Dog nabbit. You make me WANT to go back and play FF9 again. LOL kisses 60 hours of his life goodbye already
There are still parallels later, especially at the end of the game, [SPOILER]with the huge airship war over Rabanastre. The Bahamut made such a Death Star under attack that it wasn’t even funny.
Larsa turning against his brother may not have been as surprising as Vader throwing the Emperor down a big hole, but still. Actually, Gabranth also made a sort of Vader, what with changing sides and wearing an imposing armor to hide his face from most people.
Hey, we even have a Boba Fett with Bagamman. They even seemed to die in a similar way, falling into the reach of monsters living in sand.[/SPOILER]
But yeah. To be a true Star Wars rip, needs moar people getting a hand sliced off.
I didn’t even think about spoilers. I’m sorry if i ruined anything for anyone.
I never really thought about those things as paralleles. Now that you mention it though, i can really see the lines.
I enjoyed FF9 very much, and I liked the characters better than those of the two previous games- but the game lost me in the latter part, when all the Terra stuff started. It isn’t so much that I don’t understand what went on than that it doesn’t make much sense to me. OK, so the basic plot concept (invading Gaia by disrupting its cycle of reincarnation so the souls of the Terrans would incarnate in place of the Gaians’) earns points for originality, but it seems oddly out of place in the game, as if it belonged more in a spiritually deeper game like FF7 or X; FF9 deserved a plot more like FF IV’s. Also, Kuja was such a colorless villain to me, I have trouble even remembering him. To this day, I haven’t replayed it (one of the few FFs that I have not) but I mean to some day; maybe in the second play I’ll “get” it better.
And I agree, the lack of development of the characters in FF12 is disappointing. Logically, that moment in Eruyt Village should’ve been where we learned about why Fran left the Wood, but it was utterly vague; even the fact she’s the leader’s sister is thrown in only at the last second. Same with Balthier’s being an ex-Judge and Cidolfas son; there were no clues (that I caught anyway) about either fact until that moment in the Phon Coast. Maybe if they peppered the long treks with more characters bits like that they would be more interesting (the whole trip to Archades has been a snooze.) But again, I’ll wait until I’ve completed the game before I judge the story fairly.
Yes, but any hints Balthier would have dropped to that effect would have been exactly opposite that of his character. There’s no way they could have worked it in.
As for FF9, it’s actually a very “spiritual” game. The dynamics of the Black Mage Village and Terra speak volumes, as does the ambition of Queen Brahne (how much of that was actually her?); Steiner’s tussles with duty vs. doing what’s right; Zidane’s search for who he is. If you pay attention and look past the character models, you’ll see a very deep story.
I agree Kuja’s character could have been a little better, but the story surrounding him, if you understand it, is just as powerful as that of Sephiroth.
Cid: by “spiritual” I don’t mean as in “soul-searching” or characterization, but rather, literally, dealing with spiritual matters, like Death, Afterlife and Resurrection. These were major themes in 7 and X, but only become apparent in 9 in the later part of the game. I remember having a big WTH? moment when I found out that The Mist was composed of discarnate souls (!) I know that FF IX was a sort of farewell to that kind of FF story since it was the last PS one FF game, and that they probably tossed in these kind of themes in order to “fit in” better with the current and future series trends, but to this day I feel that they were too complex and “serious” for the story. In fact, at the very end we don’t know if Zidane and Vivi will survive their short lifespans, which is a tragic subtheme for such a happy ending. I’m not saying it was bad, certainly it didn’t ruin the game for me (the way FF Tactics’ final scene did) but I still feel odd about it. As I said, maybe on a second view I’ll appreciate it better.
As for FF12, Balthier himself didn’t need to drop the clues; other characters could’ve done it for him (certainly, somebody in the Empire should’ve recognized him.)
I really don’t know what you mean by a “spiritual” game, nor by your claim that FF9 isn’t one. Is it just because those particular themes only became apparent late in the game? If they would have talked about souls more in the beginning of the game you’d be fine with it? Does that mean that games have to follow the same themes for forty hours or they’re not authentic?
Regarding Balthier, don’t forget he’s been gone from Archadia for a very long time, probably since he was a teenager. It’s no stretch to think his appearance has changed enough for nobody at all to recognize him.
If Judge Zecht lived on his own, very into the eye of the public and even within Empire territory while he was presumed dead, I can’t imagine why Balthier couldn’t have just hidden his identity. Judges wear masks almost all the time anyway, no reason for many people outside the higher ranks to recognize him.
Cid: For the most part, FF9 was the Happy-Go-lucky type of adventure seen in FF 1-4 (which doesn’t preclude having dramatic moments, as in 4) rather than the pessimistic, even surrealistic atmosphere that 7 and 8 had. Again, I find themes of death and afterlife far too serious for a bunch of colorful dudes and duddettes to get involved with; but maybe that’s just a personal bias. And yes, dropping hints of later developments is important for a story to be balanced.
Seraphim: I don’t mean so much the people in the street, as the major characters in the story- Dalan, Ondore, the Judges, etc.- who should’ve figured that Balthier was someone of such former importance in the Empire. After all, we’re talking about the son of their most important scientist, not to mention a Judge who went AWOL. SOMEBODY must be looking for him… And didn’t anybody in Team Ashe wonder how this guy knows so much about the Empire? I sure did…
Who says Dalan or Ondore didn’t know? Ondore dealt with Reddas quite happily, no reason why he wouldn’t turn a blind eye to a runaway rebel. As for the Judges… well, he was young and didn’t last long, no reason for why they sould ignore him asa n adult. And in any case, Cid clearly didn’t give a crap about him, the bounty on him was quite enough already as far as anyone was concerned. Quite frankly, I don’t think they cared. He himself makes it sound as if he was put on the job out of nepotism and ran out soon after.
As for his knowledge… he was a famous pirate. That ¡s precisely the kind of person you’d expect to know that kind of information. And he revealed who he was long before he started giving any seriously high-level info.
For the most part, FF9 was the Happy-Go-lucky type of adventure seen in FF 1-4
Are you joking? Firstly, FF2 and 4 are far from “happy-go-lucky”; Cecil is a brooding captain of a horde of slaughterers, and in FF2 you start off unconscious after failing to fight off minions of a giant empire. In neither of those games did you ever feel anything but urgency, confusion and desperation. FF9’s first few hours may be happy-go-lucky, but very soon after that the story becomes deadly serious. We begin to see Brahne’s ambition and her disdain for her daughter almost immediately. Again, I think you’re failing to see past the deformed character models and into the story itself.
And yes, dropping hints of later developments is important for a story to be balanced.
We’re talking about a 60-hour story here. FF9’s story touches on all sorts of things. Just because the last 10 hours deals strongly with spiritual matters doesn’t mean that the entire story is about that, nor that it somehow isn’t allowed to cover it since it hadn’t until that point.
The one thing I didn’t really care about in IX was the general feeling that the game did not want me to explore anything. Even ignoring Excalibur II there were too many one-shot minigames strewn about while the game itself was almost as linear as FF X was (or perhaps even more so considering that throughout the course of the game there were only a handful of places you could actually visit more than once). X might even have the advantage for being the first FF game since T to not implement the Disk 4 shutdown, plus I found Blitzball to be more interesting than IX’s card game.
Who says Dalan or Ondore didn’t know?
But that’s just it: if they KNEW, why not give us a hint? Again, Balthier IS a major character in the story, they should’ve dropped hints of his importance earlier on, not just go “Btw, I’m Cid’s son and an ex-judge. Shall we go on?”
As for his knowledge… he was a famous pirate.
Right, because pirates always know all kinds of important Imperial secrets. Sorry, I don’t buy that.
Again, I think you’re failing to see past the deformed character models and into the story itself.
I’m not; you’re not seeing my point. I already pointed out that such games were not silly; but the FOCUS of the adventure was not “Life sucks” or “let’s deal with the meaning of existence” which is what happens at the end of 9. And you have to admit, the vast majority of 9’s characters lacked the maturity to truly deal with the issues presented (really, of all FFs this one may have had the biggest collection of innocent-type characters: Zidane (yes, for all his posturing), Quina, Vivi, Eiko, Steiner, even Dagger to a degree.) I’m not saying the story didn’t work; I’m saying it feels odd.
What imperial secrets?
but the FOCUS of the adventure was not “Life sucks” or “let’s deal with the meaning of existence” which is what happens at the end of 9.
Who says that what happens at the end of a game must be the focus of what that entire game was about?
And you have to admit, the vast majority of 9’s characters lacked the maturity to truly deal with the issues presented
FF9 had a lot of characters who started out immature, but all of them - yes, even Quina - underwent significant character growth by the end. That’s far more satisfying for me than something like FF7 where most of the characters are pretty much the same at the end as they were at the beginning.
FF9 had a lot of characters who started out immature, but all of them - yes, even Quina - underwent significant character growth by the end. That’s far more satisfying for me than something like FF7 where most of the characters are pretty much the same at the end as they were at the beginning.
Oh, I agree, Cid. I’m not saying there was no character growth (Vivi, in particular, learned a very hard lesson about life.) But I still feel like a character with more wisdom should’ve been in the party, to help explain things to the others; even at the end, I don’t think all of them truly understood the meaning of what happened. Again, I need to replay it to make sure.
Originally Posted by Cidolfas
Who says that what happens at the end of a game must be the focus of what that entire game was about?
Heh. If that had been true then IX would’ve had more WTF moments than a night’s showing at a collage’s art house theater.
Originally Posted by Wilfredo Martinez
But I still feel like a character with more wisdom should’ve been in the party, to help explain things to the others;
The problem with that though is the fact that there are only three ways to really deal with those types of characters. The first is to keep them quite only to speak in cryptic riddles until it’s time for the big revelation at the end (i.e. FF X’s Auron). The second is amnesia which always takes the exact amount of time to recover from as it takes to reach the ‘Big Reveal’ of the plot(i.e. FF V’s Galuf). And the third is to outright kill the character usually after the ‘Big Reveal’ but sometimes before then and the rest of the time until the ‘Big Reveal’ would be spent gathering clues left behind (and even then they still have some big know-it-all swoop in to explain things anyway) (i.e. FF V’s Galuf for the former and FF X’s Auron for the later).
Imho, I find this to be really annoying, especially the first one.
The problem with that though is the fact that there are only three ways to really deal with those types of characters.
Not so; they could’ve had a character with more maturity than the rest in the party, learning things as they go like the others, but understanding them and explaining them to the others as best as he can along the way. Come to think of it, characters like Amarant and Beatrix could have filled that role, but Amarant spent most of his time in his “rivalry” with Zidane and Beatrix spent too little time with the group.
You know, maybe I feel like this because of all the Animes I’ve seen where the main character is pretty clueless, but others follow him faithfully because of how much he “inspires” them (never mind things like common sense.) Examples of this include One Piece and the Wild Arms 5 RPG.
Frankly, I found it to be far more believable and poignant when the protagonists had to figure things out as they go along. Real life is tough; you don’t always have an Obi-Wan to turn to, and sometimes you just have to buck up and figure things out yourself.
I have to side with Cidolfas on most of the points being made here. There is definately a lot going on in FF9, there are a lot of “issues” spiritual, emotional, social, the whole scope of human emotion is captured in FF9, from, more or less, the very beginning. FF9 is one of the few FF’s that actually went full-circle. Zidane is a much more believeable character than, say, Cloud was. Cloud was more of a mind-rape, while Zidane actually had issues that came from life. Zidane wasn’t the leader just because he inspired people, but because he knew his stuff. And it’s blatanly clear when he says to Steiner, “Okay, so you want to take the princess back ? how are you going to do it ? What’s yor next move, hotshot ? Yeah yeah, next time, keep your big mouth shut unless you actually know what you’re talking about. We’re going to do it my way and live, or you can do it your way and die.” Okay, that isn’t verbatim, but that’s pretty much why Zidane was the leader. And there are serious spiritual issues fairly early in the game. Remember the Black MAge village ? Remember Vivi’s Question, “What will happen to me when i stop ?”. That’s some very deep stuff there, and that’s a question that actually changes peoples lives. Remember the steps that Phsychologists agree on that a person goes through when accepting Death ? (like anger, denial, temp job, door to doo rocking, and finally acceptance) Vivi went through those, and i felt the spiritual turmoil along with him when i played that game.