Riona (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
rionaleonhart) wrote2013-06-18 10:16 pm
rionaleonhart) wrote2013-06-18 10:16 pm
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.)
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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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.
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I do like to imagine that on their journey they sleep cuddled up together, though, in a totally platonic way.
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