Behind the Times: Final Fantasy 9

[Darth Raptor]

Heh yeah, Mateus Palamecia. Your seemingly generic, tyrannical, bishie sorcerer who, when killed and sent to Hell, TAKES OVER HELL (and Heaven) then reappears on the mortal plane to pretty much destroy everyone who opposed him in life. Even the heroes' endgame victory is phyrric because EVERYONE IS DEAD. Only his plan to harass the dead heroes in Abburoth was really thwarted.

[Darksider]

It's also the only Final Fantasy I know of where the heroes plot to defeat the big bad involves allowing them to complete their master plan!

What other option did they have? Maybe killing (EDIT: murdering) Ellone would have foiled the plan, but that would be a little anti-heroic in the least.

It's mentioned that Ultimecia is jumping back in time with a machine that copies ellone's powers that doctor odine would someday build in the future.

How about having him I don't know, NOT BUILD IT?

Or just keep rinoa and ellone locked up and secluded for the rest of their lives.

Of course "destroying the lives" of the innocent ellone and Rinoa (they killed adel already, good fucking riddence) is not an option to the selfish assholes who make up the main cast.

[Ariphaos]

Wrong: bosses, with the only exception of Omega (and maybe Ultima) Weapon, are also on the same level as you.

There was a level cap. Ultimecia's was 65.

Edit: And the Weapons were your level as well - my friend beat Omega weapon at level 20 - he was much easier then.

[Darth Raptor]

The stat bonuses you get from gaining levels are negligible and eclipsed by spell junctioning. The level scaling is a good thing because you can draw more powerful spells from more powerful enemies.

[Darth Onasi]

And in doing what she was trying to do, she would defy fate and do whatever the damn she wanted. The problem is fate cannot be defied, by definition. She still wanted to try though.

There is a gamefaqs page that tries to explain it with a fair amount of evidence:
http://www.gamefaqs.com/console/psx/file/197343/34215

An interesting read at least.

As with Necron, I say that if you have to explain events outside the story so it makes sense, then the story sucked to begin with.

Prove it.

Squall does nothing sociopathic in the slightest. He never goes on a slaughtering rampage, nor expresses any desire to do so.

Squall to Rinoa: "If you become the world's enemy, I'll be your Knight"
Squall is a classic sociopath; the only thing that matters to him is what he wants, what he needs. His personality was permanently warped due to the loss of Ellone.
But what happens when he finally finds Ellone? He virtually ignores her, because now he has Rinoa.
His behaviour with both Ellone and Rinoa treated them like his possessions.

We never see him hand over the key to destroying the world, or try to kill his very nice potential girlfriend (I fucking hate the playable cast of FF7, with the sole exception of Aeris.) Squall treats his team quite well.

What? Squall is an asshole to his team, which is mitigated by the fact that they are all assholes or insane.

What other option did they have? Maybe killing (EDIT: murdering) Ellone would have foiled the plan, but that would be a little anti-heroic in the least.

Maybe Rinoa freezing herself would have done it (aside from the obvious let's not let Odine make his junction machine). But Squall the selfish asshole ruined that. Even though Rinoa was willing to do it and thus made the only rational decision in her entire life.

[Molyneux]

(I fucking hate the playable cast of FF7, with the sole exception of Aeris.)

Really? O_o Why? What's wrong with Tifa, or Barret, or Cid?

[Shroom Man 777]

I loved FF9. I thought it was loads of great fun. Seriously, I leiked its atmosphere and stuff. Eh, the characters were all okay too. Even if Eiko was annoying. I can dig Quina.

[Darth Raptor]

First off, he is a fucking terrorist, and he belongs in prison.

Only in the American sense of the word. He wasn't blowing up reactors to make a point, he was blowing up reactors to blow up reactors. And while it's almost lost in translation (Squaresoft must have used Babelfish or something), the huge explosion from when the No. 1 went up was an accident. The No. 5 was still standing after it blew, with minimal damage to the surrounding city. Avalanche was, at worst, negligent in the prosecution of attacks on legitimate targets. Meanwhile Shinra engaged in for serious terrorism of the kind you'll actually find in a dictionary.

[Darth Onasi]

Already been done - the foundation work was done during Adel's time, just the functional machine wasn't built until the future. But besides, if this worked, Ultimecia wouldn't have been able to show up in the first place, and the game's events would have never happened.

Since they didn't even try you can't reach that conclusion.
They could've destroyed any existing prototypes and research, and locked Odine in the deepest darkest dungeon in the land - he was an amoral crackpot anyway.

Oh, that's right, they (and Rinoa herself, which Squall agreed with until Quistis talked him into changing his mind at which point he turns to general stupidity) were willing to lock Rinoa up at the Esthar sorceress memorial. It would be an anti-climatic ending, but maybe it would have worked.

Which was totally out of character for Quistis to say that, totally out of character for Squall to have agreed to Rinoa freezing herself and overall utterly contrived and badly written.

He is seventeen and infatuated. I probably would have said the same thing, but it is his actions that count.

Not really, since he never does anything to contradict that statement.
I'm sorry but infatuated or not, that's not the kind of thing a sane person says, particularily when he knows damn well that evil sorceresses tend to go on campaigns of world domination and genocide.

First time talking to her over telepathy, he wants to know what the hell is going on; understandable.

Next time they meet is on the Esthar lunar base, where he pleasantly asks her if he was able to help with the Laguna thing, then asks if she can help him with Rinoa. They are interrupted by Ultimecia's antics. Ellone tells him to do what he can for Rinoa and offers to help.

The last time they meet is before being sent off to the final battle, where there was no time to waste with chit chat.


The conversations were short, but not because of Squall being an asshole. There were other, more urgent problems that had to be dealt with each time: 1) He was concerned about Rinoa's well being 2) Ultimecia freeing Adel, 3) he was concerned about Rinoa's well being, 4) Ultimecia destroying the world

He let Ellone's absense colour his attitude for his entire life and he can't spare 2 minutes to say something to her after all that time?
He's got enough time to engage in silly speeches with his new interest, Rinoa during all this. But nothing for Ellone?

The scenes in my brain right now are him thinking ahead and opening the train doors for Selphie and his worry and gladness about the ending of the missile base mission.

He's a soldier. He's had training in how to lead troops.
Moreover that was during the period he hadn't latched on to Rinoa, so his sociopathic tendencies were subdued (apart from his burst of megalomania after hearing that Seifer was executed).

He gives Zell what he wants in almost every situation.

Given that otherwise Zell would no doubt whine and baw like a baby lamb, that's no wonder.

Quistis is the only one I can think of to whom he is mean, and that was brought on by her inappropriately prodding him at every damn opportunity.

Prodding? She got dropped from her position as instructor and needed a shoulder to cry on, and Squall basically told her to fuck off.
At best he's an asshole. At worst he's a sexless moron who just brushed off an attractive, intelligent young woman who needed to be comforted.

As for how he talks, all he does is go on and on about Marlene, but when anyone else talks, he then yells (complete with foul language) at them that it is all about the planet. He's a hypocrite in the extreme.

How is he a hypocrite? He's just an angry, angry man.

At least Reeve/Cait Sith (whom I also dislike primarily from his design, and also his limit break sucks and he is sometimes plain annoying) actually calls him on both these in game, to which, if I remember correctly, Barret responds with more hypocritical yelling.

Untrue, as I remember it when Cait Sith calls him on his actions, Barret does openly regret what he did and doesn't try to justify it.

How he treats Shera. Even if she was wrong, she wouldn't deserve the treatment he gives her at all.

Well not only was she right, but apparently she would've survived the launch in that compartment, seeing as how she did when the rocket actually went up. Therefore Cid is a moron.

On the other hand, Cid was arrogant, a chain smoker and probably a drunk. His treatment of Shera is unreasonable, but all that makes him a flawed character. Not a bad character.

If you want jerk ass Cids, look no further than FF8's Cid. I mean, am I the only one who saw something sinister in his plan to train children in military academies, then boot them out with no support at the age of 20 if they didn't manage to graduate into his personal force of mercinaries (SeeD?)

[KlavoHunter]

That's nothing, I'm going back and playing FF4 through for the first time seriously-like.

[Vendetta]

That's nothing, I'm going back and playing FF4 through for the first time seriously-like.

See, that's the good shit right there.

Though I hear that the DS remake of FFIV is even better.

[KlavoHunter]

See, that's the good shit right there.

Though I hear that the DS remake of FFIV is even better.

It's all 3D and I don't entirely know how I feel about that

[Molyneux]

See, that's the good shit right there.

Though I hear that the DS remake of FFIV is even better.

It's all 3D and I don't entirely know how I feel about that

...must get! I knew vaguely that there was a FFIV thingy on the DS, but I thought it was just a port.

[Mayabird]

Back on topic, I found that I liked FF9 better the second time I played it, because then I could really see the character development. Steiner started as a bumbling fool and annoying as heck, but by the end he's this noble knight and likable and I didn't even realize it until the second time how gradual it was. Also, I understood more of the shout-outs to the other games.

[Steve]

That's nothing, I'm going back and playing FF4 through for the first time seriously-like.

See, that's the good shit right there.

Though I hear that the DS remake of FFIV is even better.

Unfortunately, I haven't heard of any plans to release it here in the States. *grumbles*

[Darth Yoshi]

...must get! I knew vaguely that there was a FFIV thingy on the DS, but I thought it was just a port.

If it's anything like FF3DS, there'll probably be some plot changes, new dungeons, and some job changes.