "I want to know what love is, NOW!" obsession (she even bothers Celes with that question while they're preparing for battle, which made me almost hate her at first), but there's something very primal and childlike about it. I can believe she's stuck on understanding love because she emotionally has nowhere else to go, and that she's still a child grasping for the most fundamental human relationship.

She was the product of a union between two people from cultures that wanted to have nothing (friendly) to do with one another. Her mother fled her society, and her father's community wanted her ejected back into it, and for her parents to not associate in any way. But her parents opened themselves up and trusted and accepted one another, and birthed Terra as a symbol of a hope for peace and understanding between their peoples. Then, while still an infant, her mother was killed and her father kidnapped, tortured, and exploited to make weapons, and she was raised by the man responsible for that. What was her childhood like? Are we never told because she doesn't know? Does the game start where it does because that's as far back as her regressed memory ever goes? Did the Empire rely on the Slave Crown because she grew up actively resisting them? If she was raised by the Emperor, you'd think she could be convinced to serve him as any other loyal soldier, so why rob her of her own free will? Does she have an identity beyond a "Magitek-riding Imperial witch" who unconsciously burns down cities and people on behalf of her own abusers? Did she have a personality while growing up, and is it still present inside her, or did the Empire destroy it and leave a blank slate? The more Terra explores her past and her nature, the more these disturbing wrinkles are revealed. And when she starts waking up and is rescued by the good guys, even THEY recruit her to use in their war. They at least ask, but if you follow the story from her point of view, it's ridiculous the pressure that Banon et al are putting on her. I can easily imagine that she reaches a point where she DOESN'T want to learn anything more about herself, as everything just gets worse for her. By the time Celes and company run into her again in Ruined Mobliz, she's broken. She's the oldest of the surviving children of the town, and yet far more emotionally immature than Duane or Katrin even.

I never liked Kefka as the villain of FFVI, and I eventually figured out why: He's a cop-out, stock villain in a story that isn't at all about him. He just waltzes in periodically, evils up the place, and you have to hit him so he goes away for a while. The story of FFVI is Terra's story. She shouldn't have been the villain, per se, but the plot and the resolution should have revolved around her, and the struggle shouldn't have been against a crazy man, but against fear and a history of exploitation and mistrust. The heroes - and "human" society in general - should have been fighting to finally get back to the place Maduin and Madeleine started off at twenty years earlier, trying to bridge the (re-opened) chasm of trust between the human and Esper world. Instead, Kefka breaks everything, you have to break him, the Espers disappear from the world, and Terra's instantly happy again. The game hints at a much, much more complicated character arc than that. And, for her, it all begins when she wakes up, sick and confused, in the home of a stranger, at the far end of the world, in a city she just attacked, and is then immediately thrown back out into the cold to run for her life, before she even knows what's going on.

"Awakening" is a song that begs for a deep, melancholy interpretation, like this one. I love how this conveys Terra's innocence and primal yearnings, but also prologues a mystery. I feel it's emotionally the main theme of the game (much as "Anxious Heart" is for VII) - the characters all have to open up to one another and help each other get past their past traumas. And humanity and the Espers (at least in the version of the story I wish they had gone with) have to open up and explore one another again, in order to recover from their tragic past.

Anyway, hearing this arrangement (six or seven times as I'm writing this :p) just brings back all sorts of memories and daydreams of this game.

And this TV Tropes entry:

• When Kefka is defeated, all magic vanishes from the world, and so do the Espers. Terra, half human and half Esper, would seem to have represented a balance between the two, or an ability for them to coexist, but she must sacrifice the Esper part of her. Originally created for war and destruction, without sentience, the Espers gained sentience and became the incredible creatures we see, protecting themselves from those who would use their powers for greedy, selfish reasons. But they also deliberately sacrifice themselves and change into crystals to help good people fight for truth and justice. They have been doing everything they can to survive, only to "cease to exist" because magic disappears from the world. The Espers are more than their magic. This is one of the saddest and most unfair endings in a Final Fantasy game.

Edited by AegisP on Jun 26th 2023 at 9:01:44 AM