Queen's Blood (Final Fantasy Thread)

[Ruki]

I'm just excited for the Gold Saucer. 

[Skummy]

Chapter 16 Spoilers:

Spoiler

For most of this game, I think it's got the balance right of being accessible for a first-time player, and giving continuity nods to people who know the original inside and out, though some of the foreshadowing of story development coming much earlier I've not necessarily agreed with.

This chapter was probably the most egregious for me in that respect - I don't think Cloud not having been a SOLDIER, to the point that Hojo literally says as much, should have been mentioned anything like this early in the story. To have that brought up before you get to the Nibelheim flashback and backstory is a mistake, in my opinion, as at this stage we shouldn't be casting any doubt on Cloud's past, the plot at this stage requires us to believe that what he believes is true.

Otherwise - everyone feels like pretty much perfect extrapolations of their original versions. Hojo, in particular, absolutely makes my skin crawl. They seem to be portraying him as a bit more of a supervillain type here, and that fits, as he's arguably one of the true major villains of the game. 

I was preparing myself for disappointment right before Red XIII spoke, but they got his voice exactly how I expected it to sound.

Cloud's stumbling walk towards Jenova just after meeting Red XIII is perfect, and really plays into what I talked about earlier in my view of the original plot - you're not pursuing Sephiroth, Cloud is being drawn to the Reunion.  

 

[Ruki]

4 hours ago, Skummy said:

Chapter 16 Spoilers:

  Hide contents

For most of this game, I think it's got the balance right of being accessible for a first-time player, and giving continuity nods to people who know the original inside and out, though some of the foreshadowing of story development coming much earlier I've not necessarily agreed with.

This chapter was probably the most egregious for me in that respect - I don't think Cloud not having been a SOLDIER, to the point that Hojo literally says as much, should have been mentioned anything like this early in the story. To have that brought up before you get to the Nibelheim flashback and backstory is a mistake, in my opinion, as at this stage we shouldn't be casting any doubt on Cloud's past, the plot at this stage requires us to believe that what he believes is true.

Otherwise - everyone feels like pretty much perfect extrapolations of their original versions. Hojo, in particular, absolutely makes my skin crawl. They seem to be portraying him as a bit more of a supervillain type here, and that fits, as he's arguably one of the true major villains of the game. 

 

Agreed! That characterization was SOOO GOOD. 

 

Thinking about it now.... I don't think I enjoyed the summon system. The summons were big and impressive, but they didn't seem that useful. I didn't want to waste the ATB gauge summoning them and THEN to use their attacks. 

[GoGo Yubari]

On Wall Market. Chapter... 9, I'm pretty sure?

Spoiler

fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck Hell House. Once I finally beat it I just exhaustedly flipped off my television.

 

[Skummy]

yeah, I think it was either that fight or one shortly before it that made me think "oh right, I should really have been learning how all the support materia works, and paying attention in tutorials about blocking and evading after all".

[Ruki]

I also struggled with that fight. But the hardest was still...

Leviathan. Not including the two secret bosses.

[Skummy]

Chapter 16/17 I think?

Spoiler

I really don't like how much Sephiroth flashback were getting now, and hearing Red XIII already refer to Jenova as "the calamity from the stars" doesn't seem right. There hasn't been any suggestion yet of Jenova being a Cetra, which was most people's understanding of her until later in the game - I might be misremembering things in terms of Red's greater knowledge of the Planet, but hearing Jenova given that name before there's any suggestion of the mistaken backstory seems backwards.

Around this chapter is really the first time, though the earlier flashbacks come close, where it's felt like a game purposefully made for people who already know the story inside and out, rather than letting the story unfold at the correct pace, and that's a shame. 

I had guessed that Whispers were somehow trying to enforce the correct continuity, though I wondered how the game would explain that. Planet-y nonsense will suffice.

 

Also, there's a bit of the "what if any of the other Stormtroopers turn out to have a conscience?" moment, which is a pet hate of mine. In Hojo's lab, I'm playing with a party of Tifa and Aerith, some cages open, I get attacked by the Bloodhounds that emerge, and it's instantly a battle. I draw first blood.

But hang on, the last time this happened, the dog in the cage turned out to be Red XIII, and he's great. Why did I just jump straight to punching these guys without so much as a word?

 

[Bobfoc]

1 hour ago, Skummy said:

Chapter 16/17 I think?

  Reveal hidden contents

I really don't like how much Sephiroth flashback were getting now, and hearing Red XIII already refer to Jenova as "the calamity from the stars" doesn't seem right. There hasn't been any suggestion yet of Jenova being a Cetra, which was most people's understanding of her until later in the game - I might be misremembering things in terms of Red's greater knowledge of the Planet, but hearing Jenova given that name before there's any suggestion of the mistaken backstory seems backwards.

Around this chapter is really the first time, though the earlier flashbacks come close, where it's felt like a game purposefully made for people who already know the story inside and out, rather than letting the story unfold at the correct pace, and that's a shame. 

I had guessed that Whispers were somehow trying to enforce the correct continuity, though I wondered how the game would explain that. Planet-y nonsense will suffice.

 

Also, there's a bit of the "what if any of the other Stormtroopers turn out to have a conscience?" moment, which is a pet hate of mine. In Hojo's lab, I'm playing with a party of Tifa and Aerith, some cages open, I get attacked by the Bloodhounds that emerge, and it's instantly a battle. I draw first blood.

But hang on, the last time this happened, the dog in the cage turned out to be Red XIII, and he's great. Why did I just jump straight to punching these guys without so much as a word?

 

Spoiler

I think the presentation of Sephiroth is this game's biggest misfire. In the original, it was the small details that made him such a formidable foe.

In the first game, you don't even see Sephiroth until you leave Midgar. This is particularly effective in the Shinra building, where you can see the devastating impact he's had without even catching a glimpse of him. You see a long trail of blood, President Shinra's corpse and Palmer's utter terror and disbelief. In the Remake, Palmer's just a little perturbed.

Sephiroth's first on-screen appearances in the original is so much more impactful too. When you briefly control him in combat during the Nibelheim flashback, he's dealing out damage that so significantly dwarfs your own fighting capabilities, showing how much you're going to need to improve if you're ever going to stand a chance against him. Not only that, but just after you struggle against the Midgar Zolom and find your way past it, you see another one brutally impaled, as if Sephiroth dispatched it without even breaking a sweat.

I don't mind the idea of seeing Sephiroth in hallucinations. Cloud's vision of him prowling through the back alleys of a burning Midgar is a striking image, for example. Perhaps it would have been better without all the long chats, though. In fact, I think it would have been best if you didn't hear him speak at all until Nibelheim.

 

[Skummy]

I 100% agree with all of that.

Spoiler

I'm guessing they felt the need to include him earlier, otherwise he'd barely appear in the first "Remake" game. But they've overdone it. 

I wouldn't object to Cloud having the odd hallucination of him, thinking he sees him in the street, or visions of him appearing at Mako Reactors and so on - and, while I didn't like how quickly they went to the iconic image of him walking into the flames, Cloud imagining seeing him in a burning Midgar makes perfect sense -  but I hated that they have full-blown conversations. Really hated the extent to which he got physically involved in the Shinra building as you try and cross the bridge to where Jenova's being held because, as you say, that initial moment in the original game where you manage to get out of your cell only to find blood everywhere, Jenova taken, eery quiet, and not really knowing what's going on, is so powerful. 

Sephiroth, at that point in the game, should be almost a myth, and completely unknowable. He shouldn't be a hair's breadth away from "we're not so different, you and I" supervillain speeches to Cloud in the first act. 

I did like how Cloud is drawn towards Jenova - that's what really made me think that the Sephiroth in front of me was a vision of Cloud's, him saying to "join me" wasn't Sephiroth, it was Jenova reaching out to Cloud through their shared cells, that's why Cloud was being physically drawn towards her, because Jenova can reconstruct itself at a cellular level, and that's what it was trying to do. That's what the Reunion is.

But then when Sephiroth destroys the bridge - unless it's explained later that's not what actually happened and you just saw how Cloud's freaking out mind perceived it - doesn't make sense, that's him and/or Jenova stopping Cloud from making the Reunion. Speaking of which, Aerith saying "follow the yellow flowers", when that flower has specifically been explained as representing reunion was obviously something to take note of. 

Speaking of Sephiroth destroying the bridge and Cloud falling a few floors down - is it just me, or is that plot device used a little too much in this game? It feels like far too often I'm reaching my destination only for something to happen to cause you to fall through the floor and have to make your way back up.

 

[DavidMarrio]

Leviathan is a prick to fight. 

That is all. 

[Ruki]

2 hours ago, DavidMarrio said:

Leviathan is a prick to fight. 

That is all. 

Correct.

[Skummy]

End of Chapter 17:

Spoiler

This is the first time I've ever really actively disliked a part of the game.

Compared to the original, where Jenova is stolen off-screen, you follow the trail of blood, you find President Shinra - who up until that point is the villain of the piece - dead, and not at your hand. You're left trying to put the pieces together yourself before you even know who Sephiroth is.

Here, you see Sephiroth all the time. You see him taking Jenova, so there's not even any mystery around that. I remember playing the game for the first time, seeing Jenova's case was open and she was missing, and assuming that it had escaped, not that something had taken it. There was just no drama this time - you come off the back of a tedious range of switch pulling and boss fighting, and you just see Sephiroth taking Jenova on Hojo's CCTV!

There's still no mystery, no "is Sephiroth real/isn't he" question, when as soon as you walk into the President's office, Tifa says "...and Sephiroth?". So even the characters already know what's going on, even though nobody's stopped to have a conversation about how the supposedly dead Sephiroth just appeared in front of them - you'd think Cloud and Tifa at the very least might have a thing or two to say about that, while Barret, Aerith and Red would at least pause to ask who the fuck he is!

And then rather than finding President Shinra dead in dramatic fashion, you get yet another self-indulgent villain speech, in case the game hadn't given you cause enough to think about Shinra's place in the world already. So far, the fact that Shinra employs ordinary people in ordinary jobs, and they aren't just out-and-out villains, while AVALANCHE have noble goals but don't stop to consider how it affects ordinary people, and the analogies with modern-day terrorism, and questions around environmentalism, has all been handled reasonably well - outside of melodramatic speeches like this. For all they're trying to say that Shinra isn't all evil, having President Shinra give the most generic evil speech possible undoes all of that.

 

Then you get to the timeline changing stuff, which I don't necessarily dislike at all. I have no idea why they arbitrarily kept Wedge alive, other than to give you a heads up that things can be different this time around. 

It's interesting that Sephiroth's sword doesn't seem to leave a mark or draw blood. When it stabs Barret, and the President, it slips right through with some kind of black and white energy emanating from it, but leaves no wound or blood. Going back to the video posted a couple of pages back where they try and paint the lack of blood from Aerith getting stabbed as a plot hole, it feels like an entirely intentional choice here.

Given that moments after Barret has been stabbed we see Sephiroth's face flicker between his own and Jenova's, before effectively transforming into Jenova, that reinforces the idea that this isn't Sephiroth that you're seeing, but Jenova manifesting in the form of Sephiroth. It's not Sephiroth's sword that's killing people, that's just how Jenova makes it look to people - she's infecting them, or otherwise taking their life force away from them, without a physical wound or weapon. "She" knows, though, that you need to think it's Sephiroth responsible, because Cloud is proving to have too much will power to blindly follow her for the Reunion like all the other numbered clones. She needs to create a quest for revenge to draw you to her, and to Sephiroth's body at the Crater.

If you cast "Assess" on "Jenova Dreamweaver" in this battle, it explicitly says that it's believed to cause hallucinations. Sephiroth didn't kill Barret or the President, because Sephiroth was never in the Shinra Building. Jenova was. Something, or someone, else got Jenova out of that chamber, and something prior to that made Jenova powerful enough to call out from within it - perhaps the presence of Aerith, or of Cloud. After the fight, you twice see that "Sephiroth" is actually just a generic numbered clone. 

 

Again, though, all of this felt like subtext in the original game that's being elevated to being explicitly the story in this one, and way too early in proceedings for it to feel earned.

 

As for Barret being dead until he isn't - it feels like a bit of a bait and switch, though again establishes that The Whispers are trying to keep things going in the right direction. Exactly what that means remains to be seen, I suppose! Barret gets over it pretty damn quickly, though - as does everyone else!

 

Rufus looks great, though, at least. 

 

[GoGo Yubari]

I've finished chapter ten, and

 

[Skummy]

11 hours ago, GoGo Yubari said:

I've finished chapter ten, and

 

I actually love how they've made Tifa and Aerith really believable friends this time around, when the focus in the original was a bit too much on them as love rivals.

 

Chapter 17 & 18:

Spoiler

Okay, fuck Whisper Bahamut so hard. Can't see myself beating him any time soon.

Interesting that the three main Whispers you fight mimic Cloud, Barret and Tifa's styles - sword, gun, bare handed.

They go to the trouble of introducing a recurring motorbike-riding villain/rival, and he doesn't show up in the one important bike riding segment of the game?!

 

I still really don't like the presentation of Sephiroth here. It's giving away too much too earlier, and kind of reinventing him as an arch-supervillain on a planetary scale from the beginning, his reputation preceding him, rather than him still being a bit of a mystery at this stage. Him being painted already as the biggest possible threat to the Planet feels a bit much. Where do you go from there?

Similarly, I said early on that I like how Aerith was presented as a wisecracking, high spirited young girl, rather than a holier than holy nature goddess - but then she's ended up cast very much in that role, before the plot has really earned it. My head-canon is that when she explains everything around Destiny, it's as much the Planet/the amassed wisdom of the Cetra speaking through her as Aerith herself speaking to you.

I don't like seeing Zack this early. Again, it's throwing up post-Nibelheim flashback story elements before we've got to the Nibelheim flashback. Nothing about Cloud telling that story is supposed to feel like he's an unreliable narrator and you're not supposed to trust him until it's cast into doubt later. Here, we're having that flashback contradicted before we even see the flashback. Zack should barely be a concept yet, other than as an unseen ex-boyfriend of Aerith, if that.

 

Obviously the "changing Destiny" bit, whatever comes of it in this game, is Squenix telling you "this is a new game, it won't happen exactly as you imagined". It's planting their flag in the "alternate timeline" story, and making it as explicit as it gets, to avoid too many complaints of contradicting the original by being able to paint it as a new story on the same themes. But fucking hell is it heavy handed.

What did intrigue me is that the vision you get of the future if you don't succeed was the final shot of FF7 - Red XIII and his cubs running through a post-Midgar world. Which plays up on a very old fan theory that FF7 was either somehow unfinished, and that there was intended to be an alternate ending, or that the entire point of FF7's ending is that you don't win. Holy doesn't stop Meteor, so Aerith has to command the Lifestream to do it instead, but in the process that effectively destroys Midgar - and perhaps, ultimately, humanity. This is obviously contradicted by them doing a ton of sequels where none of that mattered.

 

[jrhodes]

20 hours ago, Skummy said:

End of Chapter 17:

  Hide contents

It's interesting that Sephiroth's sword doesn't seem to leave a mark or draw blood. When it stabs Barret, and the President, it slips right through with some kind of black and white energy emanating from it, but leaves no wound or blood. Going back to the video posted a couple of pages back where they try and paint the lack of blood from Aerith getting stabbed as a plot hole, it feels like an entirely intentional choice here.

 

 

 

Sephiroth's sword is the Masamune. Gorō Nyūdō Masamune is considered the greatest swordsmith of all time in Japan and it's said that his blades "drew no blood", only cutting what deserved to be cut.

There's an interesting passage on Wikipedia about the Masamune blade.

Quote

A legend tells of a test where Muramasa challenged his master, Masamune, to see who could make a finer sword. They both worked tirelessly and eventually, when both swords were finished, they decided to test the results. The contest was for each to suspend the blades in a small creek with the cutting edge facing against the current. Muramasa's sword, the Juuchi Yosamu (十千夜寒, "10,000 Cold Nights") cut everything that passed its way; fish, leaves floating down the river, the very air which blew on it. Highly impressed with his pupil's work, Masamune lowered his sword, the Yawarakai-Te (柔らかい手, "Tender Hands"), into the current and waited patiently. Only leaves were cut. However, the fish swam right up to it, and the air hissed as it gently blew by the blade. After a while, Muramasa began to scoff at his master for his apparent lack of skill in the making of his sword. Smiling to himself, Masamune pulled up his sword, dried it, and sheathed it. All the while, Muramasa was heckling him for his sword's inability to cut anything. A monk, who had been watching the whole ordeal, walked over and bowed low to the two sword masters. He then began to explain what he had seen.

The first of the swords was by all accounts a fine sword, however it is a blood thirsty, evil blade, as it does not discriminate as to who or what it will cut. It may just as well be cutting down butterflies as severing heads. The second was by far the finer of the two, as it does not needlessly cut that which is innocent and undeserving.

In another account of the story, both blades cut the leaves that went down on the river's current equally well, but the leaves would stick to the blade of Muramasa whereas they would slip on past Masamune's after being sliced. Or alternatively both leaves were cut, but those cut by Masamune's blade would reform as it traveled down the stream. Yet another version has leaves being sliced by Muramasa's blade while the leaves were repelled by Masamune's, and another again has leaves being sliced by Muramasa's blade and healed by Masamune's.

In yet another story Muramasa and Masamune were summoned to make swords for the shōgun or Emperor and the finished swords were held in a waterfall. The result is the same as the other stories, and Masamune's swords are deemed holy swords. In one version of the story Muramasa is killed for creating evil swords.

While all known legends of the two ever having met are historically impossible, both smiths are widely regarded as symbols for their respective eras.

I believe this was the reasoning behind Aerith not bleeding when she died in the original. Whether it has anything to do with Barret or not, I'm not sure.

The idea of the leaves being able to reform in the stream is also interesting in relation to Aerith dying and being a conscious passenger through the lifestream.

Edited May 1, 2020 by Jake O. Rhodes
Made a mess of the quotes/spoilers.

[Skummy]

Spoiler

I knew the story of the Masamune, knew it was also the name of Sephiroth's sword, and never really put the two together. Thanks for that - it may be that simple.

Though I still stand by my interpretation that the real Sephiroth is at the Northern Crater, so at no point before that do you encounter the real deal in the game - so is it the Masamune that kills Aerith?

 

[jrhodes]

20 minutes ago, Skummy said:

  Hide contents

I knew the story of the Masamune, knew it was also the name of Sephiroth's sword, and never really put the two together. Thanks for that - it may be that simple.

Though I still stand by my interpretation that the real Sephiroth is at the Northern Crater, so at no point before that do you encounter the real deal in the game - so is it the Masamune that kills Aerith?

 

I'd agree that the Sephiroth is at the Northern Crater but the manifestations of him could be just as strong as the real thing for a very limited time. They call on Sepiroth's power but then burn out quickly because they can't handle it for long. So it's not the real Sephiroth or real Masamune sword but has the same effect.

It's all rather metaphysical though.

[Skummy]

Ending Spoilers:

Spoiler

After saying that it would take me forever to beat Bahamut, I just absolutely blitzed my second attempt. A bit of luck in him only once using Mega Flare, plus well-timed Limit Breaks and Ifrit, but it was easy this time.

The Sephiroth fight, and his part in the ending afterwards, I still dislike. The portrayal of Sephiroth is probably the one real downer on this game for me. There's just not enough mystery or intrigue about him - he's just there, all the time, chatting away. And while in the initial story you would still be tracking him, him always several steps ahead, before you really get anywhere near understanding who he is or what he wants, and he wouldn't have the Black Materia yet, wouldn't be anywhere near his full power, here you're fighting him and he's already able to defy destiny, bend time and reality to his will, grow wings and throw buildings at you. He's at full power already, so where do we go from here?

 

As for the ending...I had seen the odd mention of Zack, and whether there's a time travel element. I don't believe there is - no actually seems to see Zack and Cloud walk past you; Zack and Aerith maybe feel a presence, and that's about it. And that's because Zack is close to death, and Aerith is in touch with the Lifestream. It's far more a symbolic book-ending of Cloud's journey to and from Midgar, and a suggestion - amongst many - that what happens next is unwritten. I still don't like Zack being included in the story this early, though I'm coming from a perspective of only caring about the original game, rather than Crisis Core or whatever it was that retroactively tried to make Zack a much bigger part of the story. He seems to have a fan following that's a bit alien to me, coming as it did after my hardcore FF7 fandom. 

 

[probablyoliver]

I'm still only on chapter 9 as I've barely had a chance to play over the last week. All I want to say right now is that Beck, Burke and Butch might be my favourite new additions to the game. Hot damn.

[probablyoliver]

Yeah pull ups can fuck off.