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yeah the lack of a sick final dungeon theme is unfortunate, even FFXV had one!
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Jul 8, 2023 23:02
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To be fair though there isn't really a final dungeon. It's sick sky battle -> crash into hallway -> stumble 200 feet into core.
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Jul 8, 2023 23:03
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fridge corn posted:Oh, that all seems a bit flimsy. My reading of the epilogue book was that it wasn't written by anyone, and that the events of the game we just played were possibly the fictitious contents of the book, though not that that matters specifically, but speaking more to the nature of fiction and stories. The two children were obvious stand ins for clive and joshua, who were very much enamoured with the book, like many long time fans of final fantasy were of the games we played as kids. The book was called "Final Fantasy", which made me think about a lot of the comments made by Yoshi P and stuff about this new final fantasy game being for everyone, long time fans and first timers. It seems to me it was some sort of meta commentary on the nature of Final Fantasy as a franchise and the power it has as a vehicle for stories that inspire us. Or something jumping onto an entirely different thematic track like that is one step removed from saying it was all a dream, not to mention the soppiness of it would be seriously at odds with the story it tells beforehand every new final fantasy touts that it's for fans and first-timers, but even the patchiest of them don't toss their entire plot into the wastebasket post-credit to say "golly, aren't stories just the most neato thing"
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Jul 8, 2023 23:07
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That's another aspect of the game that sort of reminds me of FFXII. That's another one that doesn't strictly have a final dungeon. The Pharos is a very late-game dungeon that sort of fills the role of a final dungeon, but while it's the last story dungeon it's not what people generally mean by final dungeon because it doesn't lead up to the final bosses. The last location is mostly just a boss rush.
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Jul 8, 2023 23:08
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to be fair, given the way 16's "dungeons" are laid out i wasn't really aching for yet another crystalline blue gauntlet of large combat arenas
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Jul 8, 2023 23:10
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Yeah the dungeon design is one of the many things about 16 that makes me have mixed feelings about the game. FF14's dungeon structure is cool for 14, because it makes doing dungeons with randoms as non-frustrating as possible, but I'm not a huge fan of it for a single-player game.
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Jul 8, 2023 23:12
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Oxxidation posted:jumping onto an entirely different thematic track like that is one step removed from saying it was all a dream, not to mention the soppiness of it would be seriously at odds with the story it tells beforehand Lol good lord please get a grip. The book is called "Final Fantasy". But please, keep concocting ever convoluted machinations of how various characters could have written the book and why
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Jul 8, 2023 23:12
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Clive all but looks at the camera and says "Final Fantasy" during the finale and it rules. One weird thing I noticed all game is you never get to just hang out and explore ANY of the big cities. They're all dungeons.
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Jul 8, 2023 23:15
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Harrow posted:Yeah the dungeon design is one of the many things about 16 that makes me have mixed feelings about the game. FF14's dungeon structure is cool for 14, because it makes doing dungeons with randoms as non-frustrating as possible, but I'm not a huge fan of it for a single-player game. I think it would bother me if it was meaningfully different from how dungeons are laid out in almost every RPG these days, but honestly it has been a long time since we had a JRPG with really good dungeons.
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Jul 8, 2023 23:19
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fridge corn posted:Lol good lord please get a grip. The book is called "Final Fantasy". But please, keep concocting ever convoluted machinations of how various characters could have written the book and why I think Joshua wrote it, just like it says on the book. Is this controversial...? I thought it was kind of obvious that the point was that life continued on just like Clive said it was and we were seeing something far in the future in a world without eikons or magic weighing it down, but just proof that Ultima was wrong and poo poo could be OK.
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Jul 8, 2023 23:20
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Ibram Gaunt posted:I think Joshua wrote it, just like it says on the book. Is this controversial...? I thought it was kind of obvious that the point was that life continued on just like Clive said it was and we were seeing something far in the future in a world without eikons or magic weighing it down, but just proof that Ultima was wrong and poo poo could be OK. I am pretty sure that pretty much everyone assumes Joshua or Clive write the book. Like I am 95% sure the kid we see at the end is just supposed to be the (literal or thematic) reincarnation of Clive into a happier world.
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Jul 8, 2023 23:22
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Harrow posted:Yeah the dungeon design is one of the many things about 16 that makes me have mixed feelings about the game. FF14's dungeon structure is cool for 14, because it makes doing dungeons with randoms as non-frustrating as possible, but I'm not a huge fan of it for a single-player game. all the ff14 expansions have great final plot dungeons though, if FF16 had a final dungeon as good as Reactor/Ala Mhigo/Amaurot/Dead Ends it would be real cool
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Jul 8, 2023 23:22
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ImpAtom posted:I am pretty sure that pretty much everyone assumes Joshua or Clive write the book. Yeah that was basically how I saw it. Also was anyone else surprised Metia (or however its spelt, the red star) basically wasn't relevant? Not in a bad way, just I expected us to have to go there for the final area/battle haha.
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Jul 8, 2023 23:24
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ImpAtom posted:I am pretty sure that pretty much everyone assumes Joshua or Clive write the book. That I definitely agree with. Whether Joshua or Clive (or neither) wrote the book, I don't know, but it's definitely clear that the kids at the end are meant to represent the life the two brothers could have had in a better world. Whether it's literal reincarnation or thematic, it still definitely lands that way. Really the post-credits scene is the one part of the ending I actually like, it's a nice button to end on
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Jul 8, 2023 23:25
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Ibram Gaunt posted:Yeah that was basically how I saw it. i'm not remotely thrilled that it somehow became relevant in the last fifteen seconds. i don't think anyone even mentions it past the prologue, we just get the occasional meaningful camera pan up to it
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Jul 8, 2023 23:25
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Flavahbeast posted:all the ff14 expansions have great final plot dungeons though, if FF16 had a final dungeon as good as Reactor/Ala Mhigo/Amaurot/Dead Ends it would be real cool The final dungeon was the last mothercrystal. It had a lot of focus on big epic events like stopping the Meteor and a pretty big boss fight. Right after you finish it you unlock what would amount to the last trial. Harrow posted:That I definitely agree with. Whether Joshua or Clive (or neither) wrote the book, I don't know, but it's definitely clear that the kids at the end are meant to represent the life the two brothers could have had in a better world. Whether it's literal reincarnation or thematic, it still definitely lands that way. Dion gets reincarnated as a dog! Bahamut is such a good name for a mutt.
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Jul 8, 2023 23:25
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Oxxidation posted:i'm not remotely thrilled that it somehow became relevant in the last fifteen seconds. i don't think anyone even mentions it past the prologue, we just get the occasional meaningful camera pan up to it Eh. Unless I missed something I don't think it really hurts the story at all?
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Jul 8, 2023 23:28
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Metia isn't relevant, it's purely thematic. I don't really love what it was seeming to signify, but it was completely fine to use it in the way they did. It didn't need anything else.
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Jul 8, 2023 23:35
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Ibram Gaunt posted:Eh. Unless I missed something I don't think it really hurts the story at all? metia flickering out is treated as the big confirmation that clive didn't survive the final confrontation. regardless of whether that's actually the case, it totally upends the tone that the ending had seemingly been working toward up to that point and it had next to no grounding for it. the most obvious parallel was cowboy bebop, but that had plenty of foreshadowing that indicated to the audience the star going out was probably ill tidings for the protagonist's health. this was just "remember that ominous red star we haven't brought up in thirty hours? it's dim now. everyone is sad"
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Jul 8, 2023 23:36
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Clive (Not) A Live
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Jul 8, 2023 23:42
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maybe if we had seen someone else recover from the crystal blight but the man no longer has mythos juice and all his priming is catching up to him in a big way all we are is, like, dust in the wind, bro. or dust in the ocean in this case.
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Jul 9, 2023 00:12
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People do survive the Crystals' Curse, just not if it petrifies their whole body. Jill, for example, is showing symptoms of the Curse but because she stops using her powers she's not going to die of it. She won't get better, but it won't kill her. The main disagreement when it comes to Clive, I think, is whether the Curse is spreading to overtake his whole body, or whether it stops at his hand. We don't really get to see enough to know either way. Either way, channeling Ultima's power can't have been good for him.
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Jul 9, 2023 00:19
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Some people wanted Metia to literally be Dalamud just like they wanted the Fallen to literally be the Allagans and are mad neither of those panned out. Anyway I legitimately do not get the "CLIVE IS ALIVE" thing. There is a close up shot of his hand limply hitting the ground and another one of his eyes slowly closing. In any form of visual media these are signs that scream "this motherfucker is dead" The entire counterargument feels like people grasping at straws at something they personally don't want to be true. Blockhouse fucked around with this message at 00:21 on Jul 9, 2023 |
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Jul 9, 2023 00:19
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Blockhouse posted:Anyway I legitimately do not get the "CLIVE IS ALIVE" thing. There is a close up shot of his hand limply hitting the ground and another one of his eyes slowly closing. In any form of visual media these are signs that scream "this motherfucker is dead" The entire counterargument feels like people grasping at straws at something they personally don't want to be true. Again I think it's because it feels dissonant with Clive's character development so it prompts people to actively search for reasons why what we see happen isn't what really happened. My personal read is that Clive is likely dead (the lyrics of the song that plays over the ending certainly point to this, too) but it's just ambiguous enough that if he showed up in a sequel alive and one-handed, it wouldn't be implausible.
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Jul 9, 2023 00:23
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He could have some sort of metal prosthetic hand that turns into a canon in the sequel.
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Jul 9, 2023 00:27
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Sakurazuka posted:He could have some sort of metal prosthetic hand that turns into a canon in the sequel. As if he isn't Mega Man enough already
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Jul 9, 2023 00:28
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Blockhouse posted:Some people wanted Metia to literally be Dalamud just like they wanted the Fallen to literally be the Allagans and are mad neither of those panned out. everything in the ending says that he dies. many things before and after the ending say that he lives. this is the issue FFXV ended with noctis and possibly his companions dying and most people were fine with it because "noblesse oblige taken to martyrdom" was one of the very rickety plot's few central ideas - even if the conclusion was expected, it was done with panache. clive's fate isn't even a swerve, it's a tire-screeching 180° with a smash to black just before the crash
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Jul 9, 2023 00:30
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Personally, I don't understand how you could say there's any ambiguity at all over Clive's fate, as much as I don't like it. The only thing that could even possibly suggest that he lives is that he told Harpocrates (I think it was Harpocrates, anyway) he would write that book, but in concert with everything else there's just not enough there to buy into that. This isn't (spoilers for an RPG from 2006) Tales of the Abyss, where depending on what you see there's a lot of different tells no matter which side you come down on, it legitimately just doesn't feel ambiguous.
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Jul 9, 2023 00:30
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The lead up to the final crystal being the last dungeon kind of sucks because it was just a bunch of identical ugly stone courtyards but origin looked like a neat place to explore. Actually a bit disappointed by the exploration in general. Someone else said it’s a shame we only get to see the cities as dungeons, because they all have really nice visual design in cutscenes, but we only get to explore them as they’re crumbling apart in gameplay, if we explore them at all.
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Jul 9, 2023 00:31
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Arist posted:Personally, I don't understand how you could say there's any ambiguity at all over Clive's fate, as much as I don't like it. The only thing that could even possibly suggest that he lives is that he told Harpocrates (I think it was Harpocrates, anyway) he would write that book, but in concert with everything else there's just not enough there to buy into that. Another part of the "Clive wrote the book" theory is that he narrates the beginning and ending, and his beginning narration sounds like it could be the opening to a book. But that could also be because he's the main character of the book.
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Jul 9, 2023 00:33
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Oxxidation posted:everything in the ending says that he dies. many things before and after the ending say that he lives. this is the issue This is a really weird way to look at it I think. It was a fine conclusion for his character, don't think it was really out there or a 180 swerve.
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Jul 9, 2023 00:38
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It’s another funny gently caress you to Ultima because it implies Ultima would not have survived his own Raise spell.
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Jul 9, 2023 00:41
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Ibram Gaunt posted:This is a really weird way to look at it I think. It was a fine conclusion for his character, don't think it was really out there or a 180 swerve. the central idea of Clive’s arc is that his martyr complex is unfair to those around him, that he deserves to live, that others’ faith that he will live is what sets him apart from tyrants like ultima, and that his whole quest is little more than a farce if he dies. then he dies.
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Jul 9, 2023 00:43
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SettingSun posted:It’s another funny gently caress you to Ultima because it implies Ultima would not have survived his own Raise spell. bro did not stop to think things through at all in any step of his master plan
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Jul 9, 2023 00:44
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ultima’s race self-crystallized so I think his biology could have handled the throughput better than Clive’s did
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Jul 9, 2023 00:48
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Given that Joshua explicitly worried about the sort of world they'd be leaving behind and the two of them openly acknowledged all they'd leave would be a 'withered, godless world where our new freedom maybe become a chain in itself" I'm not sure Clive living is that much of a better ending if all magic is immediately and totally gone and Mid is getting cold feet about introducing her new inventions right when they're most needed with the downfall of the entire basis of their social and economic system. Like they say outright they're worried life is going to suck and be miserable for the rest of everyone's natural lives and that it might take generations or centuries for life to become bearable again. That might be why the writers skipped to a distant epilogue - though it certainly doesn't bode well for any member of the cast, in favor of abstract statements about Human Nature. And given that one of the key strengths of this game is less the world building than the specific characters we see, it can be kind of a bummer or very easy to implicitly read "and then they all struggled and starved for the rest of their lives in a withered and blighted world" into the ending. I do wonder if a 17-2 would even be possible, let alone what they would do with it.
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Jul 9, 2023 00:58
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Oxxidation posted:ultima’s race self-crystallized so I think his biology could have handled the throughput better than Clive’s did The problem is that Ultima didn't have a biology anymore. They ditched their bodies. That is why they needed Clive in the first place because they needed a physical form to actually cast the spell and they didn't have the ability to make one that didn't instantly turn into ash when fed too much aether. Every time we fight Ultima he's either possessing a corpse or it is occurring inside Clive's brain.
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Jul 9, 2023 00:59
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Yeah it's likely Ultima would have cast Raise, burned out Clive's body, and then just ditched it.
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Jul 9, 2023 01:04
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Oxxidation posted:metia flickering out is treated as the big confirmation that clive didn't survive the final confrontation. regardless of whether that's actually the case, it totally upends the tone that the ending had seemingly been working toward up to that point and it had next to no grounding for it. the most obvious parallel was cowboy bebop, but that had plenty of foreshadowing that indicated to the audience the star going out was probably ill tidings for the protagonist's health. this was just "remember that ominous red star we haven't brought up in thirty hours? it's dim now. everyone is sad" It could be that Metia going out represented Ifrit dying and people just misinterpreted it in-universe.
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Jul 9, 2023 01:17
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metia going out could have represented the moon turning to cheese, we wouldn't know either way because the only information we were ever given as to its nature was that it was a messenger between mankind's wishes and the moon. since any lore related to its significance is so flimsy, there's also very little significance to it going out, which is why it's so jarring that the cast suddenly takes it as a given that it means clive was extinguished along with it like we could plot a line going from "metia = messenger between man and moon" to "moon = ultima" as an equivalent to a higher power and ifrit is therefore the "messenger " in question, but the text doesn't put in any of that effort and you need the script to do at least some work to draw conclusions off of it like that. as it stands, all we have are vibes
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Jul 9, 2023 01:23
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