marchionessofmustache | (no subject) (Reply)

I finished FF9 lol. I haven't been updating because I have just been playing... I literally stayed up for like 40 hours straight doing almost nothing but playing it?? I mean I did do other things, I take breaks, but... just to do stuff like eat or whatever... I'm stressed out over the doctor thing still so getting completely absorbed in something is nice. Especially since at this point there's nothing I can do for like... a month.

Anyway, I'm getting kind of tired of typing up a bunch of stuff for all my screencaps so I'm not going to post as many caps this time... and since I've mostly been talking about what I like about this game, I guess I should probably talk about what I don't like, too XD So I will mention that... as much as I really love FF9 (it's one of my fav games of all time, for a long time I said it was my #1 fav game).

Anyway, instead of trying to be analytical and stuff I'm just going to basically post caps of the best parts and characters/monsters I think are cool or hot or whatever and fangirl over it LOL

OK so last time I left off I was running around Alexandria doing subquesty crap -- all the card battles I got in gave me the beat 100 people in cards achievement yay, so no more cards required for me XD Since this is mostly a "play the game again and get achievements" run, I don't think I'm going to go after all the cards this time, even though I have collected a lot of cards already. But this is far from being a perfect save, so I don't think I'll bother. I got the cards I wanted, won the tournament, and got the related achievements so I'm good for this game XD

There's this whole comedic ordeal with Acorn trying to write a love letter to Zidane but it keeps getting dropped and picked up by other people who keep misinterpreting it as intended for them -- so you basically end up with five people coming to the meeting place, none of whom are Zidane... but two of which are Steiner and Beatrix who like each other anyway, and they kinda like... stand next to each other and look at each other and just from that everyone gets really freakin excited like Marcus's nose is bleeding and everything?????? And they all are watching it happen in a really creepy way and like... idk it's just so weird LOL but I love this part because I love Steiner and Beatrix and this pretty much is the beginning of their romance.

A bunch of crap happens and we get to see ALEXANDER which is great, I always love Alexander. Even though it literally always looks like a building I think it is sexy somehow??????? In FF9 he has giant wings (Alexander looks so much like a building it feels weird to even say 'he' to refer to it... him... idk LOL) which are cool too and basically this is a great moment.

Big Red calls Oglop!Cid a "little bug" which sounds incredibly funny XD

I fought this thing which was a lot easier than I remember it... the key is just keeping the book open and the monster unhidden. It can't do its papers attack thing in that state and is generally a cakewalk.

There's lots of Dagger stuff here~~~

Except that means... this happens. Dagger is like the main character of the game up until this point, a lot of times she's the primary character and is required in the party and is the world map avatar and whatever... But now all of a sudden she is useless. You can still put her in your team, but she is having extreme anxiety to the point where most of the time instead of doing her attack or spell or whatever, it will just say "Dagger can't concentrate!" and she skips her turn. It's actually probably less than half the time so you can still use her (in fact, I often do use her XD) but yeah, it sucks. I actually put her aside and was using Amarant instead since I never use him. He's actually a really great character hahahah. Who knew. He can even restore other people's MP which is great.

Anyway, Dagger is silent for like... pretty much the rest of the game, until you're ready to go to the final area.

Star Trek joke

Up-nose shot of Dr Tot lmfao ~~I hate myself for getting excited over things like this~~

Then there's this thing -- and this is something I want to talk about not liking. I had to get down to less than 50 gil in order to see this little scene... Now at this point you should have TONS of money so I had to buy like 99 of all the items and buy random equips and stuff I didn't need just to get rid of all my money...

Which is obnoxious in itself, but the trigger requirements for this scene are that you go run all the way to this pickle cart to see the first part, where you need to try to pay off a pickle debt (lol this sounds funny) but since you don't have enough money, you'll tell the pickle lady that your boss will pay for it, which gives you a little scene later about her trying to get the money from him.

Monsters drop like... over 100 gil even in the beginning of the game. There's literally no reason you should have less than 50 gil here.

The thing that is annoying is not only that this is so arbitrary and almost impossible to see without using a guide, but the entire game is crammed full of stuff like this. There are so many missable things -- and it's not just little bonus scenes that are funny, a lot of these missable things include getting rare items and stuff. Like over half of the items in the game are completely missable and you can't get them after certain points. There are so many places in the game you only visit once and can never go back, and there will be important things there. There are once-only minigames where you have to get the best score to get rare items you can never get again. Stuff like that. It's really obnoxious... And to add to that that one of the missable items requires you to get to the end of the game in under 12 hours... just trying to collect all the items in the game requires a ton of research and planning so that you don't miss anything AND get through the game quickly... it's ridiculous. A 'normal' play of the game, you will not even see like half of the content. I guess that's great for replayability, and I've certainly replayed a lot (I've played through this game at least 5-6 times now, and there's still things I'm seeing for the first time in this run), but most people aren't going to play a 40+ hour RPG 10 times and do a bunch of research and speedrun the game in order to see everything. Why is the game like this?? Not to mention the official strategy guide was complete trash, and just was like "Want to know more? Go to this website and type in this code!" like... the guide was nothing but codes to some online guide... the actual book itself told you NOTHING. It was horrible! And even then it didn't give you any kind of optimal path for getting everything while reaching the end of the game for 12 hours... people thought it was impossible for years, and even now like I remember a couple years ago the game kind of blowing up for a bit because people discovered a subqeust no one ever even knew existed. This game came out in like 2001 or something!!!!! It was over 10 years old and people still couldn't even find everything in it because it locks you out of so much.

In one way it's cool that there's so much to discover but so much of it is so arbitrary and ridiculous that you will never find it on your own without help, even stumbling upon it seems impossible. It's like an entire game of Zodiac Spears.

Fortunately, at least, the most powerful weapons of every type are easily obtainable and I don't think any are missable -- half of them you get through the chocobo minigame subquest (which is really fun and interesting and like one of my favorite parts of the game, though once you know all the locations of everything it's not as fun but I still enjoy doing it XD) and the other half are just lying around on the ground in the final area lol.

Anyway, the obnoxious myriad of missables is one of my biggest complaints about this game. I think it's great to obtuse hidden stuff, but it's just overwhelming in FF9. And making most of it impossible to get after certain cutoff points is bad.

ANYWAY, here's Zeblot who is cute and funny looking. You don't really see him much in the game. In fact, I think this is the only point in the game where you actually see him as part of the normal course of the game without having to go out of your way to find him.

Meltigemini is pretty cool~~~

Cid's mustache is like... relevant to the plot of the game lmfao.

And finally we get to see human Cid !!!! <3 <3 <3

Dagger's silent period ends with her cutting her hair. While I like her long-hair look better in general, she still is good with short hair and her menu portrait is soooooooo cute <3 I like it better than the long-hair portrait. Also she is severely underleveled now because I didn't use her the whole time she was silent...

Friendly Yan is SO CUTE omg

It was hard to get good caps of it but Taharka is so sexy <3

So is Lich~ I love his cape lmao

There's a lot of cool moments near the end of the game, this is a great one... also Steiner doesn't refer to Vivi as 'Master Vivi' which I think says a lot about their relationship and how much Steiner has changed over the course of the game.

This mantid thing was pretty cool, during the 'You're Not Alone' segment.

Also note that when Dagger was having trouble and questioning the point of her existence, she still attempted to be nice to everyone and essentially solved her problems on her own with time (similarly with Vivi). Zidane, other the other hand, became a massive dick to everyone and it took like the entire cast's effort to get him to come to his senses. Of course, his moment was very brief, though... you'd think they would have put more dramatics into it and develop it more like Dagger's, seeing as he's supposed to be the lead character...but honestly the story is about Dagger and Zidane is more just like... the romantic interest on the side of the story or something LOL

Also I forgot how much I love Garland and I need to add him to the humpchart honestly.

Dagger's boldness in the face of creepy or scary things is one of my favorite things about her. She doesn't get scared or bothered by stuff unless it poses an actual danger. Even Zidane was freaked out by these things, and Dagger is just like 'they're just eyes' LOL.

It's actually possible to never go and see this part... and it's just a couple lines of dialogue from NPCs but Bobby Corwen is important to me lmao.

This is gonna be my last time talking about the philosophy of Quina, but at this point in the game, a black mage and a genome (created life forms that were originally built soulless as tools, but later gained their own sense of self) are trying to fit into the world by running a shop, and having a discussion about what even is the point of doing it, as they're just doing it to mimic what they see other people doing. The black mage has been doing it for a while and the genome is just being introduced to it, so they're asking questions like 'Why do you display items in this building?' 'Because the customer needs to see them.' 'What is a customer?' 'Well, they come in the building and exchange money for the items...' '... What is money?' and they both seem very confused about the purpose of the whole thing, even the black mage has trouble explaining what a shop is and why he's running one.

Quina butts in though, and says this line -- "Why you care about small things? World very simple place. World only have two things: Things you can eat and things you no can eat."

And honestly considering the timing of this line, I can't imagine this is meant to be a comic relief. This part of the game is definitely a part that is meant to question the meaning of existence (a theme throughout the game's story) -- but I think this one is particularly illustrative of why I love Quina and think they're a very important character. Not only does Quina offer different perspectives and cause you to question the motives and values of the other characters throughout the game, but Quina offers you the opportunity to question yourself and your own values and motives.

At this point, these characters are attempting to participate in something they have no actual need to participate in, but they are doing it because it's so strongly ingrained in the cultures around them that they feel they must do it. Quina, coming from a culture that doesn't use money and already having rejected the idea of money, has a completely different perspective on this idea. And I think because unlike saving princess and defeating the forces of evil, this is something that anyone can relate to in real life, Quina offers the player a chance to question the meaning and values of their own existence, without breaking the 4th wall. I think Quina is really beautifully written, honestly.

And that's my last rave about Quina, as this is pretty much the end of the game. All that's left at this point is to go to the final area.

Hades is pretty sexy. For an optional superboss he's pretty easy. Tantarian was harder honestly :P

More Lich~

But if you wanna talk about sexy demons, holy shit Deathgaze!!!!!!!!!! This thing is GORGEOUS laksjdflkasjdf Honestly I should add this to the humpchart lmfao. I was contemplating adding clearly non-humanoid things but it's my chart I can do what I want XD Plus it's not like tons of people are looking at it or something to where I need to care about what is on it that much.

Anyway, here's another complaint about this game. Now, it doesn't bother at all and I don't think it ruins the end of the game or anything like that. Some people are really upset about this, but for me, it's just something I wish had been done differently.

The final boss of the game makes no sense. The theme of the game is existence and the meaning to that existence, and the characters in the game work to define their own existence and give meaning to it, and many parts of the game question what it means to die. So it's not inappropriate at all that the final boss of the game is a metaphor for death, or rather for non-existence completely. Essentially, it wants to return the worlds to a void of no existence.

But it just comes out of nowhere. There is no real mention that this thing even exists or has any kind of motive or anything...? Why are you even fighting it...? In a way it seems kind of like a reaper -- returning existence to the void, and since your characters are at this extreme point in their existence and possibly dead (though they're not dead because their lives clearly continue after this so whatever, or maybe they are participating in the near-death of the entire worlds) they are facing this reaper but...

Honestly it just makes no sense. And people have tried to explain it using things in the game but honestly it's a stretch. This is just really out of nowhere. A lot of people say the final boss should have been Kuja, but I strongly disagree with that. Kuja was meant to be tragic character, and his fall just before the end and his rescue at the end established him as redeemable, and I feel making him the final boss would not have had that same impact. He was the most extreme example of a tool like the Black Mages, he tried to defy his existence and give it meaning... he's not what you're fighting against the whole game. By defeating Necron, the team is showing that they have control over the meaning to their existence, and Kuja falling just before this allows him to be a part of that group of people who are able to give meaning to their own existence.

But I just wish that the idea of Necron was established somewhere else in the game, even if extremely vaguely. Or maybe the final boss is intended to be completely a metaphor? Even still, I think making it talk about this void dimension and stuff and look like a blue bodybuilder makes it seem like it's some kind of actual character that should have been established...

And then here's another complaint. This game's battle system is seriously broken. I've never really liked ATB, and the only places I think it really worked well were in FF10-2, FF12, and FF13... but still, the rest of the series tries to force it into mechanics that otherwise support a turn-based strategic system. FF9 is the absolute worst example of ATB gone bad.

I don't want to go into it in detail, but here's an example of how broken it is -- you can equip the Auto-Regen ability so that your characters always have Regen. This makes their HP come back at regular intervals in small amounts, like around 150-200 HP at a time, every couple seconds.

Then, you can do something that causes the battle to take longer... and while the animations are playing, they'll keep getting regen HP. So turn on auto-potion (which causes characters to use a potion without using their turn every time they are hit by an attack), and whenever the final boss does one of its attacks (which hit everyone), you have to wait for the animation for autopotion to play for all four of your characters, one-by-one. There's also this little 'waiting period' where they show the name of the ability or whatever that's being used, and something the camera will move during this... so you have "Auto-Potion!" display for a second, then the character does an animation of pulling out the potion and tossing it, then there's the sparkly effect of the potion being used and the HP amount being displayed for a bit... then it moves on to the next character. By the time this is done, Regen has activated so many times that you've completely restored all of your HP for every character. You can exploit this other ways, too, like using abilities that have long animations, include Quina's "Eat" ability which causes them to dance around for a bit, watch the utensils dance around, then Quina has to jump back... or summoning any Eidolon, especially Ark, who if you happen to get the full animation, takes several minutes to complete. You could easily get more than 9999 HP (max) back in regen during that animation.

And all the while these animations are going, the ATB bars for everyone have already filled up. So characters' speed stat, Haste, Slow, etc. are completely pointless. Because all the animations for all the turns take so long that everyone just goes in a set order, unless you choose to skip a turn. The only time it really seemed to make a difference was in the battle with Lani because she was so ridiculously fast that she'd get multiple turns in the time you spent choosing commands (even on Wait), and Ozma is probably like that, too.

Now, the battles are still pretty fun, and equipping auto-regen + auto-potion is something I only did for the final boss, because I've beaten this game many times and just wanted to get it over with for the cheevo and see the ending again. No need for a challenge. I still have bigger challenges to come in getting the rest of the achievements. But still, ATB is so stupid and exploitable in this game, and I don't know why people like it so much (well, I have a good idea -- because most people started playing RPGs with a popular FF and it just 'feels right' to them)

I took literally hundreds of screencaps during the ending but I'm not going to post any here... anyway, it's always been ambiguous who the 'narrator' is during the ending, and I always liked to believe it was Dagger, but paying attention, I'm pretty certain it is supposed to be Mikoto.

The ending is a tear-jerker and one of my favorite game endings. Still really gets to me now even though I know exactly everything that will happen and how lol. I'm still curious how Vivi has children lol.

The PC version has a gallery mode so you can rewatch the FMV cutscenes! A nice little addition that I didn't know existed until I beat the game :) You can also play the blackjack minigame from the main menu after clearing the game instead of having to punch in a secret code at the THE END screen.

After clearing the game, I went back to trying to clean up the achievements. I say "post-game" but this is really just loading from the save before the final bosses and going backward, to do extra stuff not relevant to the main game.

I got Choco's beak up to Level 99, which put a little star next to the level... nice. It actually didn't take that long, and the minigame is kinda fun so I didn't mind it. But you can easily finish this minigame proper with your beak like level 30-40 lol. But I actually did want to do some digging because I was hoping to find lots of ores (I didn't realize the helpfulness of Eiko's "Jewel" ability at this point yet) so I got it leveled up anyway.

You can synthesize ores into other jewels by mixing them with common items like potions or whatever... I had already done this with the ores I had gathered up from the main game and got 99 Peridots. The amount of jewels you have powers up Dagger's eidolons... so the more peridots you have, the stronger Ramuh is. I wanted to find more ores to make opals (which you just use regular potions to make lol so easy) to power up Shiva next, since the Behemoth is weak to ice. I managed to get enough by the time I got my beak to 99 (actually I did it well before then) to get 99 opals, now I'm working on powering up Bahamut which is from garnets. I want Dagger to be the strongest character she can be XD Though I didn't mess with the stat growth by equipment thing... I do have good equips on her now for stat growth, but I didn't start properly trying to raise stats that way until my characters were around level 50.

So I went to get the achievement for defeating Behemoth with Dagger. You can only take one character into the fight, but you can choose who, and there's an achievement for Dagger... I don't know why as it's not like she's particularly weak, but none of the characters are really weak. I'd say Dagger is more powerful than Vivi, though she requires more MP to use her eidolons. But she also has a lot of healing abilities, and her physical attack can become a lot better than Vivi's, too, since rackets attack well from the back row and she does have physically-focused options available. Vivi pretty much can only do his magic, and if enemies resist, there's not much you can do but Focus a lot and try to squeeze out damage or something. Though Dbl Black is a great Trance ability, and if you're able to exploit a weakness or otherwise deal more than 5000 damage, you can deal more than the damage cap in your turn because you get to hit twice. Quina is only situationally useful, but they have Frog Drop which does 9999 damage every time, no matter what, as long as you power it up through the frog-catching minigame (which is also a pretty fun minigame). But other than that, the useful abilities cost a ton of MP and their physical attack is very unreliable. Angel's Snack and Mighty Guard are kinda unparalleled, though. And I would say Quina, Dagger, and Vivi are probably the least powerful of the main cast. But even then, I think all of them are pretty powerful...

Needless to say, with 99 opals, this was a pretty easy fight. 99 opals is not even outside the range of obtainable during normal gameplay. You should EASILY have 99 ores and 99 potions before you can even fight the Behemoth. It only took like 3-4 Diamond Dusts to defeat it, and with Auto-Regen, the summoning animation was enough to heal myself. If you're lower level, just give her Auto-Potion, too :P

I've been slowly trying to build my characters up to level 99... You only need level 99 with one character for achievements... and I think I'm going to wait to try to fight Ozma til then. I've tried to fight with level 60-70 characters before on Playstation and it was too hard XD Though I just have to make sure no one has a level multiple of 5 since he does Lv5 Death

I've answered like 11-12 of the ragtime mouse quiz question things, visited all the beaches for the healing bonus thing (which is actually really convenient sometimes), and done various other achievements. I still need to do the use-blue-magic-100-times thing, the kill 1000 and 10,000 enemies (the latter seems... ridiculous, I heard it's like 40 hours of grinding...)

Actually, this is just what I have left: