I Adore the World of Final Fantasy IX and You Should Too! 

Ten was great except for its clunky on-rails camera and the ham-fisted handling of the narrative at the end.

What about necron

12 is the best, 10 is good even though hallways still good, 9 is good for story and that old school "final fantasy feel"

8

@@Yixdy Okay, I love XII, but... No. It has maybe the best soundtrack out of any Final Fantasy. Some of the best visuals and set pieces. But two of the main characters are completely worthless to the narrative, and the combat system is just bad. Slow, clunky, and by the end of the game, almost fully automated with no user input necessary apart from Quickenings and Summonings if you ever bother to use them. XII is overall still a great experience, and a special one even among other titles in the franchise, but IV, VI, VII, VIII, IX, and X are all better games.

Fuck all remakes, fuck all remasters.

I feel that way about Breath of Fire 3 as well. If they ever remake or remaster it I will be very upsetti spaghetti.

@@Just.Kidding the only FF game I want to get a remake is XI, mostly because I don't know how the longevity of such an old MMO running on dwindling PS2 devkits will be effectively preserved compared to every other mainline entry.

Bof3 is amazing. Just did another playthrough and keep fucking with peco. I made him a mage. A tank. And a speedy guy last playthrough. Made peco as fast as rei lol​@@Caspicum

I thought it was directed at HBoomerSoy. I guess it's a Rorschach test for which pretentious leftist video-essayist you hate the most.

Beep

You can't see it, but I am bowing.

I originally wanted to do it with Breath of Fire 3, but I have eventual plans to do a top-to-bottom rundown of literally everything in that game, even if it ends up being hours or days long, so all that stuff will be included. During a recent playthrough of an FF9 hard type, I found all this new stuff looking desperately for items to help me get through tough fights, and fell in love with the game in a whole new way. I'd never intended to make it a series, I think specifically FF9's world is unique and special, but if I ever see any worlds that inspire me like that again, I'll probably do another like this.

I can relate just see creative writing as a video game, but the best one ever.

Please do, I'd be so down for that. I don't think I've ever seen an FF9 speedrun, but I can't imagine they're short

12 always felt a bit hollow to me. It had all the components of a game with tapestry and flair, but felt so empty at the same time. Maybe that was me skimming and rushing the story, but NPCs felt like sign posts with little sign post markers, and nothing else seemed to really impact them. I could be, and hope I am, completely wrong, I'll get back there at some point and fingers crossed it's got some neat things to offer.

@@Caspicum Yeah I'd definitely recommend it, especially the zodiac age re-release really fixed up a bunch of the gameplay issues with the original. I feel like a lot of the interesting NPC world building comes from the hunt quests, so if you decide to interact with those you get a more full picture of the worlds inhabitants, that being said it certainly lacks the charm X and IX have as far as the characters go due to the approach they take. The game has one of the best bestiary systems in any game I've played and I'm a slut for a well done bestiary.

Oh damn I didn't connect that Lani living with the Moogles and the Inn review. sheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeit. I thought it wasn't even worth mentioning. 20 years or so for the war seems about right for a generation of people to be lopsided sex-wise. I do remember Steiner lost his parents in a war or something, but I think that was in one of those character lore books Square released, not in the actual game. That would've been presumably 20-30 years before the game began. Beatrix is only 27-28 according to the Wiki, and Steiner is 33, so they would've been kids, but they'd still be able to recount war. I guess that means there've been more recent wars, likely within the past decade as I don't think Beatrix was out there cutting down rats during her teen years, but you never know. There're definitely smaller nations implied on the Mist continent, but we don't see them in-game, maybe they just did a really good job wiping them out.

​@@Caspicum Its weird that her age is stated to be that then. Her entire reputation is about "Oh, I once killed a hundred KNIGHTS singlehandedly". Thats no small scuffle, that's a battlefield. So she was definitely involved in a war somewhere. It wouldnt be a rebellion either. So if she was 16 or 18 during a wartime, that would put a war at.... 10 years prior to the game? Which ALSO wouldnt make sense, because there's no country she could have been at war with: Lindblum and Alexandria were allies for a long time (as Cid and Garnets [adoptive] father were very close friends). So that would leave Burmecia and Cleyra, and we know Cleyra has been sealed off for a hundred years. According to the Wiki, Alexandria and Burmecia had been in a war.. but 40 years before the start of the game, in dummied-out dialogue. Which... would make more sense. The signost you read has the name "Cid VIII", which is the father of the current regent, Cid IX (also a sneaky reference. The 9th Cid in the 9th FF game? Well he would be if FF1 had a Cid, which it didnt.. so uh.. nvm this). I had to backtrack a little through your video and the various hints given for this. We know there hasnt been a war with the current Regent Cid, and he has been in charge for many years (though we dont know for how long, unless we use the wiki). We dont know how long there has been peace, but suffice to say he hasnt been involved in any. His father however "led the airship armada in 1771, and brought peace. died in 1780". We do know that Garnet mentions only knowing "uncle cid" and not his father, so we can assume that for the past 10 or so years, he's been in charge. This would mean if there has been exactly 10 years (garnet arrived when she was 6?), and he was crowned Regent in 1780, there would have been a war roughly 19 year previously Now, if we take the anniversary part as a quote made when peace was established, than 20 years would actually make sense: the quote by Cid VIII is 20 years old, the cable cars are relatively new (though not JUST new, so we can add maybe a minimum of a year to this?). Or.. that was my first thought at least. See, my guess is, Alexandria and Burmecia were at war 20 years ago, and Lindblum just intervened and told both "play nice, or else". But thats a guess. Either way, it would make no sense for Lindblum to be directly in a war with either nation. Alexandria and Burmecia would make more sense due to the border locations (ground level). But even with all of that, Beatrix' story STILL makes no sense. Either her reputation is a lie, or her age is just wrong. The math on this just does not check out. Honestly, the backstory should have just been "she once killed a hundred raiders/bandits/pirates in battle". But Knights? Well, anyway... I absolutely loved your video. Ive been going through some of your vids like the item only BoF3/LoD runs, the Twilight of the Spirits video, etc. And all I can say is... thats quality entertainment. And you are an absolute madlad for the item-only runs. Thank you for all the effort!

To ease your mind, I watched a sick series on the translation efforts of Final Fantasy IX recently, I'll link it below, and I could've sworn he mentioned that the 100 knight line was slightly mistranslated, which would make this whole scenario make a little more sense. Also women do lie about their age but idk to what extent a knight like Beatrix would even care about that. Probably not even a consideration, especially given there're wikis likely based off the word of the designers, and Beatrix is my dream woman who would never do that :^) I appreciate the kind words, I've always come out the other side of videos being like "Man this sucks" so when people dig them, it's a great feeling. It's good to be wrong. Here's your video, I think this is the episode: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE--9Hm9_AfaS0.html

@@Caspicum Thats a great series! I never liked how Beatrix has that dumb "backseat comment" . Like, lady... are you implying you'd feel better if YOU were the one who committed genocide? What?

I haven't heard of this guy, but it's a damn shame when people who make video game stuff go crazy and dive into other topics, or just disappear. I like the Motorhead approach: Play the same song for 40 years and then die, but play it as loud as you can every time. I just wanna talk about games and make some shit jokes, so thank you for being here.

JRPGs really did go hard on emo edgelords in the late '90s. I'll take a poppy anime child or a cheeky monkey boy any day.

If we’re lucky they’ll completely change the story and make Zidane look like a girl.

Maybe there could even be online multiplayer! And instead of unlocking abilities with *equipment*, you can get them through a paid battlepass!?

photo realistic crystal engine Quina gonna land us all in the psych ward

Stop complaining, just consume product and be hyped for next product

Or you could just play the original

That's a good point. It didn't make much sense to me, as he's a Sealion, not an Icelion, but I guess the Black Mage was likely just blasting that top area with ice and the Sealion could've lived there in the climate transitionary area before he rocked up. Also strange we never see the bell jingling again...

Honestly, the solid translation of FF9 does a lot of the heavy lifting, which previous games didn't really get. The only other game I'd say that's even close to 9, would have to be 8 in terms of how many things need to function in the background for the world to make sense. They straight up just have car rental services that magically ward off giant fiends. I appreciate the compliment though, and hope you'll seriously consider taking it slower with games in the future! JRPGs can be tedious at times, but there's also a lot of goodies under the hood.

I have footage of me going through the key item section and reading all the descriptions of everything I got, I didn't want to constantly grind the video to a halt to show it off, but there's no doubt that's one of the least-explored menus in the game.

@@Caspicum I only found out after getting the key item from Baku in the crashed airship that key items could be examined. So it wouldn't be until my next playthrough that I would see it.

A few people have criticised the backgrounds, and yeah, some are a bit muddy, but considering the vanilla version square gave us, we're lucky a dedicated team of modders are trying to improve it. It is simply the best version out there. Also the instant-steal option is crazy good.

PS does that feet scene really happen or was that a joke?

Yeah the feet scene is real (in my mind)

N! N! N! N! N! N! N! N! N!

Oh damn, thanks. When I was proof-watching it I was like "Man this video sucks", perhaps time will be kinder to it than I. unless you're negging me, either way, thanks still!

It's Japan in the late 90s. The world hadn't gone insane at that point.

@@DanteWolfwood Define insane for me there bruv.

I think that's something they could address in a remake. It would also just be less awkward to say "they" instead of that "s/he" pronoun in the initial translation.

That definitely draws into question whether Lindblum wanted to conquer them, or simply defend itself. It seemed from what I could gather that the airships brought extreme prosperity to the advanced city, and basically won the war for them with minimal effort. In my mind, Alexandria is just chucking dudes at these giant airships with cannons and that's how we all ended up here, possibly why Brahne holds a mild grudge as well. Female-only troops is likely just for flair though, you right. I still can't explain the black chefs though. That one's gonna stay with me for a while.

ffxi is legit a great game.

and 3 is connected to v because of the void and then viii had void and gilgamesh

Glad I could help.

It's 2! The guy just wants to shuffle Spar around a bit.

If hes ever playd a good game its news to me

Name one good JRPG, I'll wait.

Legend of N! N! N! N! N! N!

Dude, I'm so there if they do it. FFIX has one of the best worlds and I'd love to see what they could do with new tech, new battle systems, and a heap of added character development for the cast - especially Amarant.

tyty. i only steal from the best

Frankly, I could've gone harder, I think I actually cut some shit from that because it was boring. I'm hardly qualified to be speculating about fantasy airships

@@Caspicum autism is a superpower to be channeled

I actually get to that a bit later!

@@Caspicum 42:19 very sorry for underestimating you

At first I thought they had assigned shitting streets, but maybe they just don't poo???

i've legit seen people shit-talk him and idk where they get off, but it's off the side of my airship mid-flight.

I definitely agree there. I've got a love/hate relationship with FFX, the story was good for a once-around, but has absolutely no replay value outside of wanting to grind that amazing sphere grid and monster arena for the 100th time. While it's solid, it's not 'Final Fantasy', it's just a big corridor, and while that corridor contains some cool anime set pieces, it's still just a corridor full of paint-by-number battles due to how enemy weaknesses work. Crazy that a game with that many detrimental flaws can still be such a fantastic experience though, if there's one thing FFX truly captured about what makes the rest of the series great, it's that it's always greater than the sum of its parts.

Probably moguri mod. I'm not sure it's ai upscale so much as it's repainted by some very dedicated modders.

Yeah, it's the Moguri mod, which is a mix of AI upscaling and a manual touch-up. I've said a few times already, but some of the backgrounds turned out extremely well, while others ended up a little scuffed, but it's still better than the stock Steam release.

CE FRIEND

I'm not sure how they did it. Some backgrounds look fantastic, others not so much. It's the Moguri mod though, and it's definitely better than whatever Square slapped on the stock PC version. Apparently they did it with AI (before the recent surge in low effort AI, this mod's almost a decade old I think) and then touched up anomalies by hand.

lol

I don't make essays, they're boring, pretentious, and padded. I just talk about dumb shit that interests me. If I submitted it as an essay, it'd get an F. for friends who do stuff together

Even early on the stakes are pretty high, and I don't think there're any gags that undercut the core story. I'm legitimately trying to think of any major moment that gets negged by whimsy, but I'd say FF9 takes itself too seriously at times, almost to a fault. I guess if I'm really looking, any time you're bested by Beatrix, not being killed and instead being left to get stronger removes the stakes somewhat, but there's no cheap gags there. I always took that as Beatrix effectively saying "You're not even worth killing". But I can see why people would dislike that.

The rest of us without crippling ADHD don't seem to mind

@@sprytefox I have crippling ADHD and I still don't mind. in sort: ADHD isn't impatience. Impatience is impatience. People that don't have the patience for the battle system and constantly bitch about it are just annoying.

@@bd_bandkanon lmao

I love FFIX but honestly agree. It looks bad and I don't like it. I played the 3D versions of FF4 recently on PC and had to get the 30~ FPS patch for battles, 15 feels horrible and looks worse. It's not a deal-breaker, but if I can play it higher, I will. The version I played of FF9 for this video has 30fps battles, so problem solved!

It's just the Moguri mod, it's a popular mod for the Steam version and comes with a few quality of life tweaks that I dig. The aspect ratio isn't too wide, nothing is stretched, they just used whatever maps had more drawn outside of the 5:4 or 4:3 perspective to fill the longer screen. There're some maps which didn't have extra bits and they're pillar-boxed. I don't know how they did the backgrounds, but it does look marginally better than the vanilla PC version, which had its own upscaling woes. This was pre-AI slop, so I think whatever tools they used were carefully considered, though while some maps are quality, others are certainly lacking. I also used a font restoration to get it looking like the PS1 version textually and not the modern disgusting fonts Square use. This was a happy medium to play it at full screen and it not look modern and cheap, while not being extremely slow like the PS1 version is. It's not perfect, but it's the best we've got.

Stay on the side walk and you'll be fine, princess.

Wait does this guy know your dad died in a car accident or is he larping?