seventhe | FFIV, FFV, FFVI Oh My!

So to make myself concentrate on my homework, I'm leaving this entry open to play around with while I bang my head against EXCEL a little more. I recently have been playing FFIV Advance (GBA game, which my DS will play (yay!)), and yesterday while at the mall I found and purchased both FFV and FFVI Advance. Hooray!

I spent almost all day on Friday playing FFIV. (

bottle_of_shine,

justira, I bet I am totally ahead of both of you now.) I'm falling in love with this game all over again, really. I had forgotten just how much I love these characters, and just how much this game makes me totally nostalgic for fourth and fifth grade, and my brother, and that kid I had a crush on that lent me this game and then never saw me again because I was suddenly too busy, and then renting it from our local Wegmans every time Mum and Dad wanted to spend an evening out together, because we couldn't afford it at the tender ages of like ten and eight or whateverthehell we were.

Look, yeah, so I have a lot of childhood riding on this game. Shut up.

I didn't really have any problems with gameplay early on in the game. It seemed fairly straightforward and easy and didn't require a ton of extra leveling. IMO they made the Dark Elf cave a ton harder than it used to be - I pretty much got my ass handed to me in that cave, although I DID manage to avoid getting a Game Over by simply using the bad-ass guys to gain a couple levels. That was probably the only real spot I had problems with - the first time I sat up and went "shit!", which of course got me laughed at by other members of the house.

Now that I'm moving along in the story (I believe I'm about to hit the Sealed Cave, which was one of my favorite places to level in the original game) I am finding enemies to be getting harder. Especially boss battles. I just got out of the Tower of Bab-Il, I believe, and the guys in there could be pretty tricky if you didn't pay a lot of attention. I used one of those save points to level-grind a little bit, though, so I'm not too worried (yet).

I'm of course waiting for Rydia to learn Osmose, which basically makes her magic free and makes her way more hard-core in battle (at least Rosa has "Aim" >.>). I'm one of those people who hates using Ethers - which of course means that I struggle the entire game to over-use Save Points and such and then the final battle comes and I have like 42 Ethers I don't even need any more and what the fuck. Yes, I'm trying to get over it, but gameplay-wise it makes more sense to get Osmose for Rydia and let her use that constantly, meaning Rosa can have the Ethers instead if she wants them.

It kind of makes me cry how long it takes Rosa and Rydia to level, too. I WANT MY MAGIC USERS *whines*

Enough about gameplay, though. It's interesting watching the storyline again. One of the hugest things that stood out for me this time is how little attention everyone pays to Cecil becoming a Paladin. So you've got this major character transformation, right, dark into light, and so much that Square made him a brand new little avatar and a whole bunch of new sprites. And yet, no one says anything in the game.

Cecil saves Rosa in Zot, and she recognizes him immediately, and doesn't even comment on his new look and/or occupation and/or the fact that he can cast White Magic now. Now, you could argue this away by saying either "Well, Rosa loves Cecil, of course she knew there was good in him, and of course she is going to recognize him" or "Well, Kain and Golbez were stalking Cecil magically, and they must have let it slip that he became a Paladin - so she can't really be that surprised." And I guess it's probably a combination of both -- but, like, wouldn't you think there would be one comment from the woman who loves him about his new Paladin-y goodness?
Just makes me want to write that Cecil/Rosa fic more.

Kain, his best friend, never says a word about it. Again, Kain and Golbez could have been spying on Cecil, so Kain may not have felt it necessary to express surprise at it, but... even when he regains his "own mind", he's still not "Hey way to go on that Paladin thing."

Edward and Yang - both of whom last saw Cecil as a Dark Knight on a boat - both recognize him immediately, and also don't say a WORD about "Hey so where did that dark armor go?"

Baron - when you go back to Baron, everybody in the castle recognizes Cecil. No one says anything about HEY WEREN'T YOU A DARK KNIGHT BEFORE.

Rydia. Now, here's another one of the character transformations - young to old, the actual path of growing up, again so significant to the game that Square made her a brand new avatar and set of sprites as well. And when Rydia comes back to the party, there's actually discussion and explanation of this - she says, I grew up in the Land of Summons, and I lost my ability to use White Magic. And she says nothing about how much Cecil has changed, either. Now anybody else you could kind of maybe be like "Well OK so becoming a Paladin is big news and there was a lot of gossip that Yang/Edward/Baron heard" but Rydia was just established as being in the Land of Summon Monsters so how in the world would she know? And why is she not surprised?

I realize that this is all really Square's fault - they figure the player is in Cecil's POV and probably they don't want to totally re-hash a major plot point over and over, but it's interesting. Did everybody know that Cecil had this light in him?

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

OMG YOU USE ITEMS THE WAY I DO. By which i mean not using them. OMG BRAIN TWIN HOW DID IT TAKE ME SO LONG TO FIND YOU, WHAT.

OK. End capslock.

So, I really think that a lot of that got sacrificed to the god of "Get it out the door in time" (see also: Xenogears) and the rest got sacrificed to not wanting to rehash it, but I truly wish they'd done more with it. I also think that, given the sophistication level of games at the time and plots at the time, it may not have been considered? Remember that FF is often just...just.... it's the "You seem trustworthy, join us!" problem when one encounters new party members in dungeons. They improved on it in FF6, with everyone questioning Celes, and I'm wondering if it was just a question of the sophistication problem?

HAHAHAHA 99 ETHER CLUB UNITE!!

Yeah, I can totally see that; I mean, with FFIV the player is Cecil and so the player knows what happened with Cecil and I think that the game designers were probably like "Well the player obviously knows... so let's say all the other characters know too" or something. XD

# Just makes me want to write that Cecil/Rosa fic more.

The answer is yes.

~Cendri

I know. Damn you and your shiny icons.

I always thought Rydia had some way of seeing everything that happened, otherwise it's just like

Rydia: LOL WUT ARE YOU GUYS DOING IN THE DWARF CASTLE? I CAME HERE FOR TEA!

The game does a terrible job of things like that. Rosa gets nothing about how she got to Kaipo from Baron or what the trip itself was like for her, Rydia gets no real explanation of how she knew Cecil and co. would be in the dwarf castle and need her help, etc.

Speaking of, they didn't say much about the crystals either. I think there's potential there. Eight crystals lead to the activation of the Giant. One controls the Lunar Whale. One makes Zemus show his true form. It's clear that there's more to the crystals than meets the eye, but they get no real mention.

Oh god, now I'm thinking of FFIV-2 where Rosa, Rydia and some new girl go on crystal-hunting adventures that make them change clothes to use new skills. SAVE MY BRAIN.

IT COULD BE POROM. YOU KNOW IT. ROSA, RYDIA, AND POROM GO ON ADVENTURES AND GET LOTS OF CUTE OUTFITS.

I love this idea so much!!

I know, I know, but I felt like Porom would break the FFX-2 theme of "three hot chicks, one of them is completely random and new for no reason whatsoever." :P

WHY DO WE KEEP COMING UP WITH GOOD FIC IDEAS1111

THIS IS A GOOD POINT. Hmmm... how about a random girl with a mysterious past that ends up being from the moon??

CECIL'S SISTER. HAHAHAHA.

NOW WE MUST WRITE THIS THING

So, we have Tellah in Rosa's body and RR to write! I THINK WE HAVE ENOUGH MATERIAL TO LAST THE REST OF THE YEAR.

SERIOUSLY ESPECIALLY SINCE I CAN NEVER FIND TIME TO DO ANYTHING.

I am holding you to this, though. XDDD

What have I gotten myself into?

Oh wait, that's right, I've gotten myself into AWESOMENESS.

RYDIA AS A WHITE MAGE AND ROSA AS A SUMMONER. OMGWHAT?!

This is when I wish I could draw because Rydia in a cute little white mage costume and Rosa with a summoner's horn like FFV or FFIX would be so cute.

I actually have a picture of Rosa and Rydia in the clothes for their classes, ganked from a Japanese site.

Awww! They look so cute!! Silly people with real art talent. XD

Japanese sites have all sorts of coolness with art. :)

Seeing that actually makes me wonder why they chose to design summoners with a horn. IT MUST BE AN ANTENNA. A SUMMON ANTENNA.

Hahaha! "Rydia to Bahamut! Come in, Bahamut!"

I THINK WE HAVE THE OPENING TO OUR RR STORY!

Err, there's supposed to be "insert letter" with brackets around it after RR.

"What's your status?"

"Disasterrific!!"

And then Rydia would refer to Rosa as "Rosie!"

Grumpy as-of-yet-unnamed 3rd female character: Whatever.

YES!

I wish I could think of something witty to add, but I'm off to work for a few hours, then come back and laze around.

O hai, sneaking in to add that Rydia should find a sphere showing a red-headed sarcastic man in a cage and OMG she must find this man.

And then there obv. must be a subplot with button mashing massage therapy.

Reno is in the cage and Rude is poking him with a stick because he has been possessed by ~~Shuyin~~ Sephiroth Y/Y?

I got so good at hoarding items in RPGs that I rarely ever need them, and have them on hand if I do. Same goes for conserving magic.

... I run away a lot.

I've been running away as well, mostly when MPs are low and I don't want to spend Ethers/Potions/whatever to keep HP up. damn the tower of Bab-Il was hard

fitting, don't you think? I DID THE EXACT SAME THING (bought IV, V and VI GBA versions at a gamestop) EXCEPT I STARTED PLAYING VI FIRST LOL :D FLOATING CONTINENT FTW

HAHAHA, FUNNY ISN'T IT. I bought IV first because it was only $20 off of Amazon and the other ones were more expensive. Then Jeff saw them in a store for cheaper and basically I went GIMMEEEE and now I will probably fail classes. WHEEEE

FFIV, FFV, FFVI Oh My!

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THIS IS FROM JIM

Re: THIS IS FROM JIM