FFX-3 Chat

Thanks for looking into it. I'm glad you enabled ads, though. I got a $130 phone for $30 through Cricket Wireless because of them. =P

My contract with Verizon is up this month, so ... this is on topic, right? XD

Yoshinori Kitase has an extremely out-of-touch view of gaming and gamers:

http://www.joystiq.com/2014/02/17/square-enix-producer-kitase-on-lightning-returns-reviews-hd-rem/

He really thinks it would take ten years to make a full-sized game in VII's world. That would only be the case because he's a graphics ****.

Shinra's descendants establish the Shin-Ra Company on another world (FFVII's world) thousands of years later. This is explained in a couple of the Ultimanias. Cid Highwind's Shera airship belonged to the Spiran settlers. These aren't really loose ends.

The Farplane's instability in X-2 was caused by Shuyin, if I recall correctly. His malice warped even the fayth when they went to stop him.

On the issue of VII you can’t compare it to X in regards of a concluding the story because it was done in Advent Children. Square went off on some wild tangent in Dirge Of Cerberus. Also, and I think many share my opinion; Square Enix (not Square) has all but ruined Cloud. I don’t know who this whining, brooding emo poser is but MY Cloud dressed in drag, went on awkward dates and said “let’s mosey."

Well, regardless of your personal opinion of Dirge, Genesis or Crisis Core, the fact remains that the story is incomplete while X's was perfectly wrapped up with no loose ends.

As for Cloud, he was neither whiney nor emo. He did the opposite of that. Whiney/emo people ***** to anyone who will listen and tend to complain incessantly about inconsequential bull****. Cloud shut himself off from the people he loved, whom he felt unworthy of, while he was dying and unable to find a cure for his dying adopted son. He was faced with those crushing developments while trying to recover from the survivor's guilt he felt regarding two other people he loved whose deaths he blamed himself for.

He didn't share his feelings with anyone until Tifa blessed him out, so I don't know where you're getting "emo" from. Advent Children depicts the last day in almost two years of emotional anguish and soul-searching.

And if you don't think being terminally ill yourself, feeling useless because you can't help your terminally ill child and being wracked with guilt over two other people you love being dead are valid reasons to brood -- well, I don't know what to tell you. It's going to be pretty impossible for us to have a constructive conversation if those emotions amount to being "whiney" in your eyes.

To be fair, FFVII has at least an equally solid core group of fans who would be eager to see a conclusion to that series.

moonstone: I think it's probably a good guess that Bahamut's fayth originally came from Zanarkand. Given that his fayth was installed in the temple at Bevelle, it stands to reason that his was one of the oldest, if not the oldest of those still around during FFX.

If he were from Zanarkand, that would also explain his especial interest in Dream Zanarkand and Tidus, and why he acts as the 'representative" for the others, so to speak.

He's definitely no Beast Core, though. His fayth is a stone statue like the others.

I don't see a problem with Sin being brought back. That doesn't undermine the value what was done before (lives were saved, the temples toppled, etc.).

And as IMD said, Sin clearly won't be the primary threat. Someone else will either be exacerbating the problem with the Farplane or taking advantage of it. Sin will likely just be an occasional obstacle in the way of dealing with that threat, as well as a source of despair as the Eternal Calm crumbles.

For all we know, Tidus and Yuna getting along as soon as they are reunited could be considered normal in Spira's universe. If Wakka and Lulu could do it, why not Tidus and Yuna? XD

When were Wakka and Lulu separated?

Anyway, as you said, even in a fantasy title, "mild realism ... is the emotions of the characters." You can defy physics and we still buy into it, but you can't defy what we know to be human psychology and how our emotions work.

And Tresdias, in regards to the 'Bahamut created Tidus' thing, sorry for confusing you. We see throughout X that Bahamut very likely had a connection with him that was more special than any of the other fayth. In Dream Zanarkand, only Tidus could see him. The rest of the game, only Tidus and Yuna (and Auron) are 'allowed' to see his fayth form. (Of course, other summoners could as well, but Tidus was the only non-summoner that could at that point. Maybe the others could see Bahamut, but they didn't really address it.) He was the one who explained his and Dream Zanarkand's origins, and in X-2, you can ask him to bring Tidus back/initiate the Good Ending. Since the fayth are maintaining Dream Zanarkand, it could be possible that Tidus came from the portion of Bahamut's dreaming. The other fayth do have their own forms, which you can see when you revisit the temples after leaving Zanarkand. It's just Bahamut's fayth that appears to them for some reason.

But with X-2 and the whole 'Shuyin' thing... well, it is possible that Bahamut knew Shuyin and admired him. He and Lenne were popular icons in Zanarkand back then. Tidus is pretty much an imperfect copy of Shuyin's body with his own thoughts and memories.

Bahamut's fayth wasn't part of the dreaming used to summon Dream Zanarkand. He just provides the Bahamut aeon. The fayth can see into one another's dreams, though. That's how he and the fayth of Valefor, Ixion, etc. knew of Dream Zanarkand, why it existed, etc. According to the Ultimania Omega for FFX, the fayth of Yuna's aeons would go hang out around Dream Zanarkand. Things were fine and dandy as far as they were concerned until Jecht becoming Sin made them realize how **** up it all was.

As for Shuyin, Tidus isn't based on him. Remember, 1000 years have passed since Dream Zanarkand came into being. The resident based on Shuyin has been dead for a long time. Tidus is implied to be that reimagined Shuyin's descendant, however, in X-2's Ultimania Omega.

So while Nojima, could've had them become intimate in a more calm and romantic setting, having them become intimate in them middle of the storm serves a lot purposes...a reflection of their relationship, the degree of their intimacy (of course this is up to the readers interpretation), and it takes them to the unknown island to continue the story.

Insightful analysis. I really enjoyed reading it.

Honestly I am so disappointed in how this is turning out.  I am hoping that this novella never gets a Western release and therefore can't be cannon (in our market anyways).

It won't get released outside Japan, because these things never do. That doesn't make them any less canon, though.

Yeah, you won't find a more reliable source than hito. There doesn't seem to be much more of interest to mine from this book, though, sadly. He called it "snake feet" -- a term meaning something is not only unnecessary, but damaging to what was there before.

 

I mean, Bahamut created Tidus ...

What gave you that impression? Tidus is just another resident of the Dream Zanarkand, like Jecht.

Lots of new information from hitoshura at TheLifestream.net, where Pixel and I are from. He's been a translator in the FF fandom for more than ten years and was the first to provide a summary of Nojima's The Kids Are Alright FFVII novel a couple years ago:

http://thelifestream.net/lifestream-projects/translations/11751/summary-of-the-new-ffvii-novel/

He confirmed the boat sex thing between Tidus and Yuna the other day, by the way.

What I'm about to provide here is an explanation of the sex-fayth method. I'm summarizing from what hito said across several posts:

----
A summoner can have sex with someone (it can be anyone, not just another summoner; it just happened to be another summoner in the Boy's Side story) as a means of reaching a bonded mental state in order to create a particular kind of fayth called a Beast Core (獣芯). Sex isn't the only way for them to reach that mental union with one another, but you could say it's the quick and dirty way (pun intended)..

The person who becomes the Beast Core is still being sacrificed, but not in the same way as when their soul is pulled from their living body and placed in a monstrous fayth statue. Instead, they slowly crystallize into a glass-like state, but still retain their human shape. As the Beast Core, they provide the summoner with the power to create pyreforms (幻光体) based on imagination rather than just the strict blueprints offered by the fayth from FFX. If the Beast Core's bond with the summoner is strong, the summoner can create damn near anything. Otherwise, the summoner can only create a somewhat limited range of "aeons" based on their own experiences (we don't see any traditional aeons in this story -- just replicas of things that actually existed).
----

He also explained that the sex-fayth method recounted in the Boy's Side story involved a female summoner named Kushu (クシュ) and a male summoner named Ifarnal (イファーナル). Kushu actually became the Beast Core for Ifarnal. Briah (ブライア) was Kushu's non-summoner lover.

The rest of these are quotes from hito:

the island, which was besaid in the past, was summoned by ifarnal (who was on the island before the end of the war). ifarnal survived what happened on the island and lived to be 90-odd, but when he died became an unsent. yuna doesn't meet ifarnal on the island itself, but kushu who was another summoner and the one who became the core for ifarnal. although that wasn't the actual kushu, but rather a summoned form of her.

after tidus blows up (that doesn't sound real but it is a real thing that is actually in this book omg) ifarnal speaks to yuna and tells her how to bring tidus back.

other things this book decides are things now, unsents can have kids with humans

and yuna has a mole somewhere only tidus would know

know in a biblical sense, more like

i can't remember the specifics right now, but ifarnal does tell yuna about the old way of summoning. there is something about how if tidus realises what he is then that would have a detrimental effect on his existence (as in it might end). this also applies if he goes somewhere where there are lots of pyreflies.

briah (or valm, another unsent who was on the same island as ifarnal but got shot by an angry albhed) goes to confront him and then he gets blown up by one of those bomb balls

so he's just dead now. [Note by TresDias: These next two paragraphs are about Ifarnal, not Briah; hito was answering my question about what Ifarnal's intent was in telling Yuna how to resurrect Tidus, as I was wondering if perhaps he was the one who killed Tidus so that he could tell Yuna how to bring him back and cause her to weaken the Farplane] i don't think he really had a plan. i don't think there was a plan here. it was just a bunch of stuff that kind of happened. tidus blowing up seems like an accident, but now that i think about it i don't know why ifarnal told yuna what to do to bring him back

he just kind of spoke to her via magic or something and told her what to do. but the price was that he would seal away her memories of what happened (which she later remembers), because if they both remember then it would all be undone. or something.

conflict would come in the forms of:

- tidus trying to spend some time with yuna the night he returned (so he goes on the boat and then yuna sneaks on and they sail away into a storm)
- tidus and yuna stranded at sea (which i thought went on for a bit longer than it needed)
- tidus and yuna on the mysterious island and how they will leave it (tidus literally just warps away, he gets that special power for reasons/i guess because he's just pyreflies. yuna gets taken on to a boat by ifarnal but i don't remember if they gave an explanation about how that happened since it was a real boat and just seems to just move from the island to the boat)
- briah going a bit insane when he gets his memories back
- tidus and yuna doing what ifarnal/kushu asks and if they will do it (i don't think they actually did)
- the nature of tidus' new existence
- yuna feeling some distance from tidus, which is a running theme

the last one is probably the most problematic part. realistically yeah, it makes sense. for yuna tidus has been gone for two years, she has gone through a lot of stuff and tidus is still 17 and how he was in ffx. but that's been a big complaint about it, yuna's treatment of tidus. she's not being a total **** or anything, there's still love there but it's tempered with 'that aspect of tidus is bugging me'. she doesn't seem as happy as she does in ffx-2's ending, like she's just been reunited with her love.

tidus dying too. this story starts right after ffx-2. to make a timeline of the series, it would go:

- ffx
- eternal calm
- ffx-2
- eternal cost
- 100% ending of x-2?
- last mission
- will
- ffx-3 which we all know they are going to try to make now

at most it would be a couple of days after tidus came back (depending how long they spend floating at sea, which i can't imagine being more than a few hours so that would place the island stuff starting the day after he came back), and they unceremoniously blow him up. which is a bit of a ****. but then they went from 'the world's purest kiss' in ffx to tidus being a horndog trying to get laid a bunch.

it feels a lot more like it was written to lay the groundwork for a sequel than anything else. some of the new stuff is interesting, but it's still weird overall.