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Erik von Nein wrote: You must not remember the game well if you think Gestahl's Empire was from FFIV.

No, I just suck at roman numerals.

To tell you the truth, I beat it once, a while ago when the remake came out for PS1. I recently tried to do it again, but I'm stuck on the Vargas boss at mt. Kolts, because I can't get Sabin's blitz to work.

Darksider wrote:

Erik von Nein wrote: You must not remember the game well if you think Gestahl's Empire was from FFIV.

No, I just suck at roman numerals.

To tell you the truth, I beat it once, a while ago when the remake came out for PS1. I recently tried to do it again, but I'm stuck on the Vargas boss at mt. Kolts, because I can't get Sabin's blitz to work.

Just think of Street Fighter combos whenever you try and pull off Sabin's moves and you'll be fine.

Erik von Nein wrote:Oh, I see. Those things, if I remember them correctly, weren't much larger than the Archades one man fighters, though I don't remember if anyone piloted them.

You must not remember the game well if you think Gestahl's Empire was from FFIV.

They're not much bigger than a single guy. They seem to be portrayed as larger in the cinematics, just as how the magitek armor proportions change. But they're still small. Armors are pretty big compared to a soldier, but still not freaking huge like the Guardians are.



Though, in-game, you only use the M-tek armors, in the cinematics Terra and Crew are seen on the Proto-armors, so that's the one I just posted there. The Empire is notable because it has the resources to churn out mind-boggling craploads of these units and deploy them across it's Empire, not because any individual one is really all that great. The armors are more than a match for infantry with firearms, but that really doesn't mean they're much more impressive than the first prototype WWI tanks are.

They also have some other odd units that you really never get much information about, like these things:



So we can consider those types of 'robotic' units (there's also a flying robot unit) probably much less common and not as important to an entire campaign as the rest of the troopers. There's a very limited amount of Magitek knights, who have been fused with magic the way Kefka and (to a lesser degree) Celes were. There's a bit of competant leadership under General Leo.

If they have any capacity to airlift Magitek Armor, we don't see it. And I don't believe it's present on the Flying Contient--just the gunship variants. I still think they're heavy hitters, but I'm not sure how you intelligently counterattack an all-airship force when you lack equivalent forces. The may outnumber the air fighters of the other forces, but those Archadian airships are pretty massive.

Covenant wrote:

Erik von Nein wrote:Oh, I see. Those things, if I remember them correctly, weren't much larger than the Archades one man fighters, though I don't remember if anyone piloted them.

You must not remember the game well if you think Gestahl's Empire was from FFIV.

They're not much bigger than a single guy. They seem to be portrayed as larger in the cinematics, just as how the magitek armor proportions change. But they're still small. Armors are pretty big compared to a soldier, but still not freaking huge like the Guardians are.



Though, in-game, you only use the M-tek armors, in the cinematics Terra and Crew are seen on the Proto-armors, so that's the one I just posted there. The Empire is notable because it has the resources to churn out mind-boggling craploads of these units and deploy them across it's Empire, not because any individual one is really all that great. The armors are more than a match for infantry with firearms, but that really doesn't mean they're much more impressive than the first prototype WWI tanks are.

They also have some other odd units that you really never get much information about, like these things:



So we can consider those types of 'robotic' units (there's also a flying robot unit) probably much less common and not as important to an entire campaign as the rest of the troopers. There's a very limited amount of Magitek knights, who have been fused with magic the way Kefka and (to a lesser degree) Celes were. There's a bit of competant leadership under General Leo.

If they have any capacity to airlift Magitek Armor, we don't see it. And I don't believe it's present on the Flying Contient--just the gunship variants. I still think they're heavy hitters, but I'm not sure how you intelligently counterattack an all-airship force when you lack equivalent forces. The may outnumber the air fighters of the other forces, but those Archadian airships are pretty massive.

I'm not exactly sure Sprites are a good way of judging their size. If you look at the original concept art for FF6, the Magitek armor is at least the size of a small tank.

Sprites are about as low canonicity as we can get for determining size. These were mostly for people who didn't know what they were looking at, who can now see better. Also, I noted the sizes change. Since the cinematics are new (certainly weren't on my SNES version!) it's worth showing why some people might be suprised to see them firing machineguns.

Covenant wrote:Sprites are about as low canonicity as we can get for determining size. These were mostly for people who didn't know what they were looking at, who can now see better. Also, I noted the sizes change. Since the cinematics are new (certainly weren't on my SNES version!) it's worth showing why some people might be suprised to see them firing machineguns.

The cinematics don't really change anything. The Magitek armor in the old game had machineguns in them when they were used in game as regular attacks. And again, there's the original concept art which portrays them as just as big as what they are in the cinema. So it really doesn't add anything new per se besides shiny visuals.

I would almost hazzard to say that Archadia is more advanced, both magically and technologically. Airships are kept aloft by skystone sure, but they seem to be powered by what I can only assume to be a nuclear reactor ("cascade failure" on the Leviathan). Unless it's a Mist engine and Mist compression does indeed spark a chain reaction like I thought.

Magitek Weapons are powered by... Esper juice. They can't even make the things move without magic.

I'm inclined to favour Archadia for the simple reason their airfleet is sufficient to simply blow away the Empire's force. The Empire, after all, couldn't down one unarmed airship flown by a Gambler. The Archadian Navy is huge and can lock down areas.

SirNitram wrote:I'm inclined to favour Archadia for the simple reason their airfleet is sufficient to simply blow away the Empire's force. The Empire, after all, couldn't down one unarmed airship flown by a Gambler. The Archadian Navy is huge and can lock down areas.

That seems to be the problem. Gesthal's empire is basically crippled in the sky compared to FF fictions that include more Airships. Hell, even FF2(IV) with it's Redwings airforce might be problematic just from the sheer number of flying, cannon-armed vessels.

Oh, there's competition, no doubts there. To give some coverage on one of the more obscure players:

The Palamecian Empire (FFII): The Emperor Mateus is an extremely potent mage. He controls the world's monsters and can summon additional ones from the underworld. The bulk of his army is composed of monsters, but it also has Hume regulars in it. Mythril gear on units including swordsmen, archers, mounted knights and warmages. Plus scads and scads of monsters. No firearms aside from cannons. No tanks or mecha.

And ONE airship, but here's the thing: The Dreadnought is possibly the single largest airship ever in Final Fantasy. It makes Cid's airship (the normal airship size, I guess) look like a spec in comparison. It levels several cities in a strategic bombing campaign all by itself. It's only brought down by internal sabotage.

Even after Mateus loses the Dreadnought, he conjures up a huge cyclone and uses that to eliminate what little resistence remains. In the eye of the tornado is a big fortress, too.

Even after THAT, when the heroes finally kill Mateus with Ultima (the spell, not the Esper), he gets sent to Hell and conquers Hell. After becoming lord of Pandaemonium he brings it to the surface and begins his campaign anew. Meanwhile, his "light half" goes to Abburoth (heaven) and rules that!

Darth Raptor wrote:
And ONE airship, but here's the thing: The Dreadnought is possibly the single largest airship ever in Final Fantasy. It makes Cid's airship (the normal airship size, I guess) look like a spec in comparison. It levels several cities in a strategic bombing campaign all by itself. It's only brought down by internal sabotage.

Even after Mateus loses the Dreadnought, he conjures up a huge cyclone

How large is Cid's airship? Because the Archadian seventh fleet's flagship Leviathain is incredibly large. I've heard some describe it as being as large as an ISD, although i'm unsure of this, and would need to check pictures and cutscenes to be sure.

Darksider wrote:

Darth Raptor wrote:
And ONE airship, but here's the thing: The Dreadnought is possibly the single largest airship ever in Final Fantasy. It makes Cid's airship (the normal airship size, I guess) look like a spec in comparison. It levels several cities in a strategic bombing campaign all by itself. It's only brought down by internal sabotage.

Even after Mateus loses the Dreadnought, he conjures up a huge cyclone

How large is Cid's airship? Because the Archadian seventh fleet's flagship Leviathain is incredibly large. I've heard some describe it as being as large as an ISD, although i'm unsure of this, and would need to check pictures and cutscenes to be sure.

Or the Big Whale, which travelled to the Moon and back as often as you wished. That was a big sucker.