final fantasy ambivalence

[looneymoon]

woah hey i am kinda of drunk beatr with me

i was having a covnersation with someoe about how sad it is what this series has become and just

man



i love final fantaxy man it was such a nbig part of my gaming experience
i miss when it eas an actual respectable sereis i could enthusiatically talk about becuaes it was legitimately good

now it's this thing where i just associate the name with weeaboo shit


i don't like weeabooy things and i dont really want giving off the impression im into that just cuz i like the old final fantasies

also ff10 came out over ten years ago man
is it really appropriate ot call ff8-present as the "neo" generation

come on man

 

[Fangu]

Well, people seem to be into XIV, and XV looks promising, so idk.

I know how you feel about things lowering in quality, though. That happens to a lot of TV shows and stuff. Maintaining greatness is difficult look at Buffy season 7

 

[looneymoon]

BUFFY SEASON 7 WAS SO BAD

though i think it was good as an overall concept just the execution was really haywire

 

[Fangu]

Yeah it was a clusterfuck Which is really sad because as you say, the concept was really nice and I still bawl when all the potentials turns into slayers but still. It should have been much tighter. It has one of my favorite episodes though (Selfless).

 

[LicoriceAllsorts]

The Final Fantasy brand has so much value (unlike Blackberry) that it will never die. Maybe the best case scenario is that SE folds and some other company buys the brand and injects some new life into it? Or maybe it's just going through a temporary slump before another period of greatness? Or maybe the stuff they're making is what most people want to buy?

I am hopeful for 15.

 

[Telcontar]

The Dude would be proud of you, man.

And yes, Final Fantasy is an effing joke right now. Hopefully XV proves us all wrong.

 

[Ite]

Yeah it's pretty embarrassing to be known as a Final Fantasy fan, even among gamers, because it means something totally different now than it did ten years ago.

 

[Cthulhu]

Hopefully XV proves us all wrong.

Lol wishful thinking.

tbh, XII wasn't that bad at all.

 

[Fangu]

tbh, XII wasn't that bad at all.

<3333333333333333333

 

[ForceStealer]

tbh, XII wasn't that bad at all.

Always makes me laugh when people go on their spiel about how after IX Final Fantasy is all angst and emos and weeaboo anime cliches and linear, etc. etc. when XII exhibits literally ZERO of those characteristics.

Usually said people don't like XII either, but putting it under the same generalization kinda undermines their argument.

 

[The Twilight Mexican]

There is definitely a valid argument to be made for XIII and stuff after belonging to a different era of the series than the era VII is in. Really, I think it breaks down by sixes -- the first FF through FFVI is the classic era; VII through XII is ... whatever that one should be called; and XIII on is the modern era.

I'm sure some folks would argue for different cut-off points, but the classic era is indisputable for a number of reasons (e.g., before 3D, before FMVs, before any voicework at all; even VII had a little). While X, X-2 and XII might mark the beginning of a shift in certain priorities within the company (Sakaguchi was forced to resign, X-2 was a more lighthearted affair, it was decided that XII's development was taking too long and different directors had to finish the work), I think they still fit within VII's era because work was started on them before the merger with Enix, Matsuno was still there for most of it, IX's director was there for all of XII's development, and a lot of the same design sensibilities were in play.

XIII began a different era for obvious reasons. Much different landscape within the company (Uematsu was pretty much out of the picture entirely by this point, Nomura was relying more on back-up character designers), less cooperation between developers, less of a unified vision, increased reliance on extra-textual materials to even make sense of the story, and, hell, the jump from the PS2 to the PS3 had just been a much greater leap for FF to make than from the original PS to the PS2. This also clearly marked the point where FF had fallen behind Western RPGs in forward-thinking, and behind Western games in general in overall game design.

Obviously, placing spin-off titles (the Compilation, the Ivalice Alliance, Dissidia, etc.) neatly into either era would be difficult, but I think this is a pretty solid foundation.

 

[Blade]

This thread reminds me...I need to play Final Fantasy Dimensions one of these days. I heard it's pretty good.

 

[Novus]

Let it go, we got one masterpiece with FF7, and at least four other exceptional FF games from them.

Now FFXIII was a legitimate effort, but it fell flat, it's not the companies responsibility to keep me entertained I can take my attention and money elsewhere. If they do good, we'll hear about it, if not then I'm not going to get butthurt every time they produce a vapid anime clone of an older game.

I doubt the brand would ever persuade whole classrooms of kids to get front line seats to watch another movie again though. Those days were something else.

 

[Farron]

Always makes me laugh when people go on their spiel about how after IX Final Fantasy is all angst and emos and weeaboo anime cliches and linear, etc. etc. when XII exhibits literally ZERO of those characteristics.

Usually said people don't like XII either, but putting it under the same generalization kinda undermines their argument.

Even tough XII is one of my least liked Final Fantasies I have to agree with this.

emo, weeaboo anime cliche it is not.

 

[Hisako]

I'd personally prefer not to throw around generalisations and buzzwords to describe these games.

I like to think pretty much every Final Fantasy deserves a little better than that

 

[Blade]

I think EVERY videogame deserves better respect in description than terms like 'animu game' or 'for weeaboos'.

I still think that term is discriminatory against people who enjoy Japanese culture.

 

[looneymoon]

why do I do things on the internet when I'm drunk.

Also there is a reason why there's a derogatory word for people who fetishize another culture...

 

[Dawnbreaker]

I can't say that I think poorly of the franchise, but I can say that my interest is waning. This is partly because SE has done a lot of fuck-ups, but also because I'm aging, and my interests are just changing. I still love video games, as much as ever, but I find my tastes are different, and not the same kind of different that SE is doing now. Oh well. Obviously FF will always hold a special place in my heart, as evinced by my ongoing obsession with a certain Warrior of Light.

 

[Cthulhu]

Y'all are crazy weeaboos as far as I'm concerned, I don't discriminate,

 

[LicoriceAllsorts]

why do I do things on the internet when I'm drunk.

Also there is a reason why there's a derogatory word for people who fetishize another culture...

But where does one draw the line between a legitimate fascination with a culture and fetishization?

 

[Lex]

There's a reason the term "weeaboo" exists though. It's not to generalise fans of Japanese culture or FF or whatever, it's for the people who write fanfiction and call Zack "Zax" in it or to use a more annoying example, the motherfucker that decided to call the dragon "Hiryuu" in the FFV fan retranslation. Seriously.

But Bartz, the Hiryuu! Get the Hiryuu! My poor Hiryuu!

NO.

 

[Farron]

Y'all are crazy weeaboos as far as I'm concerned, I don't discriminate,

I'm not a person that goes around calling all females " Chan " or all males " San " While shouting " IT'S SO KAWAII NO DESU SAN " !!! And having a poster of a naked Itachi on my wall with a picture of my OC " NOT REALLY ME " next to Itachi on the picture and wearing fox ears and be rude to all Americans because JAPAN IS THE BEST BECAUSE HOT ANIME BOYS ARE MADE THERE AND MY ANIME WAIFU TOO.

No just no.

Plus I think that weebs are rude to the Japanese culture because most of the time they don't even know what they're doing, not to mention the speaking in broken Japanese. It's disrespecting their language and race.

weebs = insult on so many levels

not to mean to you or anything Cthulhu just think that being a weeb is not the way to go if you love Japanese culture anime or Final Fantasy.

 

[Fangu]

If people started using Norwegian slang in their English I wouldn't be offended, I'd think it was glorious

I wonder what you'd call Lex and I's Engurishuing if saying 'kawaii' and 'san' is offensive RIPPUGUROSSU!!! PARUMUPORUMU!!! I have no shame.

 

[Novus]

I can't say that I think poorly of the franchise, but I can say that my interest is waning. This is partly because SE has done a lot of fuck-ups, but also because I'm aging, and my interests are just changing. I still love video games, as much as ever, but I find my tastes are different, and not the same kind of different that SE is doing now. Oh well. Obviously FF will always hold a special place in my heart, as evinced by my ongoing obsession with a certain Warrior of Light.

I'm still fairly sure that if I encountered FF7 as a full adult, I'd still have utter respect for it. FF7 and FFXIII are completely tonally different.

 

[looneymoon]

If people started using Norwegian slang in their English I wouldn't be offended, I'd think it was glorious

I wonder what you'd call Lex and I's Engurishuing if saying 'kawaii' and 'san' is offensive RIPPUGUROSSU!!! PARUMUPORUMU!!! I have no shame.

I would argue that adopting words like "kawaii" or whatever isn't racist, though a lot would disagree with me?

I mean, languages borrowing words isn't exactly a new thing. I feel like people knee-jerking at the adoption of a non-white language is partially due in part to this weird feeling of entitled sacredness of the English language, which honestly only contributes to attitudes of white supremacy.

If I, an English speaking person, adopted a word from French or German I would be considered classy, or at worst, pretentious. If I were to say kawaii (which I do, all the time) I'm a weeaboo.

This is all just perception. I'm not actually speaking as a Japanese person looking at this from that particular lens of neo-colonialism.