mad825 said:
No, it assumes that Edea kills squall. From then on, reality becomes more twisted more incomprehensible. The theory is really hoping it to be a Japanese version of Jacob's Ladder...Spoiler alert.
"Faceless Squall" is meant to symbolise he's accepted his death then goes to heaven (the ending) as opposed to being stuck in a state of limbo.
I know what it assumes, and the evidence they mostly gave was about how much more "fantastical and surreal" the game became however you also have to remember that any final fantasy becomes more fantastical and surreal as it goes on, remember FF4's trip to the moon? FF6's esper story, Tidus finding out his own father is a combination of a fish and godzilla?
This is often the problem with these sorts of theories they often forget the game has an ending cinematic AFTER the freaky stuff with Squall surviving in the living world, signified by the fact there are ONLY living character still there eg. Laguna and Elone are still alive, but Raine (Squalls mother) is not.
But after mulling over that "faceless squall" I think I know exactly what it is; If you remember the mechanics of time compression the idea was that after it stops you are flung through time to a random point, the idea being that you hold a mental link to where you want to be (The main cast all holding onto their home time with each other) Squall for some reason loses that connection and gets flung back in time along with ultimecia to meet a young edea and ends up getting lost in time. As he tries to get back that imgae of rinoa in their first meeting his memories become harder and harder to focus on until he loses the memory of his own identity cauing him to collapse in a wasteland that is probably a place outside of time itself. Rinoa is the one to help in out by maintaining her link to him and pulling him out of it.
Ok question, did you figure out how to wtfpwn every fight by using the Aura+reselect attack until you got a Limit attack every turn? and did you farm Siefer for 300 Auras to make it happen?
Actually I would sometimes use the "item->magic" ability to synthesis my own auras. Aura is one of the best junctionable magics in the game so getting it asap is a must.
I don't know how you were playing but the card game was actually entirely optional, even if it did come with some great rewards. Unless you were using the wrong button to talk to everyone and you were just opening the card battle option to every NPC.
Then again I really liked triple triad, though tetra master in 9 was a mess just far too many rule to keep track of in one attle and the tutorial for it was terrible.
By the time you reached the ending castle you really should've gotten the encounter-half/none ability. but if you're talking about the boss battles to get back your abilities I can understand your annoyance but then again it's one of those things you CAN miss if you want the final boss to be more of a challenge.
Boost is probably another flaw I'd admit the game has, it's a nice mechanic the first time but after the 500th you're easily sick of it.
Okay parts I disliked and would change to fix? Well I would've actually removed anything linked to the "pocket station" a peripheral that never left Japan but stil had a couple of extra item-based summons attacked to it (Moomba, mog and chocobo) The PC version I'm told has a Pocket station emulator inbuilt but I'd suggest modding the mp3s to replace the midi music.
But my biggest fix would be to remove drawing and or at least give a much easier way to get spells. Perhaps rework it to be closer to the materia system but having the spells still junction directly to stats.
If you had to choose only one, which of the following characters would you save from certain death?
Squall, Quistis, Raijin, Laguna, the hotdogs.
"I'm really glad you saved me ya know?"
What do you think of the Rinoa is Ultimacia theory?
This one is much more likely, though again it doesn't quote fit the tone of the entire game, wings and feathers have always been a symbol of power in the FF series so it's probably just that all sorceresses have some sort of wing motif whether it's overt or not is down to their personalities.
{quote]I didn't mind 8 and I was mostly liking it until the whole thing with them all being orphans who grew up together but got amnesia, all that stuff was just where the game lost me. The rest I was mostly okay with...
HOWEVER on a personal level I disliked 2 things:
1.That there wasn't any development for Selphie other than fall in love with a man and world revolves around him, to me she was the character that felt the coolest from the fact that she didn't use what would be considered a typical weapon in a RPG the fact that she wasn't using a sword, a whip, her fist, a gun, a boomerang, etc. made her stand out and I also like how her character held a happy go lucky exterior while hiding her true self full of sadness, she just felt like an interesting character that would at some point let i go and grow and all that other crap that comes with self improvement stories... they may be cliche but dammit if I enjoy them
2.the magic/summon system, I hated having to draw magic and I hated having to pump my summons before they did any real damage and even then they all became useless the minute your attacks started doing higher amounts of damage and magic was completly useless. Just spam hero drinks and lunar curtains, that's all you need to win aany battle.[/quote]
The amnesia thing can be seen as a little cliche, however you could also see it as a point about the toll any kind of weapon or enhancement has when it's used for fighting. each fight loses a little piece of themselves as they go on. As for all coming from the same orphanage, that's just leading into the destiny that they share from the time loop later in the game.
1-I'd say Selphie probably has the smallest arc as she's also the most well adjusted of the group, and hence her arc is more about trying to put together this garden show and trying to be a responsible person (and feeling that disappointment as that starts to fall apart)
2-well yeah but then I've adressed that.
Though I will say the designs of some of the staple summons were some of the best I've seen. I've never been a big fan of Ramuh so Quezacotl was a nice change. There was a simple elegance to most of their designs before they slowly became a little overly designed for my liking.
