Final Fantasy IX

[Mantichorus]

Anyone who can diss Garnet obviously hasn't had to put up with spoilt bitch Princess Ashe from FFXII.

As much as I loved the party characters, I'm still fairly resentful at the lack of screentime for both Mikoto and Lani. If SE do a FFIX sequel or remake, they really have to make those two optional recruitable characters.

 

[Ite]

Mikoto seemed so tacked on. I didn't like her.

 

[Zee]

Anyone who can diss Garnet obviously hasn't had to put up with spoilt bitch Princess Ashe from FFXII.

Aw, I kinda liked Ashe.

But yeah, Mikoto deserved a bit more screentime -- I mean, FFIX up until then had done a great job of developing the side characters so that you really cared about them. Mikoto was just sorta..."Well, here I am." For the

Spoiler

third angel

, she was really devoid of any personality.

 

[Alessa Gillespie]

Rinoa was just stupid.

Garnet was stupid, ignorant, indecisive, and takes about 3 discs to develop a personality on par with the rest of the cast. Such a waste.

Neither was very good though.

because you are alex i can only assume you're trolling.

 

[Celes Chere]

Anyone who can diss Garnet obviously hasn't had to put up with spoilt bitch Princess Ashe from FFXII.

THIS times a million. "Stupid fucking commoners! My problems are way worse than yours, pity me and DONT TALK OUT OF TURN! GAWD!"

Srsly, bitch you're not the only one who had someone DIE around you. So pull the stick out of your ass. "My life is so hard! I grew up with royalty. /sobs/

 

[TheHammerOf...JUSTICE]

Garnet didn't really do anything annoying that didn't fit with the character. I personally liked her quite a bit. She was kind of the woobie of the game in my eyes along with Vivi. Alot of bad shit happens to them but they each overcome it. Speaking of, I always loved the scene where Vivi flies into a rage and duels the third Black Waltz.

I tend to always keep those two in my parties when I play the game.

Edit: I always wanted to see more screentime from Beatrix. I really would have liked it if she had joined the party and we could have seen some more character development from her.

 

[Mantichorus]

Aw, I kinda liked Ashe.

Well, I haven’t finished XII yet, so maybe she has character development. *shrug* But she and Vaan were at Tedious Tidus levels of annoying to me. Character opinions are all YMMV (Your Mileage May Vary, for those of you who don’t spend unhealthy amounts of time on TVTropes).

But yeah, Mikoto deserved a bit more screentime -- I mean, FFIX up until then had done a great job of developing the side characters so that you really cared about them. Mikoto was just sorta..."Well, here I am." For the

Spoiler

third angel

, she was really devoid of any personality.

Exactly. While not exactly important, a major plot character, just plonked in. "Hai."

THIS times a million. "Stupid fucking commoners! My problems are way worse than yours, pity me and DONT TALK OUT OF TURN! GAWD!"

Srsly, bitch you're not the only one who had someone DIE around you. So pull the stick out of your ass. "My life is so hard! I grew up with royalty. /sobs/

XD If you weren’t spoken for, I’d ask you to marry me right now.

 

[GodRoy]

Why like FF9? Vivi, 'nuff said. Garnet is okay, I hated how when she was sad or whatever she couldn't do anything. "Command failed: Garnet can't concentrate" or something like that. I know it technically fit what was going on but I was like COMMON.

Tifa is the best heroine, IMO, just because there was never a moment where she was captured, felt weak, or didn't attack when you told her to. You never got mad at her, and she spent a portion of the game actually caring for Cloud's sorry ass.

Almost everything about FF12 was annoying IMO. I remember finishing the game, but I don't remember much of the plot except for the land of playboy bunnies. And I also remember that Mega64 video with the scrawny white guy running around dressed as Vaan while shouting at random people on the street.

 

[ForceStealer]

Well there was a moment when she was captured, but yes, she didn't need to be rescued by anyone so your point stands.

 

[Ite]

Tifa is the best heroine, IMO, just because there was never a moment where she was captured, felt weak, or didn't attack when you told her to. You never got mad at her, and she spent a portion of the game actually caring for Cloud's sorry ass.

Don't get me wrong, Tifa might be my favourite heroine of all time. But she got captured several times throughout the story, and I got HELL OF mad at her when she just waltzed into the gas chamber, or moped about Wheelchair Cloud like Stephanie Meyer was writing her dialogue. Like Garnet, though, Tifa's flaws were a very believable, very likeable part of her.

Celes, man. Now THERE was a balls out heroine. I hesitate to say Terra because of what happens to her in WoR, but now that I think about it, everyone except Sabin is kind of a whiner in WoR.

Back to FFIX, though, am I the only person who is okay with Necron being the final boss? I mean, sure, fighting Kuja was the end of the FFIX story, but all of FFIX seemed like a loving kiss goodbye to old-school Final Fantasy, I kind of liked that the villain was EVIL ITSELF. Sure, Kuja as a final boss made more sense, but Necron made sense as the very last FF boss ever. The last story that Sakaguchi wrote for the series. It feels more true to the subtext of FFIX - the quiet defiance in the face of the next generation of voice acting and leather-clad-girly-men.

If FFIX had a narrator, I would imagine it sounding like Douglas Adams. "Absolutely not will we have a thong wearing chimp as the climactic nemesis for our stalwart heroes. Goodness no, our heroes, after all dying, will go into the space between worlds and meet a living monolith of pure evil. Then they will bash it with their swords until it blows up. Spectacularly. The end!"

 

[ForceStealer]

ANY moment of weakness doesn't ruin a heroine though. Even Celes tried to kill herself (and as I already said, Celes is probably my favorite too).

As for Necron, nod to the old FFs or not, no one ever liked the bait-and-switch final boss in any RPG. How hard is it to make your final boss part of the story and not just some random enemy since your story-boss was too much of a pussy?

 

[GodRoy]

Lol, I forgot about the short scene where Barret and Tifa were imprisoned by Rufus, but she rescued herself and got into a bitch slapping contest with Scarlet to make up for it. The gas chamber wasn't a really hard scene, just press a couple buttons and presto.

Kuja was scarier than Necron, but that was just because you were gender confused about him up until the very end. But I didn't really have a huge problem with Necron, and have very much more of a problem with leather-clad-girly-men. =(

Except for Sephiroth's hair, Cloud's Hair, and Sephiroth's chest being slightly exposed, contrary to the rest of the compilation there was really nothing girly about the original ff7.

 

[Celes Chere]

Celes... is amazing. From the very start, I loved her. Interesting that kidnapped characters seem to annoy you GodRoy, when one of the first bits of Celes you see is her locked up lol. And I agree with you Force, that moments of weakness do not make a character bad. In fact, if it weren't for those type of moments the characters would not end up turning out the way they did. Tifa's problems are realistic, and you can't expect someone to be perfect 100 percent of the time. That's impossible, and also would make a very boring character. I never saw her 'moping' over the love of her life, (whom could have possibly been dead or damaged for life) as weak or Stephanie Meyer related in any way. I actually found it very admirable, very touching and sweet. She gave up the WORLD to stay with Cloud - notice her saying: "Nothing else matters now. Just Cloud."
Beautiful.

 

[Cat Rage Room]

Interesting that kidnapped characters seem to annoy you GodRoy, when one of the first bits of Celes you see is her locked up lol.

I'd say there's a slight difference between a badass general being imprisoned for treason and a 'help me mario' princess being kidnapped.

 

[Celes Chere]

I know that.

 

[GodRoy]

I didn't mean it necessarily annoyed me, but there is a line between a woman who's too masculine and which is too feminine to be great heroine, which I don't know of a FF female who is too masculine, (correct me if I'm wrong), but the too feminine is sometimes crossed with the whole damsel in distress part. Not that it makes them bad characters, just not the best heroine, IMO.

When I'm playing a game, I just like having my female companion, or woman as I would like to say but probably come off in the wrong way, being a balance of being helpful, not getting in the way, but not quite taking over my role as hero. More of a sidekick and less of a liability. But that part is purely my feelings and should not be taken as an absolute by anyone, especially any female players.

 

[looneymoon]

The only real problem I had with Tifa's character is that she seemed to lack her own overarching personal storyline. Her whole character was about Cloud. It seems as if she was written in only to facilitate Cloud's character development. This trend carries on through AC as well. Not that this really reflects badly on her character (I for one love Tifa), it's more of a writing issue than anything. I would have liked to see more aspects of her character motivations other than "LOVE FOR CLOUD." I mean, they were there, but they were kinda ignored in favour of that one part of her story. I just find of annoying that she's relegated to the love interest role when there's more in her that's worth exploring.

I think that's why I really liked the characters of FFIX. There were multiple issues going on - each facet of the characters did not impede or overpower another. It was very balanced.

Back to FFIX, though, am I the only person who is okay with Necron being the final boss? I mean, sure, fighting Kuja was the end of the FFIX story, but all of FFIX seemed like a loving kiss goodbye to old-school Final Fantasy, I kind of liked that the villain was EVIL ITSELF. Sure, Kuja as a final boss made more sense, but Necron made sense as the very last FF boss ever. The last story that Sakaguchi wrote for the series. It feels more true to the subtext of FFIX - the quiet defiance in the face of the next generation of voice acting and leather-clad-girly-men.

If you're interested, I'd suggest reading Tres'/SoS' explanation of Necron's appearance. Even though the ultimania apparently nukes the theory out of the water, I felt that the theory justified Necron's inclusion quite brilliantly.

 

[Mantichorus]

Why like FF9? Vivi, 'nuff said. Garnet is okay, I hated how when she was sad or whatever she couldn't do anything. "Command failed: Garnet can't concentrate" or something like that. I know it technically fit what was going on but I was like COMMON.

Personally, I only had this happen to me once, and that was when I'd taken a break from the storyline to level grind.

But like you said: it fit what had just happened. Usually when a video game character has a BSOD moment, the gameplay cuts around it, so you have nothing to do with it (Zidane's later on when they were on Terra is typical).

As Dagger/Garnet/

Spoiler

Sarah

had lost her voice from the stress, it makes sense that casting spells would go awry (AFAIK, Garnet never loses focus from physical attacks). I mean, the condition that prevents spellcasting is always Silence/Mute, right?

I actually found it more annoying that she could cast at all - if a character is suffering from Silence, they can't cast, so should a character who's lost her voice? I guess in the heat of battle, she occasionally could bring herself to mumble the words /handwave

Oh, and I had no problems with Necron being the final boss. It was better than the final boss of FFVII (a fight where - even by doing nothing - you cannot lose? Give me a break...).

 

[GodRoy]

Personally, I only had this happen to me once, and that was when I'd taken a break from the storyline to level grind.

As Dagger/Garnet/

Spoiler

Sarah

had lost her voice from the stress, it makes sense that casting spells would go awry (AFAIK, Garnet never loses focus from physical attacks). I mean, the condition that prevents spellcasting is always Silence/Mute, right?

Oh, and I had no problems with Necron being the final boss. It was better than the final boss of FFVII (a fight where - even by doing nothing - you cannot lose? Give me a break...).

Actually, since I am weird and have this complex where I try to use as little MP as possibly, as if restoring MP would cost an arm and a leg or something, I only use magic on bosses and in Ipsen's castle. That being said, she did fail for me to just normally attack using her racket. The command fail from her not concentrating came up even when not spellcasting for me.

As for the final boss of FFVII, I somewhat agree, but then again ff7 wasn't the hardest game ever all the way through. But I think the problem wasn't the difficulty with Necron but the unexpectedness of it. Sephiroth was the main villain throughout FF7, but some people don't like a new main villain. That'd be like if Sephiroth was the main villain and you heard nothing of Jenova until it popped out at you after Sephiroth to make it's first and last appearance. As for myself, neither boss really bothers me.

 

[Ite]

I liked Tres'/SoS' explanation of Necron as the Iifa Tree. I know it's canonically untrue, but it gives the story more unity.

 

[Dana Scully]

Just picked up this game on PSN, am about 2 hours in and loving it. I'm especially pleased with the music - especially the Rufus' Welcoming Ceremony cameo. Oh Nobuo <3

 

[Althea]

Oooh, I am definitely buying!! I have my hardcopy still but I love this game so much, so I don't mind paying &#8364;10 odd for it! I did the same with 7 and 8 - crazy I know xD. The mini games were great, like the stellazio coins and the mognet etc....

 

[Zee]

Tifa is the best heroine, IMO, just because there was never a moment where she was captured, felt weak, or didn't attack when you told her to.

I'm actually glad Tifa's not like how you described or she'd be the most boring heroine in history.

 

[Celes Chere]

she'd be the most boring heroine in history.

Kinda like Lightning?

Ooooooh!

Jk ilu. XD

 

[Zee]

She can be boring but she'll always be the sexiest. *___*