rionaleonhart | Huh? He's Got Pants Now.

Crossposts: http://rionaleonhart.livejournal.com/361888.html

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Huh? He's Got Pants Now.

Final Fantasy VII is a much sillier game than I remember. I'd forgotten about the bit where you get mistaken for a soldier and shoved into a uniform and have to pose for Rufus. I marched so badly in the televised parade that the television station operators, enraged by the dismal ratings, sent me a bomb.

I'd also forgotten about the bit where Red XIII dresses up in a soldier's uniform and sneaks onto a military ship and nobody notices. Red XIII is a quadrupedal lion/dog thing. Nobody notices.

VII feels to me like a 2D-era Final Fantasy that happens to be in three dimensions. I came into the series with VIII, which I think took itself more seriously than any of its predecessors did, and since then, with the exception of IX, Final Fantasy games have been pretty straight-faced. Perhaps that's part of the reason why opinion is so divided on later games.

Come to think of it, X-2 and XIII-2 do bring a bit of the silliness back. Maybe Square feel that their formerly-commonplace silliness should now be confined to spin-offs and direct sequels?

(Here, incidentally, is an exchange I had with my housemate, who is a Legend of Zelda person, when she was playing Twilight Princess and I was playing Final Fantasy XIII-2:

Riona: Why do you turn into a wolf in Twilight Princess?
RD: Because at the beginning... you're pulled into the twilight... and it turns you into a wolf.
Riona: ...
RD: You can't judge! With your Final Fantasy XIII-2 - 'oh no, this person's been swallowed up by the paradox!'
Riona: Look, it makes perfect sense. Someone's been absorbed by the paradox, and they're walking around as just an outline, so you have to make them visible with the magical powers of your little flying creature that is also a bow that is also a sword.

Later, RD proposed a surprisingly plausible theory: 'I think that when they're coming up with ideas for Final Fantasy games, they just pick two words out of a hat and combine them. "Gun... sword. Yeah!" "Goddess... motorbike. Let's do it!"')

Speaking of Final Fantasy XIII-2: why don't people write Hope/Serah? I thought you were supposed to have everything, fandom! It's not as if they're minor characters!

Also, I don't 'ship Noel/Serah, but I do still think that Noel/Serah first-time fanfiction should exist in which Noel has absolutely no idea what he's doing. He lived at the end of humanity; I seriously doubt he has much experience in sex or romance. So Serah has to walk him patiently through pretty much everything. It'd be great.

Whilst I'm rambling about Final Fantasy games, a few notes on Final Fantasy XIII:

The environments in Final Fantasy XIII are incredibly beautiful, but it's hard not to feel a bit disconnected from them. It's probably most pronounced in Palumpolum; I never emerge from that town feeling as if I've actually been there.

Storyline-wise, Sazh and Vanille's travels together might be my favourite part of this game. I really love their relationship. I wonder sometimes how Sazh felt about Vanille and Fang's reunion. Did he worry that he was no longer necessary in Vanille's life? (Gameplay-wise, of course, Sazh and Vanille's travels together are the worst part of this game because you don't have a decent Commando. For a while you don't have a Commando at all. But I love their relationship so much that I am prepared to forgive that.)

It probably wasn't a bad idea to shunt Snow out of the way for three and a half chapters. I love Snow, but he's best in small doses. He was my second favourite Final Fantasy XIII character at first, just behind Sazh, but Lightning displaced him a while ago. You're a sweetheart, Snow, but you're also completely intolerable sometimes.

(What if, instead of Lightning Returns, we got a game called Snow Returns, with Snow as the central focus and the sole party member? What a terrifying thought.)

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I think there are some points that are more serious about VIII, but, on the other hand, there are moombas who say "Laguna!" and an unskippable main quest about folk music and Selphie invading the missile base being Selphie and the President's doppelganger being a creepy metamorphic monster for some reason and Jumbo Cactuar as a GF and Zell's driving character trait behind "loyalty" being "hot dogs". And in VI, Kefka poisoned Doma, murdered General Leo, and successfully invaded the afterlife. VIII definitely has a more serious feel, but I think that's all just High Definition Squall scowling over all the cutscenes, y'know?

ALSO LINK COULDN'T SURVIVE IN THE TWILIGHT WITHOUT BEING TRANSFORMED INTO A TWILIGHT DENIZEN, AND SO MIDNA TRANSFORMED HIM INTO A WOLF, IT MAKES PERFECT... yeah. Yeah, you're right.

Next XIII spinoff release: Lightning Smash Simulation Versus. Hit this button sequence to punch Snow in the face!

I suppose 'serious' is always a relative term in the world of Final Fantasy. There's definitely a division in my head between 'VII and earlier' and 'VIII and later', though (with IX inconsiderately falling into the first category). The events of VI (and indeed VII, and quite possibly IX) are overall more serious than those of VIII, but, as you say, it's about feel.

I think the division can be summed up thus: in VII, when you're in disguise on the boat, one of the crew members offers a shop. At one point he sees through your disguise, and his response is this:

Say, who are you? You're not a part of the crew.
Oh well, seamen never bother with details!

And he goes right back to offering you items.

I don't think you'd see that sort of shameless, playful handwave-for-gameplay-convenience's-sake in more modern Final Fantasy games. I think that's where the division in my head lies. If that line showed up in VIII or XII or XIII, it would surprise me. If it showed up in V or VI or IX - games that, although they deal with serious themes, don't always take themselves very seriously - I'd happily accept it.

Of course, there are probably a load of recent instances like this that I'm forgetting. BUT THE DIVISION EXISTS IN MY HEAD.

(I'd forgotten about the fake zombie president. That was weird, I'll admit.)

I've just remembered the Mr Monkey and PuPu sidequests in Final Fantasy VIII, which mean everything I've just said falls apart. (Or does it? Mr Monkey surprised me a lot, but he wouldn't have in VII or IX.)

I love how Red still has his tail poking out of his disguise AND NO ONE NOTICES
also barret the big marshmallow, heehee

WHY DO I STILL REMEMBER ALL THIS

Seeing you talk about Final Fantasy reminded me of those FF parody ladyzombie designs you and

jazaaboo did a couple of years ago, so I thought I'd look them up again, and oh my God I can't stop laughing at Charger.

OH NO, I JUST REMEMBERED THAT ONE OF LIGHTNING'S ACTUAL OUTFITS IN THE UPCOMING GAME IS GENUINELY STUPIDER THAN CHARGER'S PARODY OUTFIT.

OH MY GOD IT IS
HOW IS THIS EVEN POSSIBLE

Oh man, I came for the commentary on how FFVII is the last cheeky /not too serious FF (because YES!) and you got me with your mention of Noel/Serah first time fanfic and akdjghaskghasfkgjh this is for you I hope you like it, sorry I couldn't deliver on the Hope/Serah:

It's fine at first; it's slow and gentle, and Serah can see the attractive lines in Noel's body like a sculpture of a man beneath the clothes he's almost too shy to shrug out of. He is nothing like Snow was, because Snow always liked to take the lead. Snow called sex a waltz, and Serah would laugh at him, and they would rub noses and be generally, disgustingly happy together.

Noel lets Serah lead him to her bedroll, Mog forgotten at the door to their little tent. There is something freeing about the knowledge that they are the only two people for miles, maybe for quite a bit further than that, and Serah is driven by that knowledge, by the sheer intimacy of touching her fingers to Noel's face.

She asks him, "Is this all right?" and Noel smiles, his eyes dark and unreadable, turning into the contact of her cool hand.

Serah takes the lead, undresses, unfurls from her clothes and guides Noel's hands to touch her breasts. He lightly cups them, breath a little quicker, head down, and slowly explores the shape of them. He runs one thumb along her left nipple, and seems startled when she hums in answer, telling him,

"That's good!"

Not long after, she notices the trembling in his hands, and decides instead to simply hold him. They sit together in the quiet of their tent, like the last two people in the world, and she strokes his back until he begins to cry, softly, into her shoulder.

"It's okay," she promises, not sure if she is telling the truth. She doesn't know as much about him as she would like, but there's something heartbreakingly lonely about Noel that only seems to get worse the closer he gets to her. "I'm here. It's okay."

He laughs like she's dying in his arms and telling him to be brave. He holds her tighter.

aaaaahhhhhh this is adorable and Noel is breaking my heart. The poor boy. There really is something very lonely about him.

♥ I really, REALLY like XIII-2 because I love them both way too much. I get what you mean though and while I think they're the best of BFFs, they both genuinely love someone else and I like to uphold that instead of trying to pair them together, really!

Those two! I love their friendship so much! I think part of the reason I don't actually 'ship them is that it's so rare and lovely to have a story centred on an incredibly close male-female friendship where both of them are adults and there's no romance at all, not even a will-they-won't-they element.

I do like to imagine that on their journey they sleep cuddled up together, though, in a totally platonic way.

Absolutely! (And I could easily see Serah being like "actually Noel's pretty hot!" and then going "oh, I was objectifying him D: okay rein it in, self")

I love FFVII because it had such weird juxtapositions of silliness and absolute freaking darkness, and also a weird mixture of high-tech and archaic stuff. Like, they dropped a plate on the city and probably killed roughly an eighth of the city's population, and everyone was just "Yeah, that'll happen, business as usual." Hojo somehow got grants to try cross-species breeding! Aeris has dated at least two dudes who fell through her church and into her garden! Four year-olds can be left in charge of the bar! Marvelous!

FFVIII also has some of that weird juxtaposition, but it didn't work as well for me because it just didn't hit the right balance for me. There's so much horror that could be dipped into in a lot of FFVIII stuff-- the sorceress stuff in particular. The love story part isn't the sole reason FFVIII leaves me cold at times, but it throws off the balance for me, if that makes sense. To say nothing of the whole orphanage thing. Don't get me wrong, I like FFVIII too; it just has some plot/mood combos in it that don't quite do it for me. It's like someone mixing mint and peanut butter-- both good on their own, weird together.

Also, the difference between the more realistic figures of FFVIII made it harder for me not to notice some of the silliness. I think I let some more of the weirdness in FFVII go because of the blocky, pixellated figures. I was already using my imagination more, if that makes sense.

That makes sense to me. Some time after posting this entry I suddenly remembered the Mr Monkey sidequest in VIII, which felt incredibly out-of-place to me. In VII, I'd probably have accepted a sidequest that required me to have a monkey throw rocks at me and insult my mother; in VIII, with its less cartoony visual style and less tongue-in-cheek overall feel, it was a little immersion-breaking.

The plate drop was absolutely horrific. It really struck me this time around.

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Huh? He's Got Pants Now.

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