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Final Fantasy IV Playthrough, Episode II: Spoony Bard
Now that we've had a taste of the current generation of graphics, here's a quick glance at the 1991 original SNES graphics of Final Fantasy IV (released in English as FFII, since the previous two games weren't):
I'm glad that old-school players were able to fall in love with FFIV despite the choppy translation. Then again, I adore FFV, even though my version is the uninspired PS1 translation.
All right! Let's go rescue Rosa!
In the cave on the way toDalmasca Damcyan Castle, we meet Tellah, whose family troubles we've already heard about from town gossips.
Someone needs to cosplay Tellah. I mean, just look at his pants. Stripes and polka dots? And Amano's concept art for this dude is even wilder.
[[Update: FF fans rock. Here's several incredible Tellah cosplays. ]]
Village scuttlebutt informed us that the prince of Damcyan has a "voice and face as fair as any maiden's." I am briefly hopeful that we've got ourselves a precursor to Faris. Then I realize that Cecil and Kain have not been fulfilling their obligations as bishie boys, so someone else needs to pick up the slack.
While Tellah appears clueless about the gypsy rover's identity, he instantly recognizes Rydia as a summoner of some talent. How? Is it the green hair, the scanty costume, or "detailed character sprite, must be important"?
Child prodigy or no, Rydia tuckers out after a long day's dungeon crawl. I approve of Cecil's worry about dragging a child on such an ordeal (he has no choice, since he can't leave her unguarded).
While she dozes, her elders compare notes about their respective goals: retrieving Anna, rescuing Rosa, watching over wunderkind. It's little character moments like this that catapult us from the first phase of FF into its mature phase.
Once she's back on her feet, Rydia is almost as concerned about Rosa as Cecil is.
Tellah has warned us that a monster has taken up residence in the next tunnel and prevented him from reaching Damcyan. Cecil is puzzled.
I am puzzled why a "cave frequented by men" requires travelers to wade along an underground river, then leap down a fifty foot waterfall.
At the bottom of said waterfall (!), we do battle with a ferociously silly Octomammoth.
Some relative of Spongebob Squarepants, perhaps?
I finally recall that hey, I've got a summoner. Rydia's summoning dance is cute.
For the moment, all she can summon is Chocobo Kick, the beginning summons in FFIII.
Having punted the Octomammoth, we cross another desert arrive at Damcyan castle just in time to see the Red Wings bomb it.
Poor Rydia has to cope with flashbacks. Angst hammer up to eleven in this game.
(Cecil isn't too happy, either, but mostly he's just trying to figure out who's taken command of his air brigade.)
Everyone in the castle is dead or dying. At the top of the castle, we find Tellah's daughter.
And Edward.
A pathetic punching match breaks out between aggrieved father and grieving lover. Tellah plinks away for 1HP a turn, while Edward makes feeble "But wait!" noises. Among Tellah's insults is the famous line:
Anna weakly begs them to stop fighting. She reveals Edward's all-too-obvious secret.
This seems to mollify her father somewhat. What, he'll veto her choice, unless she dates royalty? Tsk.
Alas, this really isn't a typical Final Fantasy: we're too late to save the girl. While everybody's busy trading Exposition about the recent attack...
...Anna tells Edward that she loves him and expires.
OOPS. You know, there was a healing urn not fifteen feet away, and my Rydia has a Raise spell. Damn you, gameplay/story segregation!
Edward blubbers. Tellah is underwhelmed.
Actually, Pops, Anna would prefer that neither of you get killed avenging her.
Having heard the story of the attack from Spoony, Tellah charges off to avenge himself on one Golbez, "clad in armor of deepest night, with strength beyond that of mortal man," who's taken charge of the Red Wings and stolen Damcyan's Fire Crystal. (Has Kain become a Dark Knight to replace Cecil?)
Edward resumes weeping. Rydia has a stellar moment of six-year-old badassitude, although someone needs to give her a talking-to about the "act like a man!" part of her rant.
I love Rydia's frowny face.
Cecil interrupts to beg for Edward's help, explaining that he needs a sand pearl to heal a friend. Recognizing a kindred spirit trying to save his beloved, Edward shakes himself out of his funk and takes them to an Antlion den to retrieve one.
We'll need a hovercraftfull of eels to get there.
Along the way, Cecil and Edward have an angst wrestling contest via thought balloons. Cecil's fretting that Rosa may die while they're futzing around. Edward, understandably, is grieving, and everything reminds him of Anna:
Wait. Hold on. Hovercraft. Hovercraft? I'm sorry, I've been trying to avoid "men should be macho" claptrap and let our passive prince pine in peace, but that does it. Edward, you're moonlighting as a bard. For Aerith's sake, can't you find a more elegant word than "hovercraft" for your emoting? Seriously. "Hovercraft" is never an appropriate word choice for epic angst:
...
LUKE. I AM YOUR HOVERCRAFT.
NOOOO!
...
I... I will take the hovercraft to Mordor, though I do not know the way.
...
You'll be my living legacy. My honor, my hovercraft...they're yours now.
...
... I'll stop.
We pummel our way through the Antlion's den. Edward's just sure we're gonna get through this without fighting a boss battle.
Riiiiiiight. And I've got an Excalipur to sell ya.
Afterwards, Cecil brings up the same point that we've heard several times already: it's unusual for monsters to spawn all over the place, or for placid critters such as Antlion to attack. Something's afoot. (What, a world where it's not normal to have dragons and aggressive puddings and killer plants outside the town outskirts? What a concept!)
Regardless, we've got a distressed damsel to save, so we race back in the... hovercraft.
Rydia's almost as eager as Cecil to reach Rosa.
Awww. Shipper on deck.
Shortly...
High fives all around.
I am once again briefly distracted by the sexual dimorphism of clothing in the kingdom of Baron. Rosa must have a degree in mechanical engineering.
Once she's on her feet, Rosa thanks Cecil's new friends and fills them in on what's happening back in Baron. Yep, Golbez has taken over the Red Wings. Her guess is that that he's manipulating the king in order to seize the crystals for himself. Which means the Kingdom of Fabul's Wind Crystal is probably the next target.*
*[I had no idea that my "Sin goes on a pilgrimage to destroy all the Fayth statues" alternate universe FFX sequel was such an old-school FF plot, but substitute "statues" for "crystals" and you've got the rough structure of FFI, III-V.]
Edward reminds us that the path to Fabul is blocked by a you-can't-go-there-yet ice wall, but Rosa's confident that Rydia must have a fire spell to blast through it.
Again, I have to wonder if "Hi, I'm a summoner!" is sewn onto Rydia's nametag.
Actually, I can see why Rydia's abilities are getting telegraphed by every mage/sage who meets her. In FFIII, every party member could change job classes at the drop of a hat. (Some of them very silly hats.) In FFIV, each party member is locked into a particular character class like Dark Knight, Sage, Dragoon, Monk, etc, none of which are the standard D&D character classes familiar to gamers at the time. Rather than interrupting the game with out-of-character tutorials, these "Oh, you're a summoner, so you can do X!" conversations remind the player that Rydia can use summons, white, and black magic.
Unfortunately Rosa's still not feeling entirely well.
However, she's not about to let Cecil leave her behind again. She says a white mage can take care of herself. Sadly not true in every FF, but I'm all for it.
During the night, Edward goes out to mope at the lake, gets a visitation from Anna's ghost on her way to theFarplane Spirit world, and fights a Sahagin with her urging him on. This is less contrived than it sounds.
Lassarina's own playthrough snark has MST3K'd this touching moment forever:
Anna's Ghost: "Edward, you gave your love to me once..."
(Lassarina makes some remark about Anna overestimating Edward's stamina.)
Ahem.
I'm afraid that despite knowing better, my initial reaction to Edward was, "What a drip!" I didn't like the fact that Anna had shielded him from arrows and he was apparently hiding instead of tending her when the party first arrives. Yet I will say this: it is a fine thing to have a male character in a fantasy game who is not a warrior and not a Gandalf (i.e. old man = wizard). We'll see whether Spoony lives up to Anna's expectations and remains a "lover, not a fighter," or whether he's put through a Manliness Transformation like Gordon, Prince of Toads in FFII.
Next day, we set out for Fabul via Mt. Hobs.
At the ice wall, Rosa encourages Rydia:
(I love that shot. Hello, physical character interaction.)
However...
Awwwww.
Cecil bleakly informs Rosa what happened to Rydia's village.
Rosa gently coaxes her, saying they won't make her do it, but it will help them save others from being hurt.
I really love the dynamic of an older woman/mage mentoring a younger, with respect and love.
Rosa: "Rydia, you did it! That was incredible!"
Rydia enjoys their praise, although Rosa regrets having to push her:
Bechdel Test, check. This sequence is what inspired my doodle/portrait of Rosa & Rydia.
Moving on, I just gotta say.
WHITE MAGE WITH BOW. WHY IS THIS NOT A THING MORE OFTEN.
At the top of the mountain, we find a monk beating the stuffing out of a mob of goblins. However, a Mom Bomb (whut?) causes him more trouble. Rydia to the rescue!
Halfway through the battle, Mom Bomb displays one of the odder transformations in FF, and spawns a bunch more bombs that pound us pretty badly before we defeat the whole mess.
Afterwards, Yang introdues himself.
He relates how all his monks were killed by a huge host of monsters; he's the sole survivor. Rosa guesses that Golbez sent the monsters to draw out and destroy Fabul's defenses before moving in to seize their Wind Crystal.
Yang is reluctant to accept more aid, until Cecil explains that everyone in the party has personal reasons for fighting Baron.
Rydia: "..."
It's a subtle change, but Cecil here takes more direct responsibility for his actions, instead of just blaming it on the king or falling back on his self-defeatist, "I'm darky dark dark, I'm cursed, I'm irredeemable, so I'll just mope about like Cloud Strife, wallowing in my own loserdom."
We reach Fabul Castle, where nearly everybody is a monk — yet another job class converted into a culture. (Yang had said there were some monk trainees left in the castle.) Before the inevitable throne room cutscene, we check in with Yang's zooty wife:
She thanks them, then shoos them off to see the king. But wait! We have to talk to all the npcs in the castle, first!
Most are your run-of-the-mill monks looking up to "Master Yang," with a few white mages thrown in. Then... oh no, it's another one of those WTF dancers who's gonna rip off her dress and shimmy, isn't it?
Weeeeeell, not quite. She does rip off her clothes and dance on the bar, however...
She's a he. It's a monk in drag.
I think I've just been trolled. Well played, FF, well played.
Rydia is probably bursting with impatience at this point, so we'd better head up to the throne room. At first, the king is none too inclined to trust Cecil and company, despite Yang's favorable report.
Edward's glib tongue comes to the rescue.
The prince grimly tells the fate of Damcyan, his parents, his lover and the fire crystal that was taken from his own castle.
The king of Fabul is convinced. (Go Spoony!) Trusting Yang's judgment, the king puts his faith in Cecil and friends help defend Fabul against the imminent attack.
At this point the party separates, with Rosa and Rydia joining the castle healers. Grumble feh.
Rosa calls Cecil back to tell him, "Be careful," as she did near the beginning of the game.
Okay, I'm slightly mollified by the respect both of them give Rydia's abilities.
(Incidentally, I'm noticing a few faint echoes of Rydia in FFXIII, with Hope's "you killed my mother!" plot arc. However, Hope is not quite the prodigy she is, and he's much less resilient.)
The next scene is really quite dramatic, like the siege of Balamb Garden in FFVIII. With only Spoony, Cecil, Yang, and a bunch of monk trainees, we are seriously outnumbered. Yang fights using a collapsing line tactic, but all it does is delay the inevitable.
It doesn't help that one of the monsters disguises himself as a monk and unbars the doors as Yang retreats into the citadel.
What? Just a dang second. First this spy was a bald, shirtless Fabul monk, then it's a hooded figure, and then its battle form is a gargoyle— are we back to random FFIII shapeshifting?
We're pushed all the way back to the crystal's inner sanctum.
An old friend arrives for a showdown.
Cecil's overjoyed to find Kain's alive— there was a "Kain, I wish you were here" thought balloon just a short time ago— and thinks he's come to help defend Fabul. Um, no.
Cecil is surprised. Didn't they vow to fight Baron together after torching Rydia's village?
News flash to Cecil: Sweetie, his name is KAIN.
My Cecil holds his own pretty well, but Kain can't be stopped. As he looms over Cecil to strike the killing blow...
The cavalry comes charging in.
Kain flinches at Rosa's voice. He appears to be struggling with some kind of mind control.
Enter the Big Bad.
(Golbez: Grumble grumble, do I have to do everything myself? Minions these days.)
Cecil shouts at Golbez the usurper, unwisely drawing attention to himself when he's already on the floor. Golbez does... something... to him.
Cecil collapses again. This is going to be inconvenient later, isn't it? "Hand me the Black Materia" inconvenient, right?
Golbez blasts Edward and Yang as "worms," reasserts control over Kain and orders him to seize the crystal over Rosa's protests. Unfortunately, Cecil's feeble attempt to reach Rosa backfires.
DAMMIT. Rosa gets hauled off into the Distressed Damsel penalty box. Gimme back my white mage archer!
Kain perfects his Grim Stalk of Doomy Doom.
Once our antagonists have cleared out, Rydia casts a cure spell to revive everyone. She won't let them stand around moping over what just happened.
Rydia: "And the Crystal— we can take it back, too!"
We check on the castle, since we're not really sure how to rescue Rosa yet. Most people are pretty beat up — the king himself is wounded, and a white mage poignantly remarks, "Would that I had magic to equal Lady Rosa's" — but one person, at least, has come through unscathed.
Yang's wife rocks.
In fact, she gives Yang the frying pan (i.e. "Counter Argument" skill) as a parting gift when we go off to rescue Rosa.
The King of Fabul provides Cecil and his friends with a ship to reach Baron. Unfortunately, it's too early for the endgame, so Leviathan butts in.
The remake throws in some clever visual quotes of Final Fantasy X, the scene of Sin attacking Yuna's ferry. Random sailors tumble across the deck like the Aurochs. Poor Rydia doesn't have a big blue furry guy to grab her!
Yang imitates Wakka, diving off the ship when she's washed overboard, but it's too late.
Edward gets knocked out during the deck's pitching. As Cecil hurries to check on him, Leviathan looms up behind the ship...
Eeeeeeeeeek.
And we have a fade to white.
When Cecil wakes up, he's in another place.
Somehow I doubt there's any redheaded dudes playing blitzball here. (And hopefully no shotgun-wielding Frenchwomen, much as I would love a random Mira Furlan cameo.)
So! That was exciting. Tune in next time for Cecil's Humiliation Conga!
I'm glad that old-school players were able to fall in love with FFIV despite the choppy translation. Then again, I adore FFV, even though my version is the uninspired PS1 translation.
All right! Let's go rescue Rosa!
In the cave on the way to
Someone needs to cosplay Tellah. I mean, just look at his pants. Stripes and polka dots? And Amano's concept art for this dude is even wilder.
[[Update: FF fans rock. Here's several incredible Tellah cosplays. ]]
Village scuttlebutt informed us that the prince of Damcyan has a "voice and face as fair as any maiden's." I am briefly hopeful that we've got ourselves a precursor to Faris. Then I realize that Cecil and Kain have not been fulfilling their obligations as bishie boys, so someone else needs to pick up the slack.
While Tellah appears clueless about the gypsy rover's identity, he instantly recognizes Rydia as a summoner of some talent. How? Is it the green hair, the scanty costume, or "detailed character sprite, must be important"?
Child prodigy or no, Rydia tuckers out after a long day's dungeon crawl. I approve of Cecil's worry about dragging a child on such an ordeal (he has no choice, since he can't leave her unguarded).
While she dozes, her elders compare notes about their respective goals: retrieving Anna, rescuing Rosa, watching over wunderkind. It's little character moments like this that catapult us from the first phase of FF into its mature phase.
Once she's back on her feet, Rydia is almost as concerned about Rosa as Cecil is.
Tellah has warned us that a monster has taken up residence in the next tunnel and prevented him from reaching Damcyan. Cecil is puzzled.
I am puzzled why a "cave frequented by men" requires travelers to wade along an underground river, then leap down a fifty foot waterfall.
At the bottom of said waterfall (!), we do battle with a ferociously silly Octomammoth.
Some relative of Spongebob Squarepants, perhaps?
I finally recall that hey, I've got a summoner. Rydia's summoning dance is cute.
For the moment, all she can summon is Chocobo Kick, the beginning summons in FFIII.
Having punted the Octomammoth, we cross another desert arrive at Damcyan castle just in time to see the Red Wings bomb it.
Poor Rydia has to cope with flashbacks. Angst hammer up to eleven in this game.
(Cecil isn't too happy, either, but mostly he's just trying to figure out who's taken command of his air brigade.)
Everyone in the castle is dead or dying. At the top of the castle, we find Tellah's daughter.
And Edward.
A pathetic punching match breaks out between aggrieved father and grieving lover. Tellah plinks away for 1HP a turn, while Edward makes feeble "But wait!" noises. Among Tellah's insults is the famous line:
Anna weakly begs them to stop fighting. She reveals Edward's all-too-obvious secret.
This seems to mollify her father somewhat. What, he'll veto her choice, unless she dates royalty? Tsk.
Alas, this really isn't a typical Final Fantasy: we're too late to save the girl. While everybody's busy trading Exposition about the recent attack...
...Anna tells Edward that she loves him and expires.
OOPS. You know, there was a healing urn not fifteen feet away, and my Rydia has a Raise spell. Damn you, gameplay/story segregation!
Edward blubbers. Tellah is underwhelmed.
Actually, Pops, Anna would prefer that neither of you get killed avenging her.
Having heard the story of the attack from Spoony, Tellah charges off to avenge himself on one Golbez, "clad in armor of deepest night, with strength beyond that of mortal man," who's taken charge of the Red Wings and stolen Damcyan's Fire Crystal. (Has Kain become a Dark Knight to replace Cecil?)
Edward resumes weeping. Rydia has a stellar moment of six-year-old badassitude, although someone needs to give her a talking-to about the "act like a man!" part of her rant.
I love Rydia's frowny face.
Cecil interrupts to beg for Edward's help, explaining that he needs a sand pearl to heal a friend. Recognizing a kindred spirit trying to save his beloved, Edward shakes himself out of his funk and takes them to an Antlion den to retrieve one.
We'll need a hovercraft
Along the way, Cecil and Edward have an angst wrestling contest via thought balloons. Cecil's fretting that Rosa may die while they're futzing around. Edward, understandably, is grieving, and everything reminds him of Anna:
Wait. Hold on. Hovercraft. Hovercraft? I'm sorry, I've been trying to avoid "men should be macho" claptrap and let our passive prince pine in peace, but that does it. Edward, you're moonlighting as a bard. For Aerith's sake, can't you find a more elegant word than "hovercraft" for your emoting? Seriously. "Hovercraft" is never an appropriate word choice for epic angst:
...
LUKE. I AM YOUR HOVERCRAFT.
NOOOO!
...
I... I will take the hovercraft to Mordor, though I do not know the way.
...
You'll be my living legacy. My honor, my hovercraft...they're yours now.
...
... I'll stop.
We pummel our way through the Antlion's den. Edward's just sure we're gonna get through this without fighting a boss battle.
Riiiiiiight. And I've got an Excalipur to sell ya.
Afterwards, Cecil brings up the same point that we've heard several times already: it's unusual for monsters to spawn all over the place, or for placid critters such as Antlion to attack. Something's afoot. (What, a world where it's not normal to have dragons and aggressive puddings and killer plants outside the town outskirts? What a concept!)
Regardless, we've got a distressed damsel to save, so we race back in the... hovercraft.
Rydia's almost as eager as Cecil to reach Rosa.
Awww. Shipper on deck.
Shortly...
High fives all around.
I am once again briefly distracted by the sexual dimorphism of clothing in the kingdom of Baron. Rosa must have a degree in mechanical engineering.
Once she's on her feet, Rosa thanks Cecil's new friends and fills them in on what's happening back in Baron. Yep, Golbez has taken over the Red Wings. Her guess is that that he's manipulating the king in order to seize the crystals for himself. Which means the Kingdom of Fabul's Wind Crystal is probably the next target.*
*[I had no idea that my "Sin goes on a pilgrimage to destroy all the Fayth statues" alternate universe FFX sequel was such an old-school FF plot, but substitute "statues" for "crystals" and you've got the rough structure of FFI, III-V.]
Edward reminds us that the path to Fabul is blocked by a you-can't-go-there-yet ice wall, but Rosa's confident that Rydia must have a fire spell to blast through it.
Again, I have to wonder if "Hi, I'm a summoner!" is sewn onto Rydia's nametag.
Actually, I can see why Rydia's abilities are getting telegraphed by every mage/sage who meets her. In FFIII, every party member could change job classes at the drop of a hat. (Some of them very silly hats.) In FFIV, each party member is locked into a particular character class like Dark Knight, Sage, Dragoon, Monk, etc, none of which are the standard D&D character classes familiar to gamers at the time. Rather than interrupting the game with out-of-character tutorials, these "Oh, you're a summoner, so you can do X!" conversations remind the player that Rydia can use summons, white, and black magic.
Unfortunately Rosa's still not feeling entirely well.
However, she's not about to let Cecil leave her behind again. She says a white mage can take care of herself. Sadly not true in every FF, but I'm all for it.
During the night, Edward goes out to mope at the lake, gets a visitation from Anna's ghost on her way to the
Lassarina's own playthrough snark has MST3K'd this touching moment forever:
Anna's Ghost: "Edward, you gave your love to me once..."
(Lassarina makes some remark about Anna overestimating Edward's stamina.)
Ahem.
I'm afraid that despite knowing better, my initial reaction to Edward was, "What a drip!" I didn't like the fact that Anna had shielded him from arrows and he was apparently hiding instead of tending her when the party first arrives. Yet I will say this: it is a fine thing to have a male character in a fantasy game who is not a warrior and not a Gandalf (i.e. old man = wizard). We'll see whether Spoony lives up to Anna's expectations and remains a "lover, not a fighter," or whether he's put through a Manliness Transformation like Gordon, Prince of Toads in FFII.
Next day, we set out for Fabul via Mt. Hobs.
At the ice wall, Rosa encourages Rydia:
(I love that shot. Hello, physical character interaction.)
However...
Awwwww.
Cecil bleakly informs Rosa what happened to Rydia's village.
Rosa gently coaxes her, saying they won't make her do it, but it will help them save others from being hurt.
I really love the dynamic of an older woman/mage mentoring a younger, with respect and love.
Rosa: "Rydia, you did it! That was incredible!"
Rydia enjoys their praise, although Rosa regrets having to push her:
Bechdel Test, check. This sequence is what inspired my doodle/portrait of Rosa & Rydia.
Moving on, I just gotta say.
WHITE MAGE WITH BOW. WHY IS THIS NOT A THING MORE OFTEN.
At the top of the mountain, we find a monk beating the stuffing out of a mob of goblins. However, a Mom Bomb (whut?) causes him more trouble. Rydia to the rescue!
Halfway through the battle, Mom Bomb displays one of the odder transformations in FF, and spawns a bunch more bombs that pound us pretty badly before we defeat the whole mess.
Afterwards, Yang introdues himself.
He relates how all his monks were killed by a huge host of monsters; he's the sole survivor. Rosa guesses that Golbez sent the monsters to draw out and destroy Fabul's defenses before moving in to seize their Wind Crystal.Yang is reluctant to accept more aid, until Cecil explains that everyone in the party has personal reasons for fighting Baron.
Rydia: "..."
It's a subtle change, but Cecil here takes more direct responsibility for his actions, instead of just blaming it on the king or falling back on his self-defeatist, "I'm darky dark dark, I'm cursed, I'm irredeemable, so I'll just mope about like Cloud Strife, wallowing in my own loserdom."
We reach Fabul Castle, where nearly everybody is a monk — yet another job class converted into a culture. (Yang had said there were some monk trainees left in the castle.) Before the inevitable throne room cutscene, we check in with Yang's zooty wife:
She thanks them, then shoos them off to see the king. But wait! We have to talk to all the npcs in the castle, first!
Most are your run-of-the-mill monks looking up to "Master Yang," with a few white mages thrown in. Then... oh no, it's another one of those WTF dancers who's gonna rip off her dress and shimmy, isn't it?
Weeeeeell, not quite. She does rip off her clothes and dance on the bar, however...
She's a he. It's a monk in drag.
I think I've just been trolled. Well played, FF, well played.
Rydia is probably bursting with impatience at this point, so we'd better head up to the throne room. At first, the king is none too inclined to trust Cecil and company, despite Yang's favorable report.
Edward's glib tongue comes to the rescue.
The prince grimly tells the fate of Damcyan, his parents, his lover and the fire crystal that was taken from his own castle.
The king of Fabul is convinced. (Go Spoony!) Trusting Yang's judgment, the king puts his faith in Cecil and friends help defend Fabul against the imminent attack.
At this point the party separates, with Rosa and Rydia joining the castle healers. Grumble feh.
Rosa calls Cecil back to tell him, "Be careful," as she did near the beginning of the game.
Okay, I'm slightly mollified by the respect both of them give Rydia's abilities.
(Incidentally, I'm noticing a few faint echoes of Rydia in FFXIII, with Hope's "you killed my mother!" plot arc. However, Hope is not quite the prodigy she is, and he's much less resilient.)
The next scene is really quite dramatic, like the siege of Balamb Garden in FFVIII. With only Spoony, Cecil, Yang, and a bunch of monk trainees, we are seriously outnumbered. Yang fights using a collapsing line tactic, but all it does is delay the inevitable.
It doesn't help that one of the monsters disguises himself as a monk and unbars the doors as Yang retreats into the citadel.
What? Just a dang second. First this spy was a bald, shirtless Fabul monk, then it's a hooded figure, and then its battle form is a gargoyle— are we back to random FFIII shapeshifting?
We're pushed all the way back to the crystal's inner sanctum.
An old friend arrives for a showdown.
Cecil's overjoyed to find Kain's alive— there was a "Kain, I wish you were here" thought balloon just a short time ago— and thinks he's come to help defend Fabul. Um, no.
Cecil is surprised. Didn't they vow to fight Baron together after torching Rydia's village?
News flash to Cecil: Sweetie, his name is KAIN.
My Cecil holds his own pretty well, but Kain can't be stopped. As he looms over Cecil to strike the killing blow...
The cavalry comes charging in.
Kain flinches at Rosa's voice. He appears to be struggling with some kind of mind control.
Enter the Big Bad.
(Golbez: Grumble grumble, do I have to do everything myself? Minions these days.)
Cecil shouts at Golbez the usurper, unwisely drawing attention to himself when he's already on the floor. Golbez does... something... to him.
Cecil collapses again. This is going to be inconvenient later, isn't it? "Hand me the Black Materia" inconvenient, right?
Golbez blasts Edward and Yang as "worms," reasserts control over Kain and orders him to seize the crystal over Rosa's protests. Unfortunately, Cecil's feeble attempt to reach Rosa backfires.
DAMMIT. Rosa gets hauled off into the Distressed Damsel penalty box. Gimme back my white mage archer!
Kain perfects his Grim Stalk of Doomy Doom.
Once our antagonists have cleared out, Rydia casts a cure spell to revive everyone. She won't let them stand around moping over what just happened.
Rydia: "And the Crystal— we can take it back, too!"
We check on the castle, since we're not really sure how to rescue Rosa yet. Most people are pretty beat up — the king himself is wounded, and a white mage poignantly remarks, "Would that I had magic to equal Lady Rosa's" — but one person, at least, has come through unscathed.
Yang's wife rocks.
In fact, she gives Yang the frying pan (i.e. "Counter Argument" skill) as a parting gift when we go off to rescue Rosa.
The King of Fabul provides Cecil and his friends with a ship to reach Baron. Unfortunately, it's too early for the endgame, so Leviathan butts in.
The remake throws in some clever visual quotes of Final Fantasy X, the scene of Sin attacking Yuna's ferry. Random sailors tumble across the deck like the Aurochs. Poor Rydia doesn't have a big blue furry guy to grab her!
Yang imitates Wakka, diving off the ship when she's washed overboard, but it's too late.
Edward gets knocked out during the deck's pitching. As Cecil hurries to check on him, Leviathan looms up behind the ship...
Eeeeeeeeeek.
And we have a fade to white.
When Cecil wakes up, he's in another place.
Somehow I doubt there's any redheaded dudes playing blitzball here. (And hopefully no shotgun-wielding Frenchwomen, much as I would love a random Mira Furlan cameo.)
So! That was exciting. Tune in next time for Cecil's Humiliation Conga!
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FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF
Now let's take a second and talk about the "Oh. Okay" level of this game -- I've played it so many times that I'm pretty sure everything that's ridiculous has fallen into the "well duh" category to me. How do you think the story ranks on the WTF scale so far?
I mean, you mentioned Anna: I noticed that in this remake not only does Rydia have Raise, but I think you have some PDowns, PLUS THERE ARE HEALING URNS RIGHT THERE AND ONE OF THE DAMCYAN KNIGHTS ON THE FLOOR BELOW YOU ASKS YOU TO TAKE HIM TO THE URN -- so you can't even argue away that the urns are for gameplay only, because they're mentioned in the storyline. WTFFFFFF. I've always been angered by that. (And I'll have more to say about this once you're farther in the game -- you'll see.)
But that's one that has always bothered me. Also, Rydia summoning a Titan back in Mist, but then she can only use Chocobo in your party. Oh. Okay.
I do absolutely love the Rosa-Rydia mentoring relationship. Especially because even though the game focuses on Rydia's power and potential, you get these hints (like the WMage in Fabul wishing to be as powerful as Lady Rosa) that maybe Rosa heard a lot of similar comments as a little girl too, and wants to help Rydia because of that.
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On the other hand, due to more in-depth worldbuilding and consistency, things like the fat chocobo storage locker and the dancing girls seem more random. We've lost the pocket canoe, but now the hovercraft in a medieval fantasy setting is vaguely hilarious.
So I think that FFIV bungee jumps between low WTF and high WTF.
I was going to mention the pocketful of phoenix down as well. Originally I went on an "AERIS, ANNA, JECHT at the end of FFX, YOU HAVE A LOT TO ANSWER FOR SQUARE" but I just. Yeah. You know.
I hadn't been too bothered by Rydia losing Titan, because I thought mebbe that was a moment of supreme stress, like a Limit Break to Eleven, perhaps even showing the moment when she becomes a summoner like a star collapsing enough to activate nuclear fusion. BOOM. She's blown off the outer shell, and now has to build up power.
Also I leveled her up pretty danged fast, somehow, so she was very quickly blasting nearly every mob we met.
Rosa is pretty buff too. I loved using her for healing as needed, and Holy arrows the rest of the time. Suddenly, not a liability, and suddenly, white mage in the back with distance weapon, instead of stuck in the front with a feeble stick to poke at things? HELL YES. It's not like a black mage needs a bow, although I very much appreciated Refia and Maria as my black mage archer STAND BACK, GUYS, I GOT THIS dispensers of carnage.
Also, can we talk about Rosa's costume?
She and Lulu come from the NOBODY ELSE ON THE PLANET DRESSES LIKE THIS WTF school of costume design.
I enjoy ogling, mind you, but Boob. Socks. Are never a wise fashion choice. Thank goodness Tomb Raider has made me largely immune to pneumatic boob hilarity. (And the mirror, but lacking built-in antigrav units, my F-cups resolutely obey the laws of gravity).
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Kain interests me, but I haven't focused on him because I don't have enough to go on yet. I am keenly aware that I do not have the full picture of what has happened to him. He's obviously honor-bound; I take it that he wasn't lying back when he vowed to join Cecil's cause, saying that his loyalty to the king would not allow him to besmirch the Dragoons' honor. Obviously, something has happened to change that. Right now, I don't know what it is. This game has gotten much more care given to backstory and character development than previous games, so I'm assuming it'll be something interesting.
Ideas that have occurred to me:
-- It's something to do with the Dragoons and filling his dead father's shoes. Heck, maybe Golbez is his father. (I don't think so, but how's that for a plot bunny.)
-- It's something to do with Rosa. This doesn't quite feel right, because Kain didn't seem to want to see her (or rather, for her to see him) when he came to fight Cecil and take the crystal, but his feelings for Rosa are obviously a strong motivator for his actions.
-- Blackmail. Golbez has threatened something Kain cares about: Rosa's mom, Cid (a friend?), the king, the Dragoons, or something else.
-- Mind control. Kain was acting like he was under the influence of mind control, with Rosa able to reach through it and snap him out of it briefly. This would fit with the fact that the king of Baron started out of character as well, and Rosa herself had guessed the king was being manipulated by Golbez.
-- Kain knows something Cecil does not. All the way back in Baron, when Cecil was angsting over the king's orders, Kain said, basically, "Nonsense, I'm sure the king has his reasons." Kain was the loyal soldier while Cecil doubted. Now, maybe Kain was just towing the party line until the mess at Mist village made him see the light. Or maybe that whole, "the king ordered us to kill everyone in Mist village" is part of something big and important: a callous, Vayne-like Means to an End which Kain self-justifies as being for the greater good. I haven't forgotten what Cecil told his troops all the way back in the first scene, that the king judged it too dangerous for the Mysidians to have the Water Crystal. The king also tried to destroy all the summoners. All the Crystals are being gathered together. At the same time, monsters are running rampant; something has set them off. Something is going on here in magic meta land, and I don't quite know what it is. I'm wondering if this is going to be another of those "magic too powerful, could destroy the world" or "tech too powerful, could destroy the world" tropes that pop up in a lot of FFs. Maybe the king has a desperate reason to get rid of powerful magic in the world before something awful is unleashed, and Kain knows the reason, so he's carrying on the mission.
Except Golbez does not strike me as being motivated for benevolent reasons, so I fall back on "Mind Control" as the most likely explanation and wait for further developments.
I'm dancing around the whole Kain/Rosa/Cecil triangle. The best frenemy dynamic being set up between Cecil and Kain is interesting, if predictable: love triangles like this are a standard story piece. It's done well here, though. I like the brotherly rivalry of Kain and Cecil at the beginning, dueling and testing one another, yet genuinely loyal to one another, so that Kain's sudden betrayal is a shock. I can't believe Kain is doing this just to steal the girl, except that I can't entirely rule it out.
TL;DR I don't know. I think I'll become more interested in Kain once I learn exactly what's turned him against Cecil. Is he possessed? Or does some backstory explain his motivations? I'll enjoy finding out.
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And that is all I have to say to that.
I am delighted by your brainstorming, though!
(Also pleased to Ruin All The Things with irreverence, like I do.)
also in re story/gameplay: THIS WAS ME IN THE MIDDLE OF FF6. goddamn it I have Life and phoenix down and FUCKING TENTS GIVE HIM BACK TO ME GIVE HIM BACK GIVE HIM BACK RIGHT NOW.
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I don't want Rosa to pull a Gwen. No, don't spoil me, but I'm worried. :(
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ROSA'S COSTUME OKAY
HAVE YOU SEEN IT IN THE CG ANIMATION?
WITH BRIGHT PURPLE PANTIES
SEND HELP
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WHAT IS SEEN CANNOT BE UNSEEN
I MANAGED TO TONE THEM DOWN TO A PALE MAUVE IN MY SKETCH
AND DOWNGRADE THE BOOB SOCKS
STILL SCARY
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Your comments about the hovercraft amused me. Nothing is really dramatic with a hovercraft, it is just comical.
I find the comments about the 'monsters' highly interesting though. I mean, sometimes there is a bit of an explanation for why all the monsters everywhere, but this one is much more interesting. Imagine! They're just ordinary wild creatures who normally wouldn't attack anyone (mind you I can't imagine that antlion as a harmless creature).
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hovercraft.
Hovercraft?
No, you're right.
This is adorable and I think I might have to stop reading it because it's looking as though we might have to play it.
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Several of my friends here consider it one of the two best FFs.
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"Underground?"
"How?"
"Dig a hole."
*chuckles* Good times, that SNES translation.
And I'm seriously loving Octomammoth's troll-y new face.