Messages

5191

History, Locations, and Artifacts / A Short Reply

« on: December 30, 2003, 02:46:44 am »

Josh, I noted while working on my FAQ that a man in Kajar refers to the Ocean Palace as 'Eternal Palace,' without using any articles and capitalizing the latter word. Perhaps the Ocean Palace had a formal name?

His "Eternal Palace" statement may well have been simply a boast. It did seem like the Queen and her top people were pretty frenzied about the prospects of becoming immortal with the completion of the palace. But at the same time, in Japan the Black Omen was called the Black Dream, and I suppose the Ocean Palace may well have been called something else in the original Japanese. Given the nuances of the Japanese language, ol' Ted may have decided that "Eternal" fit that line better than "Ocean."

I can tell you that it was my research into the Japanese original text that compelled me to suspect that the Entity is the planet (of which I had theretofore remained unconvinced), and perhaps the Japanese name for the Ocean Palace will shed any amount of light onto a closer understanding of the game.

Please excuse me if I make a few inquiries here, as this topic seems fit. I believe I may have identified one of the sources of players' confusion of Dreamstone with the Frozen Flame; it is a book in Kajar's secret room that reads,

It all began aeons ago, when man's
ancestors picked up a shard of a
strange red rock...
Its power, which was beyond human
comprehension, cultivated dreams...
In turn, love and hate were born...
Only time will see how it all ends.

This also begs the question of whether plot past the scope of Trigger had been planned at this point. One of the common conceptions is that neither Dreamers nor Cross had been thought of, as Trigger was an attempt at beginning a new series and such tries are risky.

I definitely believe that no formal plans at all had been made beyond Chrono Trigger during its creation. The development team may have taken the occasional step here and there to leave things open enough for a sequel in the general sense, but just by looking at RD and CC you can see right away that they are the sort of sequels that could have been written for any story; they did not require specific setup in their predecessors; they simply made good use of the original material.

In Chrono Trigger, there simply was no such thing as the Frozen Flame--not that it couldn't have existed in-character, but that there was never any mention of it. The red rock bit excerpted from above is a reference to dreamstone. I believe that in RD the dreamstone was given some greater meaning, and that in CC that was tweaked just a bit more to make it a piece of Lavos (which I personally consider a step back, but hey).

Lastly, I wonder why the Nu mentioned Lode Shields, if such a thing and class of armor does not exist. Perhaps they would have been equippable as an accessory.

You've already done a good job showing just how much material from CT was never released. The special gear in Zeal may have been scrapped from the game due to plot or time constraints. RPGs generally tend not to mention anything specific without the implicit promise that you'll get to deal with it somehow.

~ Josh

5192

General Discussion / Out of Many, One.

« on: December 28, 2003, 04:19:23 am »

Personally, I just think it's foolish to spend such enormous amounts of resources to tear down and rebuild another country when the U.S. itself still has so many problems of it's own to deal with.

True wisdom lies neither within nor without, but simply with all. The United States could no more disengage from the world and focus only upon itself than it could engage itself upon the entire world fully; in either extreme the nation would lose its identity and its way.

I believe very strongly in e pluribus Unum. I shall continue to refrain from giving my opinion on Iraq on this board at this time, but I will say that any policy which spreads unity and concord while assailing faction and contentiousness is a policy I will support, because in my mind it is worth whatever means to achieve (a) the most united world (b) for the most number of people (c) under the best conditions (d) as soon as can be.

Does Bush further that? Did Saddam foil that? I won't say yes to either; to give such a definitive answer with as little wisdom as belongs to me is to disrespect the complexity of our world and misunderstand the finest tenets of empire.

~ Josh

5193

General Discussion / Zeal's Nice...

« on: December 28, 2003, 04:10:01 am »

My favorite place in any RPG is also Zeal. Imagine it, to stand atop the floating world and behold the planet below...a priceless gift wrapped in cloud, a shining jewel of unimpeachable value, a treasured home wrought of curiosity and meaning, a world caressed into a softly curving horizon so distant that not even the eye can reach it....to stand there and behold those sights from above, and to know that it is that world that gave rise to your people, who in turn created the floating world itself, and that you live there, in the capital of all human accomplishment, the masterpiece of sentient imagination, with halls decked and orchestras engaged, and that you know how to dance. Would you not feel tinier than the tiny in such a place? Would you not feel greater than the great in such a place?

But in addition to the Kingdom of Magic I should also like to add one other place in the worlds of RPGs where I find myself lingering whenever I should visit. It is the top of the pyramid in the Dark World in The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past. Nowhere in any video game has a single image moved me so strongly as that time when Link stood atop the Golden Pyramid of the Triforce and beheld the tall mountains to the southwest, with Ganon's Tower crowning Death Peak, and all is silhouetted by the setting sun. No processor power and no generation of console can come closer than that beautiful, terrible image.

And, only because it needs to be said, the music in both Zeal and the Dark World helped immensely to develop the mood.

~ Josh

5194

Other Topics and the Prerelease / The Magus' Reputation Precedes Him

« on: December 23, 2003, 03:16:39 am »

I don't think Magus would be the type to just hang back and let someone else have the adventure. If he was in El Nido at the time, I am almost certain we would have seen him or at least heard about him directly or as an unnamed fellow meeting his personality description. If he is in Chrono Cross, and keeping himself concealed throughout the game's events, it could only be explained by some adventure that belongs to a future game in the series, and since we cannot presume those sorts of adventures to exist, the logical conclusion is that Magus--who would be involved in something like this if he at all knew about it--is nowhere in the fold.

~ Josh

5195

Lavos, the Planet, and other Entities / Re: Information about the Entity

« on: December 21, 2003, 07:52:10 pm »

I was reading a FAQ on GameFAQs about some translation differences in Chrono Trigger and I found that the title of the last chapter of the game, "The Final Battle", is actually called "The End of the Planet's Dream" in the japanese version.

I hadn't known that. Now that I do, I see that it also adds further meaning to Chrono Cross' last chapter title, "For all the dreamers: Our planet’s dream is not over yet."

And, here too, life goes on...

~ Josh

5196

Characters, Plot, and Themes / O Where, O Where, Did My Time Machine Go?

« on: December 13, 2003, 10:23:25 am »

Ah! At last a topic in which I can post without worrying about the nature of space, time, and magic.

I should like to think that the Epoch did survive Chrono Trigger, never having been crashed into Lavos. To follow the thinking of the game designers is to follow the best flow of in-game events, and the only way to crash the Epoch into Lavos is to either avoid the Black Omen altogether, or to complete it, confront the Lavos shell, and then take a commercial break back through the time gate before coming back for the exciting conclusion. But any sequence of events that does not result in the complete showdown with Lavos immediately following the destruction of the Black Omen strikes me as artificial—possible within the open-ended context of the game, but not the ideal scenario. Furthermore, the survival of the Epoch beyond the events of Chrono Trigger leaves the game more open-ended, and would have invited an easier sequel than completely destroying all known means of time travel.

So let’s suppose the Epoch did survive the game. Meanwhile, after the adventures of Crono & Co. had wound down, someone would have to have been entrusted with its keeping, as it is almost certain the party of seven would have broken up soon after Lavos was defeated. Who would have gotten it? Somehow Frog and Ayla seem implausible candidates, and I will write them off without further consideration, for they are creatures of their own times, and not of the Ages.

Robo would have had no reason to have taken possession of the Epoch, but neither can I imagine any direct reasons why he wouldn’t have done so. We never really got a good, long view at the future given to the world by the events of Chrono Trigger. We never find out for sure just what kind of future Robo meets when he returns home. All we know is that the world evolved a dome aesthetic around its cities, and that ultimately Chronopolis was built. In such a world, I do believe it would have been much harder to conceal the existence of the Epoch, but Robo was resourceful and I doubt it would have been outright impossible. Also—and I am not sure if anyone realized this—by giving Robo the time machine, he would have been able to attempt to correct any disastrous outcomes of the past simply by looking at the history books. But there is no evidence that Robo ever undertook such a mission, and if the Epoch became his, then he seemingly either was never able to change it to something more desirable, or perhaps chose to let history remain as it was. After all, if you sit down and think about it, would you try and change a past that resulted in your life? If you like the person whom you have become, or if you married and had children (or little robotlings) or other loved ones and friends for whom you care, would you really be so quick to risk all of that? Perhaps Robo would have been selfless enough to try—that would certainly be in ostensible alignment with his character throughout the game—but perhaps in leaving history as it was, he was thinking more of the people whom he cared about in his own time, and we can assume that he made such friends, being the sweet guy that he is…and, if no one else, even then there would still have been, presumably, Atropos.

What about Magus? This guy has lived a particularly tragic life, and he is the only one who ends Chrono Trigger on an incomplete note, going off in search of his sister. The question is, did he want the Epoch? Perhaps he wanted it and was refused. Besides Frog, who knows what the other five came to think of Magus after he helped them to defeat Lavos and after they grew to understand his past a little better? Lucca seemed to treat him well enough in her letter to Kid, but that offers little proof that she and the others would have trusted him with the Epoch, a tool representing vast power, enough to take his word that he would only use it to find Schala. Would he even have given such a promise? And perhaps Magus simply never wanted the Epoch, or wanted it but never deigned to ask for it. He came across as a fellow of great self-reliance, an identity forged more out of necessity than choice, but a valid identity nonetheless.

And what about Crono, Marle, and Lucca? First, is it proper to think of them as a group? Crono is the common link, written as Lucca’s close friend and Marle’s love interest, and indeed the three of them live in the same kingdom in the same era, and they also appear together as ghosts in Chrono Cross, whereas the other five do not. But then again, epic quests are like jobs…they bring you close to people every day for years, but when it all ends, you may never see any of those people again. The permanence is an illusion, and so it is just as possible that Crono, Marle, or Lucca drifted apart at some point. Still, before they would have had the chance to drift apart, I think it would have been decided who would take the Epoch, and even if these three drifted apart at some later date, they would have received the Epoch—had they been the ones to receive it—as a trio. Lucca, being a scientist and inventor, seems the ideal guardian of the Epoch above the other four. Marle was probably the least respectful of the Epoch’s awesome power, as her capricious nature would be more likely to drive her to use it to correct historical problems that the others might deem insufficiently egregious to warrant risking the timeline. And Crono, well…we love Crono. But what would he have done with the Epoch? His personality is almost completely open-ended. It’s hard to say.

So…five people…one Epoch. Or, at least, that’s the easy way to think. If the old girl had a good warranty on her, then everyone who wanted could have had the Epoch for as long as they wanted; it is a time machine, after all. But since the method of this Epoch-sharing would require me to evaluate the nature of time in the Chrono series—which is something I have not yet done—I’ll leave this possibility open as a blank. Also left blank is the question of just how much of a time machine the Epoch is. In Chrono Trigger it could only visit periods that had already been punctured via the gates. Either that was a creative necessity to which the design team was obligated—because obviously it would have been beyond the scope of the plot and beyond the memory on the cartridge to design a time machine capable of traveling to any point in history—and thus the Epoch can in theory travel to any point in time (and the party members simply never did so in the game), or the Epoch was only able to travel through preexisting openings in space-time, caused by the main time gates or other anomalies. This question potentially limits the Epoch’s usefulness to the extreme, but lacking my space-time theory, I wouldn’t dare try and answer it now, hence the blank.

I am sure that whomever among the five was entrusted with the keeping of the Epoch—even Marle—would have realized the danger of letting such a powerful instrument just sit around, and would have dismantled, destroyed, hidden, or sealed it. Lucca is the only one whom I am sure would not have destroyed it; as a scientist myself (or at least an engineer who appreciates the scientific side of his work), I can attest that many people in the scientific community believe that destroying dangerous tools is not a good way to mature as a species, because this method limits our power, rewards our superstitions and ignorance, and stifles our curiosity. It is better to let our curious minds create what they will, and then learn to live in a world where such things exist, and to treat those powerful tools with the respect and care they warrant. In so doing, not only do we get to keep the powerful tools after all, but we become better people for it. I think Lucca would share this opinion, and would have never destroyed the Epoch simply because of its power. But whether she would have dismantled, hidden, or sealed it, I could not say. And of the other four, I could not say at all.

So the question remains…who ended up getting the Epoch? Let’s look at some pertinent post-CT events:

Given that Guardia was “allowed” to be overrun just five years after it was one of the top powers in the world (and living in an era of peace, at that), we may assume that whomever had care of the Epoch either was not aware of the invasion, or was not able to use the Epoch, perhaps due to lack of reaction time to retrieve the hidden Epoch or reassemble the dismantled Epoch, lack of access to the sealed Epoch, or to lack of the existence of the destroyed Epoch. Also possible is that the Epoch’s keeper(s) did try to save Guardia, but failed at some point and were incapable of trying again. And, finally, the minor possibility remains that the Epoch’s keeper(s) could have used the Epoch to save Guardia, but chose not to. Of that choice, I would imagine Marle had no part. Probably, but not as certainly, neither would Crono have permitted the country to fall without a fight. Lucca, I couldn’t say.

And as for Lucca, she was apparently (but not definitely) killed when Lynx destroyed her orphanage, but that doesn’t mean the Epoch could not have been in her care. Lynx might never have known that such a toy existed, because FATE never had such control over the mainlands as it did El Nido. And Lucca, I believe, would have been bright enough to not leave the Epoch—representing significant power—in the same home where she was raising a bunch of children. Surely she would have recognized that so doing would have been an invitation to disaster. And if she did keep it in that house, I would bet she kept it very well hidden, likely in a cellar area that, along with the Epoch’s own tough skin, would have spared the little time machine from the brunt of the conflagration. Thus, it is more probable than not that, if in Lucca’s keeping, the Epoch survived when her orphanage was destroyed.

I will refrain from discussing Robo and Chronopolis, because there is no way to know which Robo it is that ended up being integrated into the Prometheus circuitry—the Robo who helped destroy Lavos, or the Robo who was created in the new future resulting from Lavos’ destruction, and since one of these Robos might have had the Epoch whereas the other almost certainly did not, any attempt at using Prometheus via Chronopolis as an insight into the fate of the Epoch would be almost wholly speculative.

If we’re going to talk about sheer probability, then on the individual level I would say Lucca would have been the most likely candidate to keep the Epoch, as she had the greatest appreciation for understanding its operations, and we do know from Chrono Cross that she went on to become a reputable scientist.

That tenuous argument, coupled with the likewise tenuous argument contending that Lucca would have been too “scientist” to destroy the Epoch, coupled again with the likelihood of her death at the hands of Lynx, would then support the conclusion that the Epoch survived the original Chrono Trigger period, either hidden, dismantled, sealed away, or in some combination of these. Still existent, there then remains the possibility that someday the Epoch would be rediscovered and/or reassembled and/or retrieved, although that possibility is contingent on the whatever Lucca did with the Epoch—for example, if it was sealed well enough, perhaps in some astral node or the ancient future, then no one would ever know to look for it. But if it was simply in a crate in her basement hidden behind a false wall, it would very likely be discovered, ultimately.

At the conclusion, I would propose that it is more plausible than not that the Epoch survived Crono & Co., and if so most likely succeeded into Lucca’s guardianship, but that the plausibility of this possibility does not by any means necessitate an absolute truth, and, furthermore, that the ultimate fate of the Epoch once it passed beyond the hands of its original owners is completely undefined. Effectively, all we can say is that the Epoch seems to have come neither into the knowledge nor the possession of most members of the Chrono Cross cast.

Of course, if you want the easy answer, it was ultimately unmade. Given enough years, all things do come to an end, you know…even time machines.

~ Josh

5197

Magic, Elements, and Technology / Magic Theorization

« on: December 12, 2003, 09:59:06 pm »

This is a wonderful topic and is overdue for its own thread, but I shan't reply to it just yet, because, while I hate to commit myself to a backlog, I believe my next major work for the Compendium following my in-progress space-time theory will simply have to be a magic theory, as this series is too inextricably tied to magic that I could dare attempt to post in most of these threads without my own, fleshed-out understanding of magical mechanics.

~ Josh

5198

General Discussion / Do you draw?

« on: December 12, 2003, 09:52:43 pm »

like, isn't that from the episode thta they went to duff gardens and she got drunk?

That was a good episode, but it provided no stylistic inspiration for the drawing.

~ Josh

5199

General Discussion / A Drawing

« on: December 12, 2003, 12:22:53 am »

I draw only very rarely, because of the three major forms of expression--literature, music, and art--it is the one in which I have the least natural talent. However, since my personal philosophy holds that forms of expression are also expressions of intelligence, I force myself to draw every now and then. Below is a drawing of someone you ought to recognize. Her odd pose owes to the missing background; you can therefore imagine her in any one of several situations of varying mood, theme, and intent. The major trouble with drawing this is that Lisa's midsection is a ball, which gives her curves in the wrong places when she bends. I think my resolution of that difficulty was innovative, and mostly successful. Pencil on 20-lb. stock, completion time three hours. Title: "Girl Packs Inhibitions"



~ Josh

5200

History, Locations, and Artifacts / Land mass in 12000 B.C.

« on: December 10, 2003, 02:45:06 pm »

Very nice. Strange, but very nice. Thanks.

~ Josh

5201

Time, Space, and Dimensions / Inquiry

« on: December 10, 2003, 02:21:46 pm »

I have a question which hardly warrants its own full thread, so I tried to find an existing one to piggyback.

À la 1999 A.D., do we have access to a compiled map of 12,000 B.C. before the fall of Zeal? Due to the glaciations in this era, 12,000 B.C. should have more landmass than any other visited period. I don’t expect the creators of the game would have bothered to recognize and implement that detail, but I am curious to see the entire planetary surface (or as much of it as they constructed) before the continents were deluged.

~ Josh

5202

General Discussion / No Novel!

« on: December 10, 2003, 01:31:46 pm »

The problem with retelling an existing story is that the better you like the original, the more likely you are to be disappointed with the retelling. I didn’t vote in the poll, but my would-be choice is that I would probably not buy a Chrono Trigger novel. Now, don’t get me wrong. If a retelling interprets the original with ideas similar to your own, then you may well like it just as much or even more so than the original. But most people won’t feel that way. Any novelization of Chrono Trigger that takes noticeable artistic license will put off more people than it attracts. A completely literal retelling would be less controversial, but most writers—and especially amateurs—simply do not have the skill to treat anything objectively, let alone a story they liked so much as to novelize. And this is to say nothing of the skill required to write any sort of retelling at all, which I suspect would also be beyond most people.

To be fair, I looked at the website and read the excerpts. Unfortunately they are too short for a definite assessment, but after a close reading I can say that I believe this author is beneath the skill level required for a proper retelling of Chrono Trigger. That’s the cold truth of it. A story as excellent as this cannot be entrusted to simply anyone. In the distant past I read an online novelization of Chrono Trigger that was exhaustively complete, and went above and beyond the viewpoints of the seven main heroes. It proved an enjoyable (and long) read, but I couldn’t find it either in my own Internet records or through Google, and, in any case, it was not so good that I would have paid to read it.

Finally, I should add that the odds of this fellow being sanctioned to publish a Chrono Trigger novel are extremely slim. Most novices seem to think that getting a book published is easy. It is not; commercial publication is like an exclusive sports club, and self-publication is expensive and narrow in reach. Even worse, is to try to get permission to novelize an existing, copyrighted story, especially when the copyright is held by an enormous video game company. His efforts, I believe, are next of kin to impossibility.

Having said all of that, I must add that I do condone fan fiction, and I read it from time to time. Most of it, as has been said, is poor quality fare. Some of it is nice. But professional attempts are in another arena altogether. For a writer of this man’s talent level to try and establish a definitive Chrono Trigger novel is Icarian folly. Once such a novel is established, it is, as I said, the Chrono Trigger novel. If such a thing ever happens, it must be executed with the utmost excellence...and this is not that.

~ Josh

5203

General Discussion / Computer Details

« on: December 09, 2003, 04:23:59 pm »

At this very moment I am using my beloved Compaq Presario 7595 Super Ultra Deluxe Desktop Extravaganza Computer with Device Action. I got it in summer 2000 partly with my own funds and partly as a high school graduation present. I bought it preassembled at Costco, along with a printer. The computer itself is nearly four years old, which at the speed of technological innovation in the industry is toward the end of its useful life. And, indeed, sometimes it has trouble with this or that. But overall, it has been reliable and a joy to have. I really don’t know what people did before PCs were commonplace. I guess they were all trying to figure out what was missing in their lives.

Inside the tower I’ve got the original Pentium III 650 MHz processor, which is ever so slowly losing ground to the minimum recommended specs for today’s latest and greatest applications. Sometimes when the ol’ processor feels a bit over the hill, I load up Solitaire and it runs that like a breeze. The only problem is that I’m really not all that fond of solitaire.

On the active memory side, I had 128 MB DDR ram originally, nice stuff, too—top of the line at the time. Last year I added another 256, for a total of 384. The only trouble is that Windows 98 SE doesn’t really know how to optimize all that extra power, and the upgrade barely shows.

So far as hard memory goes, I originally had what I believe was a 30 GB hard drive, possibly 20 GB. Two years ago it cracked, costing me a lot of stored data. But just when the world was at its darkest, a kind and holy relative of mine, blessed be he, was ever so beneficent as to buy me a new hard drive. The world was raised up, the sun shone bright, and all was well again. It’s a good disk, too. I want to say it’s 80 GB, but it tells me it’s only got 60 GB. The cycle rate is 7200, naturally, but for the life of me I cannot remember if it’s a Maxtor or a Western Digital. Anyhow, nowadays this drive is as old as was the original when it perished. I hope this one has got more stamina. I named it Silence, after a character in one of my novels, because Silence is tough and won’t take shit from anyone, even if it’s coming at her at 7200 RPM, and also because the drive really is silent compared to the painful whirring of the last drive in the throes of death. After two years of use my trusty Silence makes a bit more noise than it used to, and so does the hard circuitry on the motherboard, but so far things are still looking pretty decent.

I’ve got a DVD/CD-ROM drive that makes such a ruckus when I use it that I’ve simply stopped using it, and a separate CD-RW drive that I use for matters relating to RW. I also have a floppy disk drive that, to my knowledge, I have not used in over a year.

Right now I am staring at my Compaq MV720 CRT 17-inch monitor. It has served me well from day one. On top of it is a Logitech webcam that I got as a present over two years ago, and is really beginning to show its age. Beneath my fingers is a smashing Compaq keyboard—remember that I got the whole thing in a preassembled bundle of Compaq-Costco goodness. It’s in QWERTY arrangement, of course, because I type at the speed of business (ha!) and I’m also fond of the strong preference it shows for the left hand, which by all impartial and scientific accounts is the superior hand in every manner and aspect. To my left is a Logitech optical mouse that I bought either early this year or late last, finally freeing myself from the need to clean my mouse ball every week. The old mouse just didn’t like being fondled down there, ya know? Both the old one and the new have the handy scrolling wheel that has taken my life from unlivable to utopian.

Bleating against the walls of this humble abode is the Chrono Trigger piece “People Who Threw Away the Will to Live,” now at a stunning 150’31” on ZD-spc, generated inside a fabulous (and quite ordinary) pair of JBL desktop speakers.

My printer is an HP DeskJet 930C. I’d just like to take this opportunity to say, long live Carly Fiorina, and long may she reign over the HP Empire. She’s done an outstanding job with the company.

Also inside the tower I’ve got my groovy Ethernet card, and a TV card that never worked—which played a role in the fact that in the past three-and-a-half years I have watched less than one day’s worth of television. Next to those is a fan that presumably is keeping the whole works from melting right here on the spot. My sound and graphics cards are both suboptimal, indeed they were but average fare on the day I bought the computer, so you can bet that buy now they’re out of date. This has made my music composition particularly frustrating, as I’ve got MIDI problems of every sort. And as for running ultra-high-graphics apps, you can forget about ‘em. I’ve got plenty of empty slots and ports, and I think there’s a Sun Stone in there somewhere, too. Either that or it’s plugged into the mains (yawn).

And so, gentle reader, concludes my rambling discourse as to the innards and outards of my beloved Compaq Presario 7595 Super Ultra Deluxe Desktop Extravaganza Computer with Device Action. I hope I haven’t left out anything important, such as the nifty lamp sitting atop the tower. God, I love that lamp.

~ Josh

5204

General Discussion / Happily Ever After? No, Here's the Scoop:

« on: December 09, 2003, 01:25:43 pm »

On yet another and equally capricious whim, I figured I would give my two cents as to how I interpret the “happily ever after” fates of the main FFVI cast. Short of writing an actual fan fiction—because I have enough to write already—I’ll throw a few of my ideas onto the table in hopes that their clunky and scattered arrangement might impress someone as a work of art.

Terra
Giving oneself to the care of orphans is not a new idea in Square character profiles. Nevertheless, it seems to fit Terra particularly well, and I can see her living out her life in Mobliz, running the orphanage she founded. A lot of people try to pair her with Edgar, but as far as I am concerned, it’s a long shot that the two of them would ever become an item. (After all, why must every RPG girl have a love interest?) Terra told Leo she wanted him to show her what love is, and at the end of the game she said she had finally understood. I think she found her love not in a man, and not in a possession, and not in a seat of power, but in caring for those helpless kids and helping to make the world green and fertile once more.

Edgar
In most fan fiction, Edgar is the centerpiece of a new, benevolent kingdom that ushers forth from Figaro and covers most of the world, all just months after the fall of Kefka. Personally I find that melodramatic and excessive, but it is true that, of the three major powers in the world before Kefka’s rise, only Figaro survived. King Edgar would most definitely recognize the power of his new status as the lord of the mightiest nation in the world, but what he would do with that power remains in the realm of speculation. I for one suspect that he would not pursue an expansionist policy on his own volition, but would instead opt to concentrate the wealth of his power onto Figaro itself, enriching rather than enlarging his kingdom. Figaro would become a Mecca of science and technology, and of prosperity and happiness. Doubtless by not bringing Figaro to the world, a good deal of the world would come to Figaro, in search of the good life. And Edgar himself would rule over it all, and live out his days to old age. I imagine that he would remain a sexual player all his life, because his libido seems as central to his identity as his engineering savvy. But far from living without strain or trouble, I suspect that Edgar’s style of rule would forever walk a tightrope between embracing his own, perhaps impractically benign policies with the counsel of his advisors and the political pressures of other powerful people both at home and abroad.

Sabin
Sabin, far from becoming a loyal retainer to his brother, is probably destined to become a master of martial arts. He would likely inherit Duncan’s school and become a sensei in his own rite. His muscleman physique seems to be something of which he is not entirely proud, and by seeking illumination in the world by studying and teaching the arts, he would likely find an inner peace that he seems to be lacking at the game’s end. I do, however, imagine that Edgar and Sabin would remain good friends throughout their lives. I also imagine Sabin would marry at some point, although I doubt we’ve met her.

Cyan
Most fan fiction pegs Cyan as the new King of Doma. What these authors fail to reconcile is the fact that Doma was completely destroyed. The castle may remain, but he’s got no one left to rule…except maybe that guy in the turban and the handful of off-screen NPCs that he implies, but such a small number of survivors is hardly enough to restore the kingdom. Doma is as dead as Vector. Other fan fiction suggests that he’ll give himself to the care of Lola, the girl to whom he sent those letters in the name of a dead soldier. But despite the loss of his family, Cyan’s conduct in this matter was, in my opinion, irrational and indicative of the turmoil that ate away at him following the end of the world. Once Kefka was totally destroyed, Cyan would begin to recover, and in so doing would reassert his true identity, which is in strict adherence with bushido values and rites—something far more traditionally “masculine” than playing love games and caring sweetly for a young woman. Instead, I believe Cyan would spend a good number of years in the aftermath of Kefka’s defeat wandering the world and searching for someplace to fit in. Perhaps he would offer his services to King Edgar as a bodyguard or retainer, but I believe the vibrancy and technological saturation of Figaro are enough to make that a long shot. Perhaps he would join Sabin as a sensei, although the fact that their respective martial art forms are different makes this an unlikelihood as well. As far as I can tell, Cyan is just as likely to end up serving the king of one of the smaller surviving countries, or perhaps serving as master of a sea vessel, giving him the joint peace and prison of the oceans. In any event, I believe Cyan’s major struggle in his remaining years would be to find purpose to his life, a search in which I am not positive he would prevail.

Gau
This time I tend to agree with the fan fiction community in their treatment of Gau. His intelligence is explicitly stated during the game, but the expression of his intelligence is left undeveloped. I see him becoming a lad of great refinement and study in any of the world’s more prosperous kingdoms. Perhaps King Edgar would grant him membership in the royal court, as a pupil. Indeed, of Terra, Cyan, and Gau, I believe Gau is the most likely of those to end up in Figaro. Gau would benefit from the elegance that Figaro has to offer, and I think Edgar would benefit too, perhaps even coming to think of Gau as his legatee. For his part, Gau’s biggest adventures and tales are probably ahead of him.

Setzer
I see Setzer becoming the pre-capitalistic equivalent of a classic entrepreneur. Of all the main cast in the game, his life was probably the least changed, and he retained a spark of inner strength that seemed to vanish in the rest of the cast with the passing of the world. Doubtless he will go on loving wine and cards, making money, and enjoying the riches of a material life, probably in the country most conducive to the fulfillment of those ambitions. Whether he remains a gambler or becomes a merchant or perhaps even balances the two I cannot say, but I am confident that whatever he chooses would be quite lucrative.

Celes
Celes may hate power, but she is drawn to it like a moth…and perhaps she does not hate it as much as she thinks. But one thing is for sure: whether or not she intends or desires to do so, Celes will end up once again in a position of influence and leadership. Her skills as a high general and her training as a noble of the Empire would give her a wide latitude in choosing the face of her future, ranging all the way from starting a family with Locke in some quiet village to carving out her own kingdom from the remnants of the scattered Imperial people in the outlying cities of the destroyed southern continent, but the theme would be identical in any case…Celes wants to control her world, whatever “her world” may be. She may offer her services as a top commander in Figaro’s military, and Edgar would probably accept if she did. She may help reestablish Narshe, a cold land in peaceful harmony with her icy soul. She may help rebuild Vector, because very large cities tend not to die no matter what disaster befalls them. As the Empire’s highest-ranking survivor and one of its most endearing citizens, she may even end up being the top ruler of its vestigial successor. In any case, as much as I hate to admit it she’s also almost certain to marry Locke. She doesn’t strike me as the type of girl to want to raise a family—and for all I know her development as a magically engineered Magitek Knight left her sterile—but if she were to have kids, I suspect she would have less to do with raising them than Locke himself and their servants would, perhaps until the kids grow up a bit and become more interesting on the intellectual level. For the rest of her life, Celes would have to live with the scars of her past, and the blood on her hands, and I don’t think she would ever be able, or even willing, to outgrow the coldness in her soul.

Locke
Locke, for his part, is a big kid at heart, going on treasure hunts and fighting rebellions and so forth. He will follow Celes wherever she goes—and it will be she who leads them—and in any environ would probably give himself to the same old exploits he knew and loved before the game began. I suspect age will do wonders for his wisdom, and the years would mellow him out while sharpening his mind, making him a better figure later in life than he is now and granting him deeper identity. I also think he would make a great dad, if they decide to shack up and hatch their own kidlets.

Strago
Invariably, Strago dies in about nineteen out of twenty fan fictions you’re going to read on this game. I guess his advanced age is just too tempting for amateur authors to resist exploiting, but for my part I think he’ll continue to live a good while longer. For one thing, he made it as far as he did. He seems to be content with his life and at peace with the world, and these things are beneficial to a long lifespan. He probably has a chance at outliving even Cyan, becoming old to the extreme with a snow white beard that drips in his soup and little white ear hairs to make up for the vanishing hair on his head. He will no doubt continue to be a respected elder in Thamasa for the remainder of his life, teaching the young and guiding the growth of the community. When he does die, it will be in a hot tub full of chocolate syrup and beautiful women. (Perhaps not.)

Relm
Sometimes Relm and Gau are written as love interests in FFVI sequels. While that’s not outright impossible, I do think it hardly possible. Relm strikes me as the pre-industrial equivalent of a valley girl, and is likely never to aspire to the refinement and study that Gau would. She’ll probably end up as a free spirit in someplace vibrant like Figaro or the Coliseum, perhaps continuing her work as an artist and maybe even helping to define the genres in which she works. Maybe, if she is successful, she’ll open a workshop, or paint for some important noble. Conversely, the odds of her remaining in Thamasa are not good; the fire in her belly is too hot for that wayward little town to handle, and as a result Relm would be at odds with Thamasa and Thamasa would be at odds with Relm, until one or the other give in…resulting either in the taming of her spirit or the emboldening of Thamasa, both of which strike me as the sort of change that would not be for the best. I can imagine Strago granting her request to let her spend a year in a place like Figaro, and then writing to him to say that she means not to return, having become happy with her new life…and Strago would probably be happier for her than saddened by her permanent absence. Meanwhile, I can see Relm being a sexual player before finding that one true flame, and perhaps by the time she marries she will have cooled a bit in her zest for life…but perhaps not. Some people never change, you know.

Shadow
I hold that Shadow died in the fall of Kefka’s Tower. Sorry to let you down.

Mog, Umaro, and Gogo
I never really got into these characters so much, and so I have a harder time imagining what their futures will look like. A thin strain of fan fiction likes to imagine Umaro becoming the equivalent of Mog’s bumbling goon of a sidekick, and the two go off into the world and have wondrous and improbable adventures together, and that’s all well and good, but I leave it in the hands of better fans than I to assign them a destiny. And Gogo…is a question mark. Many people are divided between the three opinions that he is Setzer’s lost love Daryl, the Gogo from Final Fantasy V, or Emperor Gestahl himself. The first of those thoughts is quite silly; Daryl and Setzer loved each other and nothing in the world would bring her to hide herself in his very company. As for the middle idea, having never played FFV, I cannot speak to the likelihood of this Gogo being that Gogo, but I can say that I would neither be all that interested or impressed if it were so. And as for Gogo being Gestahl, I can definitely understand why he would want to conceal his identity, but Gestahl’s life was wrapped up too neatly on the floating continent. He got what was coming to him. To bring him back smacks of the classical artistic blunder of bringing back a popular element simply for the sake of milking that popularity. And so I want to believe that Gogo is not Gestahl in disguise.

~ Josh

P.S. Don’t look for me to try something like this with Chrono Cross anytime soon. I’d go mad…

5205

General Discussion / Thoughts on the Excellence of a Final Fantasy

« on: December 09, 2003, 12:11:31 pm »

How can I resist this topic? And so, because I cannot, I shall break with tradition and make a short, sweet little post completely given to fancy and recreation...hardly befitting of a Compendium scholar, but perhaps forgivable given the nature of the subject matter.

Final Fantasy VI is a beautiful game, and at times it has been my number-one RPG. I have only played it once, because I sincerely despise random battles and cannot bring myself to deal with them again. In fact, it was those random battles that made me put the game down for a long time. You see, I had gotten as far as the end of the Narshe sequence at the beginning of the game and was deposited on the world map, where I took not five steps and had a random battle. Then I had another. Then I quit. It was enough to deal with random battles in Narshe itself, but on the world map too? It was a long time before I played the game again, but when I did I polished the entire game off in just a few days. (Chrono Trigger was the same way for me, actually, but this is one thread where that game may be squarely overlooked.)

In film, literature, and game, the plot is important to me above all else, and it so happens that the first half of FFVI is simply among the finest stories any game has ever delivered. I actually got a lump in my throat on several occasions, such as when Cyan bids farewell to his family on the Phantom Train, and when Maria sings about the loss of her kingdom. And, really, how many games have an opera at all?

Many of the characters are very compelling. I felt sorry for Gestahl the moment I saw his name, because you know what fate holds in store for RPG emperors. They’re a tragic bunch, they are. I liked Edgar, who seemed more than a flirtatious young engineer-king, and I liked the (albeit subdued) interplay between him and Sabin. I really fell for Celes, right from the start, and to this day she remains one of my favorite characters from any story. I guess you could say I’ve got a thing for powerful women who aren’t love-starved twits. It’s too bad she turned out to be one anyway, but at least she stopped short of trading in her sword for a skillet. And Kefka, whom I felt was lacking as a villain, was nevertheless enthralling as a nuisance. (“Ahem, there’s sand on my boots.”) Ultros gave me some of the toughest boss battles, but he was also my favorite ONPC, or octopus non-playing character. Terra, Setzer, and Leo all had good stories, and I would speak of them and indeed the entire cast at great length if I didn’t mean this to be a short post.

But where a video games is concerned, a good plot—important as it is—and good characters—for as much as they add—simply must be accompanied by a good soundtrack. And Final Fantasy VI just so happens to have one of the longest and best score of any video game ever produced.

I will admit that much of the score took a long time to grow on me. I listened to it before I ever played the game, and some of it really caught my ear, but most of the rest I neglected. After I played the game that all changed, of course, as I could then place every piece to its in-game event. But even then I spent months, even a year, acquiring a taste for some of the pieces. Most of the Empire variations were awful, and I really thought they diminished the Empire’s in-game legitimacy. Eventually I became fond of them rather like a man who lives through the Plague will become immune to it. And Celes’ main theme was even worse. In fact, were she not my favorite character I probably still wouldn’t like her theme even today, and even as it is I tolerate only with the most reserved amity. The other variations on her theme are much better.

On the flip side, some of the game’s pieces are simply inimitably excellent. “New Continent” and “Opening Theme Pts. II & III” are in my absolute very best graces, and other pieces such as the Dancing Mad sequence, the ending music, the Opera sequence, the Phantom Train, Shadow’s theme, and on and on are all very near and dear to my heart.

And so I segue into the larger Final Fantasy series. FFVI was the only game I ever personally completed, but I have watched other people play FFVII and FFX. From the looks of it, FFVII was as good as people make it out to be. FFX in its plot looked to me as though the time has come for the series to perhaps consider taking a new direction in terms of its main storylines, but the graphics were excellent. And that is as far as I can comment as to the gameplay of the other installments the series.

But before I close I should rather go a bit further and add that while I have not played the games, I have at least listened to the soundtrack from nearly every game in the series. Truly, Mr. Uematsu is a second-order musical genius. His scores for Final Fantasies IV through VII all deeply impressed me, and I still listen to them regularly. His earliest and more recent compositions do not hold up nearly as well to my critique, but even the newest games have the occasional hit, such as Terra’s and Quina’s themes in FFIX, and Rikku’s theme in FFX. And, as always, he always finds a new and outstanding way to rearrange the classic Chocobo track. Rumor has it that he won’t be working on the soundtrack to FFXII, and if so then it’s a deep shame.

To put it all in perspective, I have five favorite RPGs that stand well above all other RPGs I have ever played. The order of my preference for them changes from time to time, so I’ll list them out of order.

Final Fantasy VI
Chrono Trigger
The Secret of Mana
The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past
The Legend of Zelda: The Ocarina of Time

They’re all outstanding games, and for a Final Fantasy to be among their number is a credit to the series.

~ Josh