kradeelav | (no subject)

started playing FFT (remastered) after work this week! :D

* really enjoying the classic '1990's console blocky JRPG' vibe again. <3 playing it on a docked steam deck + flatscreen + gamecube USB controller just completes the vibe. so glad i waited for this versus trying to force myself through the WotL port on the phone; ragequit there once and part of the problem in hindsight was the screen was so tiny.

* there aren't a whole lot of playable unique characters at the beginning, so i went ahead and made zihark & my self insert complete with accurate sun signs lol. (he'll be a ninja/secondary class unknown, bright eyes will be a summoner/arithmetician eventually). funny thing is for a few battles he was completely rolling the maps even at a level 1 when everything else was level 6-8. sometimes it's the silly cute shit like that that gets you in a game x)

* slowly stoning your tank for easy level ups is funny lol

* for a while there i wasn't too solid on the actual strategy/tactics loop (three overgrown god damned chicken nuggets on one map killed my entire party twice on easy mode !!!) but I hit the first Weigraf fight at the mill last night and had a good loooooong stint where things clicked. I'm enjoying the loop now and tinkering with all the first early classes.

* i am impressed with how hateable agarth is, jeez. a lot of games have either 'mild racist/classist starts out as a twat, gets an arc of how Not To Be A twat, ends up nicer' or 'cardboard racist with zero nuance'. but agarth is somehow both.... extremely unpleasant and with just enough nuance of you can't just write him off as a generic bad dude, it's personal.

* while I'm having fun with this one, i am learning i am not a final fantasy girlie outside of very rare exceptions (ff7, vagrant story), so this will probably be my last shot at a final fantasy. there's something about the tossed salad approach of worldbuilding/character design that personally irritates me where it can't decide whether it wants to be a sci fi or fantasy game and all the related rules are so hopelessly anachronistic that it utterly breaks immersion for me. Those two exceptions mentioned above, and FFT - tend to stick reliably to one or the other genre, which is why i think I will stick with FFT. I know some folks were hoping I would get into FF14 but sorry, it hits aaaaaaall my buttons there x)

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neotula

Your comment about it being a tossed salad strat with how they do things with ff really clicked: I do love 14, but you can really clearly tell there's a lot of things that are there just to be cool. And sometimes, it works! sometimes it is really cool! A lot of the time, though, it feels like there was very little forethought put into making things fit together as a cohesive whole. rule of cool at the cost of all else.

It's interesting to me that Fire Emblem and final fantasy are both series with reoccurring themes and motifs and tropes but games that do it so differently (and sure, similarly, sometimes). Final Fantasy feels a lot more... copy paste, wrt enemies and characters showing up in other games, and Fire Emblem feels more like certain games are a reimagining and there's a little bit more internal math going on to make it all add up. But also, that might be 14 being a little bit of a disaster with the plot at times. I'm not sure if other ff games are better! what i've seen of 6 and 12 certainly seem a lot more thought out.

Been watching my girlfriend play ff12, and it's been nice to see that the plot is a lot more coherent than 14 so far. (it makes me a little sad, as someone playing 14: wish it felt more thought out.)

What other final fantasy games have you tried? I'm kinda curious about your thoughts on them.

kradeelav

nodnod! Tossed salad approach is also so common in anime in general, which I think modern FF pulls a lot of spiritual inspiration from - big boss battles, big declarations of friendships and betrayals, theatricality and big drama everywhere. for sureee lends itself to certian kinds of scenes that calls for that bombastic quality.

Like foods, there's something different for everyone, you know? Love that it's there for the folks who like them but it's also kinda nice getting older and figuring out more quickly what one's more likely to vibe with XD

funnily enough, i made a list of the FF's here - (https://kradeelav.dreamwidth.org/297230.html), though that was before the recent FF12 runthrough this past year. (Liked it enough to finish but didn't really hold my attention afterwards.) So in total, it'd be FF7, 9, all of two seconds with 10, Vagrant Story, and FFTA, finished FF12, and most likely will finish FFT. :D

queenlua

i can't remember—were you the one who was doing an ff12 playthrough? did you like that one or end up bouncing off it? (asking just because i know a lot of people who ONLY like the Ivalice games, which are in fact FFT & its sequels, Vagrant Story, and FF12. i've only played the last of those! but based on the presence of Ivalice Groupies in the world that strongly implies that one might also be your vibe.) but yeah based on your stated preferences i wouldn't tremendously go to bat for any of the other FF games. they do vary a LOT in terms of combat systems, art direction, etc, but e.g. the one with i think the strongest & most unified/coherent worldbuilding has pretty mid gameplay, the one with the most different/interesting gameplay has a plot that's nonsense until 15hrs in, and in general i think almost all of them lack an element of "edge" that i think you tend to want in your narratives. (this is funniest wrt ff16, which is the most Game-of-Thrones-y one and is clearly trying to be a little grimdark, but all the characters are sexless to a degree that's absurd and bordering on comical at times? lmao.) i mean *i* like most of them BUT i think i have a good sense of where our venn diagrams lie and yeah i don't think the median FF game is in the middle of it LOL

yeah! finished FF12; fun gameplay with cute characters; liked *more* than most FF's but I can't say it's stayed with me for too long like FF7 did (FF7 had such a straight up horror subtext to it imo). Maybe half of it is trojan-horsing the RPG factor with the strategy bit since i'm so strategy-pilled and corrupted. XD

halcyonstars

tbf I don't consider myself an FF-fan either, squeenix definitely has to seduce me properly to play an FF to completion lol. a new FF titles has higher chances of convincing me to pretend it doesn't exist than something I'm willing to buy and keep. I personally treat them as all separate unique video games that just share inter-textual aesthetic tropes (chocobo, the roster of summons, some iconic monster designs, every final boss is god, etc...) rather than it being a franchise tbh

the main ones I've played and adore are FF6, FF7, FF10, FF12, and FF16, all the others lost me. and of course FFT though that's technically a subsidiary.

FF6 might be more your speed tbh? I'm personally not an evangelist for that game like a lot of other people are but it contains a lot of old-school aesthetics and narrative tropes that I know you appreciate.

FF16 might also interest you story-wise but you'd very likely resent the gameplay.

Fascinated by the FF6 mention, and putting it on my to-play list! Tactics is definitely becoming up there with FF7 in terms of favorite FF's, so it may be that the older ones is the way to go.

FF6 is one of those things where my first thought was 'huh krad hasn't already played that one?' lol

I mean, for every to do with Kefka alone it may be worth your interest. The fact it's a rare FF that stars a female protagonist with a cool as hell backstory/plot is a plus.

corpsebrigadier

Very glad you are getting to experience FFT. It's a joy to see any newcomer react to the game and grapple with how intensely unlikable Argath Thadalfus is. :]

[points at username] !!! :D now i know the reference eheh!!!

Do you know I am so excited to dig into your fanshrine too? I already took a brief spin and it's really cool being genuinely flabbergasted at the depth of work that you've preserved so well there. (doujins, other sites, the kind of 'deep knowledge' that only somebody who's been there since the old days would know. real cool work there <3

Yay! Glad you have discerned the origins of my username (although tbf, I also just really like corpses) and that you're enjoying the various archives on my website. I've been having a blast updating all the relevant sections with TIC information, and I'm always happy to hear anybody is enjoying and getting use out of it as an archive.

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