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Kitase asked about FF Fan Theories

ForceStealer

Double Growth
Jason Schreier at Kotaku asked Kitase about famous fan theories at PAX.

On the theory that Final Fantasy VI’s costumed Gogo is really Daryl, Setzer’s old friend:

“That’s probably not true,” Kitase said, speaking through a translator. “I don’t think there’s any background setting like that. If that’s true, then because Daryl had that beautiful ending, if [she] ended up being Gogo, that would just destroy all that.”

So, I asked, did Gogo have a secret identity? Was he supposed to be General Leo or perhaps Adlai Stevenson?

No, Kitase said. Final Fantasy VI’s two optional characters, Gogo and Umaro, “actually did not carry any background story. They were just there for you to select if you want them to be in battle.”

On the theory that Final Fantasy VIII’s Squall dies at the end of Disc 1 when he’s stabbed by Edea’s ice spear and that the rest of the game is his dream:

“No, that is not true,” Kitase said, laughing. “I think he was actually stabbed around the shoulder area, so he was not dead. But that is a very interesting idea, so if we ever do make a remake of Final Fantasy VIII, I might go along with that story in mind.”

On the theory that Final Fantasy VIII’s Rinoa is really Ultimecia:

“No, that is not true,” Kitase said. “I don’t think I’ll incorporate that even if we do remake the game. But that being said, both Rinoa and Ultimecia are witches, so in that sense they are similar, but they’re not the same person.”

On the theory that Final Fantasy VII’s Knights of the Round are really the Cetra that defeated Jenova a thousand years before the events of the game:

“Everyone’s thinking too deeply, reading between the lines too much,” laughed Kitase. “That makes it difficult because if you think about it that way, we might have to make it that way. That’s definitely not true.”

Kitase added that artist Tetsuya Nomura, best known as the director of Kingdom Hearts, created all of the summons in Final Fantasy VII. “They don’t have any background story attached to them,” Kitase said.

On the theory that in Final Fantasy VII you’d originally be able to bring Aeris back to life, but that was cut from the game:

“We did hear that there were talks amongst fans that if you use a bug in the game you can revive Aeris and she will be with you until the end of the game,” Kitase said. “It might be good in a fantastical story that you can revive the characters, but with FFVII, we wanted to really take another look at that, look at human life, and [make people] realize they don’t come back.”

When Kitase and his team first started development on Final Fantasy VII, he added, they saw some other company give a survey to little children that asked if they thought people come back to life after they die. “A lot of the kids actually said yes to that question,” Kitase said. “There are all these fantasy stories where, [for example], the princess would come back from death with the kiss of her prince. For children, it was normal for them that people would come back to life. And we wanted to question that idea and thought. So we wanted to depict that there is weight to life, and just put weight on the loss as well to life, and that’s where we all started with Final Fantasy VII. That was our core concept.”

And finally, on the theory that Final Fantasy X-2's Shinra character went on to start Shinra in Final Fantasy VII, meaning that both universes are connected:

“I won’t completely come out and say that it is the same world,” said Kitase. “However, Shinra in FFX-2 was created by [Kazushige] Nojima, the scenario writer, and when he thought him up, he thought it might be good if people would imagine that after a few years after the story of Final Fantasy X-2, that person Shinra will grow up and start the Shinra company. So that is something that he did hint in there. That being said, I’m not gonna say that it’s the same.”

Interesting that he seemed more interested in the Squall is Dead one that Rinoa is Ultimecia one, in contrast to my view that the latter is the more interesting one to think about.

Also I guess that's about as firm an admission as any that the Spira-FF7 connection is basically just a fun-to-think-about nod and not any canonical decree.
 

Flintlock

Pro Adventurer
“No, that is not true,” Kitase said, laughing. “I think he was actually stabbed around the shoulder area, so he was not dead. But that is a very interesting idea, so if we ever do make a remake of Final Fantasy VIII, I might go along with that story in mind.”
DO IT
 

The Twilight Mexican

Ex-SeeD-ingly good
AKA
TresDias
Jesus Christ, where was this interview ten or fifteen fucking years ago.
Also I guess that's about as firm an admission as any that the Spira-FF7 connection is basically just a fun-to-think-about nod and not any canonical decree.
Interesting how two people can read the same "as firm an admission as any" and take the opposite understanding of what is being firmly admitted. :monster:
 

ForceStealer

Double Growth
Well why would he not come out and say it's the same then? He just came out and said it on all the other questions.
 

The Twilight Mexican

Ex-SeeD-ingly good
AKA
TresDias
One could easily reword that to "Why didn't he just say 'no' to that question like all the rest if he meant 'no'? He had no problem saying it to all the others."

Even just the fact that it's the only one that wasn't a "no" stands out to me.


In either case, I felt this news merited being on the front page. :monster:
 

ForceStealer

Double Growth
Nice work, and fair enough.

Also, I'm not sure I ever heard the "origin of the Knights of the Round" one. But maybe I did and had forgotten it.
 

Theozilla

Kaiju Member
I do wonder if the summons in the FFVII Remake will get expanded mythos/lore to them as the FF summons since IX have often played a lot larger roles in the games' plots and storylines.
 

Roger

He/him
AKA
Minato
Looking at IV, VI, VIII, IX, X, XII and XIII, VII is kinda the outlier in that Summons are just spells with nothing more to them.
 

Ite

Save your valediction (she/her)
AKA
Ite
The KotR thing was huge on fan fiction.net in the early 2000s, at least the ones I read. Even made it into my novelization (although now I may cut it!) I'm not surprised that it wasn't intentional, but it irks me how he despairs people "reading too much into things."

Like, dude. People want to analyze and critique and study your shit, while you're still alive. Once you're dead, people will go on doing it. That's what's awesome about making art. Cause once you put it out there, it's no longer yours. And you get the privilege of seeing the wave start -- that's so rare and awesome! Why you gotta dump on people who just wanna nerd out on the details?
 

Claymore

3x3 Eyes
... but it irks me how he despairs people "reading too much into things."

God forbid people read too much into Final Fantasy, which (usually) has a sprawling story that urges you to delve deeper into the mythos or side stories in order to get a full comprehension and understanding of events.

Seriously, what a silly and flippant thing to say.
 

Joker

We have come to terms
AKA
Godot
Idk how much "despair" is going on, given that he then has a chuckle about it. Nor do I see how he's insulting anyone, either.

But then, as an artist, I extremely dislike the idea that upon creating something, it somehow ceases to belong to you. But I have also thought, ever since I was a teenager, that people always feel the need to read into things and analyze things (literature, specifically, at that age) that may have just been intended to be a good, interesting story. Not everything is going to have some hidden meaning, not everything is going to be riddled with overarching themes. It's like films - some of them are just meant to be fun.

But hey, if people ever decide to read what I've written and get into extremely nasty and vitriolic shipping wars over the connotation of what each noun/pronoun/adjective/verb of my body of work indicates with regards to their chosen pairing, I'd think people were reading too much into it, too.

And would actually be irritated rather than waving it off with a laugh.
 

The Twilight Mexican

Ex-SeeD-ingly good
AKA
TresDias
Looking at IV, VI, VIII, IX, X, XII and XIII, VII is kinda the outlier in that Summons are just spells with nothing more to them.
That's ironic since -- as we know thanks to our buddy, Shademp -- the summons were at one time given an origin in the game:

----
Sephiroth: During the time when the Ancients prospered, there existed beings that were brought up bathed in the light of abundant Mako. They were pure creatures of natural shape. Several types remain even now. Some of these beings sealed their life energy within materia, altering their lives forever.

Aerith: The summon materia...

Sephiroth: Correct. Such a clever girl. The creatures who protect this temple have lived long, relics from the age of the Ancients. They belong to this planet even more than you do.
----
 

ForceStealer

Double Growth
Yeah, I mean, like Omega says, he does laugh, and he's speaking through a translator, so it's hard to say if he's being disparaging or just acknowledging that people looked deeper into it than they did.
 

Mage

She/They
AKA
Mage
I don't know whether to feel sad that I took KotR to be the Arthurian knights and not have used my imagination more.
 
All this talk about Knights of the Round compels me to share the following.

DSC_0791.jpg


 

Joker

We have come to terms
AKA
Godot
This link is HIGHLY misleading. This boss is actually called
King Thordan and His Knights Twelve
, and while it is obviously influenced by OG KotR (and most definitely Arthurian legend), it is NOT, in fact, Knights of the Round.

/becausethevideowasintendedtomisleadviewers

then again, it's also a massive spoiler for the plot as it's the final boss of the first expansion's original main scenario (sort of like how
Shinryu
is the final boss of Stormblood)

(then again, most people who play ffxiv here have finished heavensward I THINK)
 

The Twilight Mexican

Ex-SeeD-ingly good
AKA
TresDias
"HIGHLY misleading"? =P The matter seems like a minor quibble to me.

The Heavensward knights are obviously modeled on FFVII's Knights of the Round, and even use their signature attack, Ultimate End. They qualify as an iteration of KotR within the FF series as much as Cid Highwind qualifies as a dragoon -- which is to say, a lot.
 

JechtShotMK9

The Sublimely Magnificent One
AKA
Kamiccolo9
"HIGHLY misleading"? =P The matter seems like a minor quibble to me.

The Heavensward knights are obviously modeled on FFVII's Knights of the Round, and even use their signature attack, Ultimate End. They qualify as an iteration of KotR within the FF series as much as Cid Highwind qualifies as a dragoon -- which is to say, a lot.

Doesn't the cast bar actually say "Knights of the Round" before he exits the stage and the knights start ganging up on you?

Edit: Yeah, he casts it at 5:07 in that video, then summons one of them to do a thing.
 
Last edited:

Obsidian Fire

Ahk Morn!
AKA
The Engineer
Yeah, the Heavensward is the KotR of FFXIV. There's a few cutscenes where you get to see the Heavenswards' back rooms in the cathedral and there's this huge round table that crops up a few times with 13 chairs around it. The Extreme version of the fight features the knights a lot more in the latter half of the fight.
 

Joker

We have come to terms
AKA
Godot
You're not fighting the knight of the round.

Hence why it's misleading.
 

Obsidian Fire

Ahk Morn!
AKA
The Engineer
The Knights are summoned with the "Knights of the Round" skill. The three that actually have HP bars are Zephirin, Adelphel and Janlenoux. The other knights are Vallguine, Hermenost, Ignasse, Paulecrain, Haumeric, Grinnaux, Naoudenet, Guerrique and Charibert and they all have their own specific attacks. Adelphel, Grinnaux and Charibert are also the bosses of the lvl 57 dungeon.
 
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