|
There are plenty of Final Fantasys that feature traditional pastoral villages while also having airships etc, it's not unreasonable to think that the post-credits society might have them too. That said, I could have sworn the airship engine has some kind of aether/magic component so it might be a moot point anyway. I found the ending bittersweet, but I think saying the world is condemned to centuries of suffering is maybe stretching it. The plant and forge sidequests imply that Valistheans basically don't understand agriculture or, like, basic science without magic, so while there's some implication that things will be difficult short-term it's largely a question of adaptation. Ultima just lays it on thick because he's a weenie who's used to magicking away all his problems.
|
#
?
Jul 11, 2023 05:12
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 10, 2024 23:52 |
|
|
PsychoInternetHawk posted:There are plenty of Final Fantasys that feature traditional pastoral villages while also having airships etc, it's not unreasonable to think that the post-credits society might have them too. That said, I could have sworn the airship engine has some kind of aether/magic component so it might be a moot point anyway. IIRC no, it's all tech. The most fantastical parts of it rely on burning mythril as fuel and using Fallen materials for the casing, but those are just regular (for a given meaning of regular) materials, not magical.
|
|
#
?
Jul 11, 2023 05:18
|
|
|
Ibblebibble posted:IIRC no, it's all tech. The most fantastical parts of it rely on burning mythril as fuel and using Fallen materials for the casing, but those are just regular (for a given meaning of regular) materials, not magical. 16-2: Oh no we have polluted the planet with burning too much mythril and now we need magic to clean it up!
|
|
#
?
Jul 11, 2023 05:26
|
|
|
FF7 ended with oil being the clean replacement for evil mako (nuclear) energy.
|
|
#
?
Jul 11, 2023 05:30
|
|
|
FF16-2 should continue borrowing from western media and just be an FPS where you play as Gav, with a gun
|
|
#
?
Jul 11, 2023 05:33
|
|
|
Clarste posted:FF7 ended with oil being the clean replacement for evil mako (nuclear) energy. A message that has most definitely, hilariously, not aged well!
|
|
#
?
Jul 11, 2023 05:33
|
|
|
IDK if you can say it hasn’t aged well so much as it was always kind of absurd. It’s not like oil wasn’t widely known to be awful for the environment in the mid 90s.Jetrauben posted:There's some folks who think that whole sequence was at least somewhat contributed to by Taro apparently? Due to the use of flashback and such? I immediately tried to see if he had any credits in the game but found nothing. I think it’s just homage. He’s friends with a lot of the devs on this game though, so friendly tribute or uncredited ideas given in conversation are both possible. Bugblatter fucked around with this message at 05:39 on Jul 11, 2023 |
|
#
?
Jul 11, 2023 05:37
|
|
|
Bugblatter posted:IDK if you can say it hasn’t aged well so much as it was always kind of absurd. It’s not like oil wasn’t widely known to be awful for the environment in the mid 90s. I meant more the whole "nuclear power bad" given it's often advocated as a greener energy source.
|
|
#
?
Jul 11, 2023 05:57
|
|
|
Clarste posted:FF7 ended with oil being the clean replacement for evil mako (nuclear) energy. FF7 didn’t exactly end that way tbf. It ended with a bunch of dogs running around the ruins of Midgar.
|
|
#
?
Jul 11, 2023 06:09
|
|
|
OH! Completely insane they didn't turn the hideaway into a functioning airship. What an amazing red herring. Thought Giant Airships were a staple of FF.
|
|
#
?
Jul 11, 2023 06:41
|
|
|
SyntheticPolygon posted:FF7 didn’t exactly end that way tbf. It ended with a bunch of dogs running around the ruins of Midgar. It's honestly an even vaguer version of FFXVI's ending
|
|
#
?
Jul 11, 2023 06:45
|
|
|
No shame in copying the goat and coming up short.
|
|
#
?
Jul 11, 2023 06:50
|
|
|
I did find it fun that Hugo apparently got the idea to start eating Drake's Fang because he already liked to scarf down shards of crystal as a regular snack. I guess being the Dominant of Titan gives you a taste for that delicious magic rock crunch?
|
|
#
?
Jul 11, 2023 06:56
|
|
|
Darth Walrus posted:I did find it fun that Hugo apparently got the idea to start eating Drake's Fang because he already liked to scarf down shards of crystal as a regular snack. I guess being the Dominant of Titan gives you a taste for that delicious magic rock crunch? Conspicuous consumption, I suppose.
|
|
#
?
Jul 11, 2023 07:01
|
|
|
Just finished the game about 30 minutes ago! I'm excited to go back and finally read this thread and see if people felt the same way I do about it. I thought FFXVI was pretty amazing. A fun battle system, some of the most spectacular boss fights in video games as a whole, a phenomenal soundtrack, really enjoyable characters - I don't think there was a protagonist, antagonist, or side character that I didn't think was pretty well put together, a bunch of cool systems that contributed to some excellent world building (Active Time Lore should be in every game), and a narrative that, while a little disjointed at times, was satisfying, exciting, and interesting. ...until the last 1% of the game. Killing off Dion, Joshua, and Clive is so narratively unsatisfying for each of them. The game soars high and completely fails to stick the landing by either blowing, disregarding, or just outright ignoring each of these characters' personal plots. Dion wishes to atone for what he's done to his kingdom and so he gets sad about it and wishes for death. Then he dies. The end. No moral. Of the three, Dion's entire story is undone by dying. He NEVER actually atones for what Ultima makes him do. Instead, in dying, he avoids atonement. Proper atonement would be living, rebuilding, and attempting to repay what you can never repay. Dion goes from being a likeable and standout character to being utterly pointless. He doesn't matter in the story at all. Joshua's personal narrative is actually mostly over earlier in the game. His goal is to try to bring down Ultima in secret on his own but he realizes in the fires of Bahamut that working with his brother and being with his family a far better way to battle Ultima. He has learned his lesson and becomes a stalwart second to Clive - no longer needing a shield and in fact being Clive's protector for most of the story. Joshua's death is senseless. I can already see the argument that "there are senseless deaths all the time in real life" but this isn't real life and real life isn't about creating satisfying narratives. Josh dies for no reason - to make Clive mad maybe? I dunno - and even if the implication is that Clive heals him and he lives to write a book or something, none of that is directly shown and instead the last we see of Josh is as a corpse. Clive dying is equally terrible. He represents the ideological shift of Cid from "help people die on their own terms" to "help people live on their own terms." He represents this shift so much that he embodies and becomes Cid after the original's death. So Clive fights for a world where everyone can live without being shackled - whether as actual slaves or slaves of a god. He... never achieves this. Slavery is, as far as anyone knows, still a thing in Valisthea. A few places started being nice to Bearers but that's it. And he kills Ultima so humanity is not a slave to his plans... only to die (assumedly). Clive fights for a world he doesn't get to live in - which is a sad ending and would be bittersweet but fine, except for the previous two deaths. Instead he breaks his promise to Jill, makes Torgal cry, and leaves his boyfriend Gav behind. Byron loses his family all over again. Mid loses another Cid. Clive regresses, dying instead of getting the chance to live on his own terms. It's the only death that makes a little sense but it's still a worse ending than just... Clive comes home flying on Bahamut. So many of the 3D era games have either bleak or bad endings. X is bleak, but earned. XII avoids this. XIII is bleak and bad. XV is the bleakest. And XVI is just... nothing. I'm so disappointed by this ending because I loved the rest of the game so, so much. Still a great game, 8/10 for sure. But a better ending would've made it one of the best games in the series. Now I'm not sure I even want to do FF mode. Blah.
|
|
#
?
Jul 11, 2023 07:17
|
|
|
Taking time to digest the ending and read through the thread here has helped me see that I do appreciate aspects of the ending. The post credits scene in specific is good because it does show that humans persist and the hardships of the game's story are a thing of the past, and that is the most important thing to remember. Whether Clive lives or dies, he did achieve his ultimate goal and made a world where people can live and die on their own terms. More immediate information on the status of Clive and Joshua would be appreciated, but given the book's appearance in the ending, it's assured that Clive (and/or) Joshua survive. There are plenty of people arguing against the idea of either surviving, but the book's existence doesn't make sense any other way, so I'm happy to have this be my conclusion for now. Watch the FFXIV collab be Leviathan the Lost and the frozen wave near Northreach.
|
|
#
?
Jul 11, 2023 07:25
|
|
|
Obviously Dion lives, motherfucker survived a fall from space. He's fine and retired with Terence and the medicine girl just offscreen.
|
|
#
?
Jul 11, 2023 07:32
|
|
|
Lol people get so so mad when things don't turn out exactly how they want them to or if things aren't explicitly explained to them
|
|
#
?
Jul 11, 2023 08:05
|
|
|
Ambiguity and downer endings can be great, I think most of my favorite narratives have both. But they're not so great if there isn't a well-communicated thematic purpose and I haven't seen any great arguments that there is one here.
|
|
#
?
Jul 11, 2023 08:07
|
|
|
The most explicit theme of the game is interdependence and how by relying on others you can aspire to transcend destiny and fatalism. So Clive ditching Jill to go fight the big bad by himself and dying in the process absolutely sucks poo poo. Even the bros don't get to do any cool tag team moves, it blows
Mechafunkzilla fucked around with this message at 08:17 on Jul 11, 2023 |
|
#
?
Jul 11, 2023 08:14
|
|
|
it would indeed suck for the games themes if clive died good thing he survived then
|
|
#
?
Jul 11, 2023 08:21
|
|
|
I was thinking about the ending a little more and I've realised the title of the book - Final Fantasy - is the clearest evidence to me that Clive lived and wrote it, because it is a direct reference within the fiction to his final riposte to Ultima, which nobody else was even conscious for. It just doesn't make sense to me that anyone else wrote it given that.
|
|
#
?
Jul 11, 2023 08:23
|
|
|
SirSamVimes posted:it would indeed suck for the games themes if clive died as a feature in a rock garden, sure
|
|
#
?
Jul 11, 2023 08:24
|
|
|
fridge corn posted:Lol people get so so mad when things don't turn out exactly how they want them to or if things aren't explicitly explained to them It's cool that you liked it even if your stated reasons in this thread don't really make much sense narratively. Each of the three character deaths in the end went against the ethos of the character. I dunno, unless you really do think it's just a fairy tale from a children's book inside a video game disc in which case who cares I guess? Why even post? I felt the same way about this ending as I did Return to Monkey Island from earlier this year. Just a real crash landing after a great flight.
|
|
#
?
Jul 11, 2023 08:28
|
|
|
fridge corn posted:Lol people get so so mad when things don't turn out exactly how they want them to or if things aren't explicitly explained to them Aren’t you the guy who just pulled a bunch of random ideas out of a box that left everyone in the thread confused what game you played, even other people who liked the game? Idk maybe not the person to be doing narrative critique, let alone responding to other people’s ideas.
|
|
#
?
Jul 11, 2023 08:31
|
|
|
Its cool to think of art as something that exists in the real world and is interdependent with other things rather than just a self contained story but maybe I just haven't watched enough MCU films idk
|
|
#
?
Jul 11, 2023 08:50
|
|
|
fridge corn posted:Its cool to think of art as something that exists in the real world and is interdependent with other things rather than just a self contained story but maybe I just haven't watched enough MCU films idk What is this flippant rear end poo poo even a response to?
|
|
#
?
Jul 11, 2023 08:54
|
|
|
Mechafunkzilla posted:Even the bros don't get to do any cool tag team moves, it blows Does Tri-Disaster mean nothing??? I am firmly in the Clive Lives Joshua Dies camp btw
|
|
#
?
Jul 11, 2023 09:06
|
|
|
Ibblebibble posted:I am firmly in the Clive Lives Joshua Dies camp btw  One of the brothers lived to write that book under Joshua's name, and Harpocrates' final sidequest and the gift of the quill leads me to believe it was Clive, who used his brother's name to honor him, and probably to distance the book from the person who is responsible for magic going away in order to not get it burned by anyone pissed at him.
|
|
#
?
Jul 11, 2023 09:10
|
|
|
fridge corn posted:Its cool to think of art as something that exists in the real world and is interdependent with other things rather than just a self contained story but maybe I just haven't watched enough MCU films idk Maybe you could try actually contributing to the discussion instead of just passive aggressively implying that people who don't share your opinion are raging idiots that can't appreciate art or whatever.
|
|
#
?
Jul 11, 2023 09:42
|
|
|
I think it was pretty mediocre but better than XV,XIII in its Presentation but more fun to play. The combat system is simple and kinda boring,I just did a pretty set rotation that works for everything while dodging FFXIV AoEs like I have for the last 9 years. I'm glad they made this okay FFXIV single player standalone spinoff, but I have no desire to replay it or touch it ever again. You can definitely tell it's pedigree down to the dungeons being setup like FFXIV dungeons. Story in itself was ok,but it felt we took concepts from XIV and did them worse. Like the game being told by Clive?/Joshua? at the end was literally how Heavensward ended and I audibly cringed at "your fantasy will be the final one" and the book being called Final Fantasy Thank you for coming to this Wendy's . The performance was dire enough that this is the last game I play on the PS5 as well. So I guess I'm up 500 bucks once I sold the console Jack-Off Lantern fucked around with this message at 09:58 on Jul 11, 2023 |
|
#
?
Jul 11, 2023 09:54
|
|
|
Jack-Off Lantern posted:The performance was dire enough that this is the last game I play on the PS5 as well. lol
|
|
#
?
Jul 11, 2023 10:00
|
|
|
What's lol worthy about that? The console is pretty much useless to me after XVI. It's packed up and ready to be sold. Mind you I played XVI and GoW Ragnarok on it for the entirety of the last 1,5 years. They're not gonna do significant Story DLC anyhow,so
|
|
#
?
Jul 11, 2023 10:02
|
|
|
Jack-Off Lantern posted:I audibly cringed at "your fantasy will be the final one" and the book being called Final Fantasy You are welcome to your opinion but, counterpoint: this line followed directly by punching a false god in the face for 999999 damage was the most Final Fantasy thing that has ever happened and it absolutely slapped.
|
|
#
?
Jul 11, 2023 10:02
|
|
|
Jack-Off Lantern posted:What's lol worthy about that? The console is pretty much useless to me after XVI. It's packed up and ready to be sold. Oh. I misunderstood. I thought you meant the performance was so bad it was driving you to sell the console. Also what about FF7R part 2 next March? e: one of the lead producers said they would do some DLC if the sales were good. And sales were good. So I wouldn't rule out substantial dlc entirely.
|
|
#
?
Jul 11, 2023 10:05
|
|
|
CAPTAIN CAPSLOCK posted:Also what about FF7R part 2 next March? I expect the performance to be as bad as XVI if not worse,so I'll rather wait for the PC version and sell my PS5 before the Pro is out or whatever and it's worth even less. And no, you understood right, the PS5s performance in general is not what i expected so I see little to no point in buying Games for it in general seeing as I have a gaming PC edit: with this Story I don't see any significant Story DLC happening sorry. Not before a PC version is out, anyhow Jack-Off Lantern fucked around with this message at 10:08 on Jul 11, 2023 |
|
#
?
Jul 11, 2023 10:06
|
|
|
lines posted:You are welcome to your opinion but, counterpoint: this line followed directly by punching a false god in the face for 999999 damage was the most Final Fantasy thing that has ever happened and it absolutely slapped.
|
|
#
?
Jul 11, 2023 10:14
|
|
|
lines posted:You are welcome to your opinion but, counterpoint: this line followed directly by punching a false god in the face for 999999 damage was the most Final Fantasy thing that has ever happened and it absolutely slapped. I punched cooler gods with better music in XIV. Sorry. And in general had better music & cooler fights in DMC V with, again,cooler bosses.
|
|
#
?
Jul 11, 2023 10:15
|
|
|
Oh to be clear I'm also a big XIV fan and I don't necessarily disagree. Nevertheless as a moment that was really up there for me.
|
|
#
?
Jul 11, 2023 10:29
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 10, 2024 23:52 |
|
|
I quite liked the Ultima fight medley, it's up there with the best XIV boss music IMO. I like how it slowly transitions from being mostly Ultima's melody in phase 1 to being mostly Find The Flame by the final phase.
|
|
#
?
Jul 11, 2023 10:34
|
|