Here’s the beginning of the play-through, for those who wanna be caught up
The Crescent Rivulet takes time and effort but not as much as the Temple of Visions. Throughout Final Fantasy Blackmoon Prophecy, I’ve noticed that Babineau tends to use treasure chests as environmental guideposts toward things that bear investigating. Such rewards may or may not be progress.
The Crescent Rivulet was the first dungeon I’ve encountered that seemed to have nothing but treasure chests and monsters.
Eventually, I found an Artifact for Bosche, which apparently improves his Procure ability. The closest thing I can compare Procure to is Setzer’s Slot ability, what with randomly generating a move from a roster.
The Viral Tendril ability item lies in a nearby treasure chest. This teaches Ami Virulent Breath which poisons an enemy, with a slight chance of simultaneously inflicting other status effects. Virulent Breath only targets a single enemy, though, as opposed to the usual multi-target Bad Breath. A memoir page can also be easily be found in the area, along with a chest of Bodkin Arrows- a decent acquisition for Bosche.
And let us not forget the Lucavi nethicite, which bestows 50% passive resistance to Shadow. Leveling bonuses are max HP+7 and max MP+3.
In the waterfall pool with the Lucavi nethicite, the Bodkin Arrows and Merlin’s Staff, there is the moogle you usually find at the end of the dungeon, who leads you to the exit.
…
Might this not be where we’re supposed to be after all? However grateful I am for more blue magic and nethicite?
I returned to the Temple of Visions with Bosche at the head of my party, to see if he has some kind of obstacle transcendence ability…like putting two halves of the key together? He does like rare and exotic stuff, right?
If he does have an obstacle transcendence ability, it does not appear to be putting ancient, magical artifacts together. Like Siegfried, Bosche also appears to be unable to recover MP from Ami’s Cheer ability.
You know who might be able to put the key together? Someone at the Arcane Library.
No one did, though. This was also where I found my second conspicuous glitch: I entered the Arcane Library through the eastern bridge and appeared at Surgate Waystation. This happened three times in a row. When I tried entering through the western bridge I made it into the Arcane Library (for all the good it did).
Also: Bluebell apparently cannot set foot on the campsite outside of the Nightmare Cave. I’ve lately begun to wonder if Bluebell is an early taste of travel potential and the scale of the map, like the early experiences with chocobos and vehicles in III, IV and V.
Finding myself back at square one, I made a list of every town and city in Lindblum, since the only advice on offer is to ride around on Bluebell and see what people have to say.
Between one thing and another, I did some grinding. Elina learns Regen at level 20. Vera summoning Kirin or Ami casting White Wind is good for benefitting multiple party members but at least Elina can now do it one at a time.
At level 18, Nobumasa learns Reppu (single target Wind elemental attack) and Shokuto (group heal).
Perhaps the soldier in Altair meant that Jack lives in the Rotunda of Revelry, rather than the Crescent Rivulet. But the guard outside of Jack’s office says we need an appointment…
I was starting to run out of ideas. So I went back to the Temple of Visions. I tried Darius at the front of the party, to see if he had any relevant obstacle transcendence abilities. He was no more useful than Bosche. Then I, uh…tried…something…
Soooo…all I had to do to enter the central path in the Temple in Visions was insert the Crystal Half-Moon Keys into the crescent-shaped slots directly outside of it. Go me.
X_X
(You can steal Hyper Ethers from the Dying Breath monsters, btw)
Moving on with the damn dungeon…we find Vahn in a room, in front of what looks like the shade of his father. Vahn says that his mother Elise never told him anything about his father except that he was a traveler.
From the ghostly image of Kain Silverson, the King of Branch, we learn that he lost his wife Hilda to illness. When she died, Kain found himself falling for one of her former handmaidens, Elise.
When Elise became pregnant with Kain’s child, she relocated to Valla with a cover story. Elise told anyone who asked that her son’s father was a traveling Lenadian merchant.
Vahn asks his father why he suddenly decided to seize the crystals. Kain says that the answer rests at the Citadel, in the heart of Ivalice.
Kain’s image fades and Vahn tells Ami that- upon hearing Malacore’s words about his parentage -he felt something within himself, drawing him to the Temple of Visions. Before this conversation can go any further, though, we are met with a new apparition.
This being, Mnemosyne, says that “(M)emories are required to sustain the power of the Temple of Visions. I need more memories. Your memories!”
A boss fight, naturally, ensues.
Laka’s Dispel green magic comes in handy once Mnemosyne starts Protecting, Shelling and Regening herself. Mnemosyne also absorbs Holy. She is weak to Shadow which is a decent reason to have Darius in the fight (during the attempt in the screenshot at the top of the entry I got party-wiped :P).
You want Darius’ Darkside attack with you on this. Nobumasa’s Shadow attack Yousei Hi was not particularly useful to me here. Mokusatsu will reliably blind her but- if Ami knows Virulent Breath -you could just stick with your beast of a blue mage. It is also fairly easy for Laka to steal her Angel Glove (I had equipped her with a Sneak Ring, which could have been a factor). You want the Angel Glove for your mages, since it buffs magic and spirit by 35 and reduces MP costs for the wearer by 20%.
Vera wants to start the search in Ivalice at the top of the pyramid: Lord Zeul Raithwall. Darius believes that Lord Zeul is the strongest swordsman in the world. Thus far, Zeul’s connection with Malacore remains murky.
Upon returning to Lindblum Castle and debriefing with Regent Gran, Vahn decides that the fate of the Earth Crystal is more time-sensitive than whatever waits in Ivalice.
For Gran’s part, his forces remain perilously divided. Unfortunately, securing the gateway to the Underworld at Mount Koltz still depends on decreasing the demands of the civil war on the Lindblum military.
It seems the rebels now seek to conquer the Magic Library, which preceded the Arcane Library and has fallen into disuse. Baram von Muir is personally accompanying his fighting forces there.
At North Dock, Shiroma and the Eternal Blue wait to convey us to the Magic Library, on an island to the southeast; further south than the plot has taken us, thus far.
Aand holy crap is the magic library hard with a level 20 (Ami), 15 (Oalston), 22 (Laka) and 16 (Vahn). High encounter rate, with status effects and multi-target attacks. Maybe make sure your party is leveled to 17 or over. I then switched to Ami (20), Nobumasa (18), Laka (22) and Vera (18).
The party finds Baram von Muir in the company of two of his rebels- Hanuman and Porkus -whom Baram transforms into…well…
This…is a hell of a way to encounter the head from Sabin’s sprite
The Reppu Ninjutsu (Wind elemental attack) is effective. Virulent Breath can also be a fun way to find out what status effects a given enemy is vulnerable to. You can steal a Thunder Blade from Porkus and a Blizzard Sword from Hanuman.
Siegfried remarks that Baram using this magic on anyone- rebel or otherwise -is just wrong.
Vahn and company tell Regent Gran about Baram’s acquisition of the Magic that turns people into monsters. Siegfried is particularly worried about the citizens of Surgate, who live under Baram’s authority.
Regent Gran, to Siegfried: “You sound familiar, shrouded man. Have we met?”
Siegfried waves it off.
Regent Gran then joins us temporarily for the journey to Surgate. What he brings to the party is a repertoire of both white and black magic (that would make our Edgar-looking Gran a sage by the standards of IV, right?).
Until now, Surgate has had the shrill, militaristic horn version of Under Martial Law. During this visit, we hear the slower, more natural version of Under Martial Law with the violins, harp-plucking, flutes and clarinets.
Every door, it seems, is locked from the inside, against the Lindblum soldiers who arrived ahead of us. One such soldier opines that the rebels may have “pulled back to their base at the mountainside.”
The Surgate Woodlands, behind the town, marks a more ethereal and drifting musical shift. Interesting contrast after Under Martial Law. Separate from the music, the transition reminds me of going from Bone Village to the Sleeping Forest, in VII.
The Chimeras in the Surgate Woodlands are intriguingly difficult to steal from. I started off with Ami Goblin Punching and Oalston casting Comet for a few turns. Then I switched to Ami hitting them with Virulent Breath, Oalston casting Demi to whittle away at the HP without killing them and Laka trying to steal for every turn. Got their HP into the single digits. Soon Demi wasn’t dealing any damage.
Not a damn thing to show for it, the first time. The second time I swiped a Guard Shard (increases defense permanently by one).
Hyper Wrists can be stolen from the ostrich-like Kiwoks. The Chimeras have pretty good exp yield but the Kiwoks usually come with a few Tarantulas. If you want the grinding to stay good, think of ways to kill them before the Tarantulas begin to flee (Storm Breath and Fira and Gran casting Fire has been working for me).
While the Surgate Woodlands have a lot of treasure chests, a lot of them have tiny increments of gil or middling restorative items. They are also more scattered compared to other dungeon-like areas, so good job on the misdirection Babineau.
Eventually, though, the empty treasure chests will start acting as progression markers and the forest will feel a bit less labyrinthine. An arcing, upward path through the trees beginning in the southeast corner of the map will slowly reveal itself.
While wandering and fighting my way through the Surgate Woodlands, Oalston reached level 16 and learned Blizzara and Thundara.
Once you penetrate the mountainside base, you’ll find that Baram has turned several of his rebels into Sabin-headed homunculi. In the right hand chamber is a Sabin-monster called Bellerophon from whom you can steal a pike. Cadmus waits in the chamber to the left and can be shaken down for a Shadow Staff. Within both are Rebel Base Keys, which can be used to unlock the central chamber without wandering away doing an optional dungeon first (not if you don’t want to, anyway).
Baram’s last two rebels- Benero and Zenero -have lost trust in him after seeing what he’s been doing to everyone else. The party arrives, seemingly, in the nick of time…only for Baram to chortle about how he can generate as much muscle as he wants and transform Benero and Zenero. Baram lunges to the foreground, turns into a Pan-like goat monster (with his executive function apparently intact, unlike his underlings) and the three of them attack.
Keep the Wind attacks coming against Zenero and Benero. Both of them are vulnerable to poison and Baram has a Shadow Ring that can be stolen. No magic appears to work on Baram except non-elemental spells like Goblin Punch, Demi and Comet. Once Benero and Zenero go down, though, you can focus keeping your party healed and spamming physical attacks. It will go by quickly.
With Baram finally dead, everyone remains in shock over the monster-transformation ability he learned in the Magic Library. Regent Gran sends people to older library to see what could be found in Baram’s wake.
The death of Baram also means that the rebellion is over with. All that remains now is Mount Koltz and the sealed gateway to the Underworld.
Light spoilers for BlackmoonProphecy and a few heavier spoilers for various mainline Final Fantasy games
Remember how I said Naddaha Pyramid was like the narrow, winding path dungeons with high encounter rates like in IV?
After you charge a lightening rod for him, Dr. Cid will teleport you across the next leg of the journey to the Wind Shrine. Except his laboratory at the other end of the teleportation device is filled with his malfunctioning, aggressive robots. With a long and winding slog over catwalks and through narrow corridors.
Fuck Jennifer
It is as close to the goddamn Tower of Babil from IV as I ever want to encounter outside of IV.
Not long after, we gather more party members far more quickly than in most 2D FFs. Out of the mainline games, the only one that felt like this was IV. Yet IV didn’t always make the difference between a permanent PC and an NPC obvious, which added credibility to a few scripted deaths (other deaths and resurrections were batshit random). VI had a relatively large playable cast of characters but gathering party members itself was not frequent.
After Ami and Nobumasa, we soon encounter the Blackmoon Prophecy version of a recurring FF character called Siegfried.
Siegfried is typically a bit player. So is his frequent friend and rival Gilgamesh. The one I remember best was from VI. I think the first time I saw him was on the Phantom Train? Dodging traps and being kind of random amid the transmigrating souls? Shows up later at the coliseum in the World of Ruin?
Things get going once we encounter a bridge locked down by the slightly-familiar General Leonardo. Many Gaia nation states possess magical, historical weapons of both heraldic and military value. Cornelia’s own sacred treasure- the sword Excalibur -was lately stolen by the infamous thief Gilgamesh. We learn, from the Cornelian King at his Nideen palace, that the trail leads through the verdant cave system known as Bragg’s Folly. We get Excalibur back, Leonardo lets us cross.
Bragg’s Folly was the first dungeon that felt like it was applying specific pressure to MP management. Every fight requires some sort of massive damage, multiple target attack which means Vera gets to flex a little with the summoning. Storm Breath blue magic is also an asset. To date, ethers (MP restoratives) are only occasionally available at item shops, which is another reason why Laka’s ability to steal comes in handy.
The use of ‘Amarant’s Theme’ (IX) here felt perfect. So did ‘Battle at the Big Bridge’ (V) during the Gilgamesh fight, what with the hammy dialogue and the horns, electric guitars and keyboards gave it a fun seventies grindhousiness (Something with katanas and Kurosawa-like spurting blood? You can steal an Atlas Armlet from Gilgamesh, btw).
Come to think of it, this version of Siegfried feels more deserving of ‘Amarant’s Theme’ than Amarant himself. Amarant himself was not one of the better-written parts of IX.
Siegfried, Nobumasa and Vahn take equal thirds of something comparable to red magic. One way in which Siegfried is distinguished is his ability to learn and use some of Cyan’s Sword Art skills like Dispatch (VI). Siegfried has also- thus far – not been able to recover MP from Ami’s Cheer command.
In the Nightmare Cave, we face the Dreamweaver, who assumes various shapes to exploit mental and emotional weak points. Vahn’s mother Elise is one illusion, who says cryptic things about his father. Another illusion is a man named Davon whose apparition is visibly distressing to Siegfried.
Rather like IV, our foes remain one step ahead of us while we seek the crystals. Having escaped from the Branch dungeons, General Braak of Ivalice beats us to the Wind Crystal.
Now…Vera was one of the other three generals of Ivalice, whom were sent to Mysidia to intercept Darius. Vera is attempting rational interrogation when the other two spontaneously flip shit and decide to start beating confessions out of everyone.
(Local embodiment of Celes, from VI? Both Vera and Celes are generals but Celes was incarcerated and brutalized for speaking out against Kefka’s poisoning of the water supply at Doma. Vera is rescued like Celes but instead we find Vera attempting to exert her own authority to prevent mob tactics in her ranks. This feels significant)
Vera draws the line, the other two turn on her and Vahn and company fly to her aid.
Back in our relative present…
At the Wind Shrine, Braak attacks Vera for desertion and a boss fight ensues. While this is happening, Malacore appears directly in front of the Wind Crystal. Braak leaves, as though deferring to him.
Then Darius shows up, furious at having been subjected to mind control. Even with our newly-sane party member, though, Malacore is still able to swipe the Wind Crystal. Only the Earth Crystal at Mount Koltz remains.
I also had my first honest-to-goodness glitch encounter of the play-through at the camp site between the bridge outside of Nideen and Cornelia. I checked out the ability list next to that lil one, then turned the music box beside the moogle on and off. Then I couldn’t leave. The screen would fade to black like the normal transition and then I’d be standing in the central path as though I just entered. I slept in a tent- hoping it might move the game past whatever was going on -but it didn’t work. Had to close out and reload a save. It’s the only glitch I’ve found so far, though, so I’m not worried yet.
Nobumasa learns Mokusatsu at level 14 and Katon at level 15 which will make him way more useful. Both of those hit everyone in the opposing party. Katon is fire-aligned while Mokusatsu does non-elemental damage and may inflict blind and / or confuse. So far, blindness has turned out to be the most useful status effect and- with the monsters in the coming dungeons -you want them landing as few hits as possible.
The nation of Lindblum is the historic custodian of the Earth Shrine and its crystal. The journey is, of course, fraught.
Lindblum is beleaguered on two fronts. On one, the Earth Crystal has been taken to the Underworld by the Fey, behind an impermeable magic barrier. On the other, civil war has broken out. When Regent Gran decided to open avenues of trade and cultural exchange, a rash of militant xenophobia finds its voice in a courtier named Baram. They have, of late, began taking villages and checkpoints and have destroyed multiple bridges (Lindblum resembles a cluster of islands off the southern coast of the southeast continent so bridges are a big deal).
I guess everyone else is also worried about this?
This group- known simply as ‘the rebels’ -appear to be a typical monster-of-the-week at first. Between Cornelia and the Lindblum borders, we attempt to slip through a heavily occupied checkpoint on chocobos.
The sprites of the Narshe guerrillas (VI) now ironically embody fratricidal isolationists. Our first confrontation consists of rushing through them as quickly as possible. The chocobo is constantly running at full speed while we dodge obstructions. Objects in the way deal damage and running into a rebel triggers a fight with some mid-level damage sponges. The obstacle course ends with the apparition of Gylfi and another boss fight with mind-controlled Hans.
Our path to Lindblum Castle takes us through the Arcane Academy, which rests on an islet in the center of a rare intact bridge. Elina and Oalston are ecstatic.
The Kirin magicite can be purchased from a scholar for 10,000 gil. Vera now has healing utility- Kirin gives everyone a big heal and casts Regen on them. I’ve been grinding Elina rather hard, putting her at level 18 at that point (with the average being around level 15), and she was still yet to learn Regen.
A scholar elsewhere in the Arcane Library will hand you the Remora nethicite which offers magic, spirit and MP leveling bonuses. Started off rotating Remora between Vera and Ami but Nobumasa also benefits a lot from Remora since his Ninjutsu abilities are scaled to spirit (the only combative magic that’s spirit-scaled so far).
One may also encounter an interesting lil dude called Laudo, who came to the Arcane Library to make a profit selling ethers. This has not worked out the way he planned and- for a thousand gil -will follow us around. If you elect to hire him, he will sell you cheap ethers anywhere you make camp, mitigating the prior ether scarcity. In the long run, Laudo’s wares will include more diverse and potent ethers.
Before sharing the latest breakthroughs in black and white magic with Oalston and Elina, Director Sabino of the Arcane Library wants to test their proficiency.
The two front-row spirits can be beaten according to the elemental affinities and antipathies that their colors suggest. For the one in the back row, you want Elina to spam Dia.
Upon surviving the test, Oalston is permitted to learn Comet and Elina is entrusted with Libra.
Thus far, trial, error and context has served me well with determining things like elemental weaknesses and generalized estimates of HP limits. The acquisition of Libra makes me wonder if this may be less feasible, going forward. Oalston has also acquired a powerful non-elemental attack. With the optional nethicite and magicite in the Arcane Library and the chance to have cheap ethers on hand…this section feels like one big proficiency benchmark. Makes you wonder what’s coming.
Vahn learns Purify at level 15 but I’ve been finding that the majority of non-white magic healing abilities can only be used on the specific character with that ability. Elina remains the most dynamic healer. Vera with Kirin can function fine as a healer so long as you supplement her with Ami’s Cheer ability.
Regent Gran (who is embodied in Edgar’s sprite from VI with a reddish palette swap) fills us in on the situation with the rebels and the Earth Crystal. If the Fey are keeping it in the Underworld…I’m tempted to wonder if something like the Feymarch- my favorite dungeon from IV -is around the corner.
With Lindblum caught between the Fey and the rebels, Regent Gran is in no position to divide his attention. Vahn and Ami mention the possibility of taking territory back from the rebels and Gran is thrilled. There seems to be a certain amount of local sympathy for the rebel isolationists and the Regent is slow to move against them openly. He directs us to Kaipo to meet with his trusted commander Baigan.
Toward these ends, Regent Gran lends us a Chocobo Whistle, allowing us to summon his personal chocobo Bluebell. Being a blue chocobo, Bluebell is capable of crossing rivers and reef-like bridges between landmasses.
Addicted to Bluebell
As we enter Kaipo, Siegfried balks: he absolutely refuses to publicly set foot there. We of course have to anyway and- should one’s party rest at the inn -a conversation can be overheard.
This is another one of those moments that convinces me that the references have a function, thematic and / or otherwise. We have both a town (Kaipo) and a character (Baigan) from IV. Kaipo even looks the same. Siegfried is a perpetually masked background character swordsman. Another masked warrior from VI, Shadow, will sometimes relive moments from his past while dreaming when the party stops at an inn.
Shadow’s recall-dreams begin with his past as a professional thief. These dreams dovetail with the eventual revelation of Shadow’s estranged family: the father of his dead lover (Strago) and his daughter (Relm). What happens next in Blackmoon Prophecy is also reminiscent of Barret’s return to North Corel in VII.
Now this may have been a glitch.
As the party is about to settle down and rest, voices are audible outside. I wasn’t sure if this was a glitch or not, since the party was rather still. I suppose they could have been shocked into silence at the full-blown lovers’ quarrel outside.
Even though Siegfried did not want to be seen in Kaipo, he evidently couldn’t stay out, either. He seeks out his lover Davon, whose appearance was used by the Dreamweaver. Davon is shocked to see Siegfried after two years of absence. The couple’s fortunes took a turn once Siegfried attracted a degree of political prestige. Siegfried seemed to think that this visibility would not be safe for his relationship. Afterward, Siegfried disappeared on an ascetic quest.
He passionately apologizes for disappearing and admits that he is also suffering in Davon’s absence and continues to desire him. Davon admits that two years of abrupt silence is not easy to forgive. In spite of Siegfried’s pained avoidance of the topic among the party, Davon himself seems to have warmed up. If you visit him at his home (minus Siegfried, who won’t go anywhere near there with the party at this point), he says that he intends to wait for him.
Our local version of Baigan needs us to reclaim the town of Dawnmarch. We can set out with our newly empowered black and white mages or we can clear the village with the blue mage and the summoner. For the other two party spaces, you want some people who can both give and take some physical hits. The rebel boss there has a maul that can be stolen.
Baigan then requires several thousand gil to station soldiers in Dawnmarch, to hold it against the rebels. Luckily, there is a nearby forest inhabited by juvenile dragons with gil hoards of a manageable size.
I started this next task the way I did because Ami left the Arcane Academy fuming about how they don’t have anything for a blue mage. I agreed; especially since I had not learned any blue magic since Goblin Punch. It felt like a missed beat and then Baigan sends us on a monster hunt. It seemed to add up.
I managed to steal from three out of four baby dragons. The one that got away was the white one and I never saw them again. I encountered the red fairly quickly and I encountered the blue twice. Between those two was my only encounter with the white and lastly the black. It seems possible that the dragon encounter rate in the forest starts off high, because it’s a mainline story event, then goes down a little each time.
Since the baby dragons are roughly boss-tier, this is a convenient time to mention just how useful Ami’s Cheer ability has been. I haven’t even thought of the Cheer ability since I played X for the first time as a tween…and I’ve replayed X multiple times since. Was it always this useful? It helps when you have someone like Vera, with a single strong healing ability that also casts Regen on everyone. If you’ve been giving her the vigor shards, keeping her close to the Valefor nethicite and buying her current weapons and armor, you won’t need her to do anything for the Regen duration except her standard physical attack.
The Water Ring can be stolen from the blue juvenile dragon. Flame Sabres can be stolen from the red. Black dragons with yellow underbellies drop Miracle Fruits (large and permanent HP and MP increase).
Okay this made me feel a little called out
Oh and I also stole a Flame Sabre from an Allosaurus in the area? And I’m pretty sure all I got from them in the past were Earth Drums (a disposable item that causes Earth damage)? So far this is the first time I managed to steal two different items from one monster. If I’m remembering the Earth Drum correctly, then do the same monsters carry different stuff in different areas? Or has this always been possible and I only just now pulled it off? Even though I’ve been trying to steal from as many things as possible?
Speaking of: in the grassy periphery of the forest, there are ogres whom you can steal Life Shards from.
While Baigan’s soldiers are now financially situated, the rebels have not been idle. According to Regent Gran, they have penetrated the Dragon King’s Roost south of the gil-farming forest. It appears they want to capture and tame some dragons to use as airborne super weapons.
The corpses of the rebels are strewn about the Roost and the survivors panic and attack you if you go near them. As we approach the summit, two pissed off dragons wait for us. The first is Vedrfolnir, who has a Survival Vest you can steal.
Now…whom should we find in the Dragon King’s Roost but Bahamut: the embodied deity of Ivalice?
After Bahamut vaporizes the three rebels, he goes for the party, Megaflares everyone and breaks through the ceiling of the cave.
Some Lindblum soldiers investigate in our wake and bring us back to Regent Gran’s castle. As we’re catching him up, the subject turns once more to the Earth Crystal, which is still in the Underworld with the Fey. A nearby bodyguard is suddenly possessed by Malacore, announcing that the Fey originally secured it for him. Yet the magical barrier has kept Malacore out as surely as it has the human pursuers.
Malacore also passively refers to Vahn as the son of a “tyrant king” while talking about something else. A little question mark balloon shows us that Vahn has no idea what he’s talking about. Before relinquishing the unsuspecting bodyguard, Malacore says “After all, it is your duty as the son of King Branch to allow me this power, is it not?”
Vahn panics and flees from the party as soon as Darius, Vera and Regent Gran attempt to ask him about this. Local chatter in Tzen suggests that Vahn has likely ended up in the Temple of Visions.
Oh- first blue magic since Goblin Punch! The Vibrant Plumage ability item can be stolen from a Zemzelett, outside of Tzen. From this, Ami learns White Wind. Blue magic was one of my original motivations for keeping Laka as close as I have been.
Being a massive VII fan girl, the use of the ‘Listen To The Cries Of The Planet’ music was a pleasant surprise. This dungeon branches off into a left and right path. Both of them end with a treasure chest that contains half of the Crystal Half Moon Key, which is required to unlock the central door.
The shurikens and the Yoshimitsu treasure chests suggest that Nobumasa may have some reason to be here. Sure enough, the Hadesgigas go down fast when you throw shurikens at them (hopefully not before you steal their Spiked Gloves). With Ami having learned White Wind, she can now heal the whole party and cast Regen while Cheering for gradual MP restoration. With Ami’s Storm Breath and Nobumasa having learned Mokusatsu and Katon, you should be alright.
You also might want to fight the monster-in-a-box Almagest, since it drops an Arondight: Darius’ best weapon so far.
With both halves of the key in hand, it is apparent that the party can’t just slide them together. Then I remembered: someone in a village mentioned both the Temple of Visions and the divided key.
I can’t remember what they said though.
No one in the village of Altair is able to help out with this but they do mention a gambling engineer of renown named Jack. A townsperson says that he lives north of Altair, so off I went astride Bluebell.
This place…has an almost dream-like quality. The music is your basic video-gamey-casino loop. Tinny, synthesized, brass instrument sounds. It’s not annoying but it’s not dissimilar to annoyance. Reminiscent of insomnia, somehow. Like a casino-themed Sonic level only drunk and just about to start tilting from horny to crying.
Eventually, though…somewhere north of Altair…I found the suspiciously-named Crescent Rivulet.
When we last left our adventurers, they were on the trail of Darius in the Gulgur Volcano. Unbeknownst to them, General Braak escaped Hans, Biggs and Wedge, leaving them to fall into the hands of three enigmatic beings who appear to be capable of mind control. When the Vahn squad catches up with Darius, they find him in conversation with a voice that he is seeing outside of his head for the first time: Malacore, whom Darius released from the Crystal of Water.
A later encounter with the esper Ramah puts much of this in perspective: the crystals are doing their usual elemental control thing (either placed there by the gods or left there as energy siphons for malevolent outsiders, depending on cosmology). What effects the crystals effects the espers. This entanglement has come up in older FFs but here we have an additional layer: elemental guardians, like Salamander and Bismarck- residing either with their crystal or at its former location. Quetzalcoatl is both an elemental guardian and an esper. Quetzalcoatl leaves nethicite behind and Salamander does not. Ramah then introduces a fourth layer: the Archareons, rulers of the Esper World. Presumably beings older and more powerful than Ramah and the other espers seen thus far.
In the distant past, both human and esper worlds were affected by a phenomenon which- on the third dimension -manifested as the disappearance of all light from the sky. Humanity remembered this as the era of the Blackmoon. It choked the biosphere, obviously, yet had consequences beyond it. The espers appear to have been affected just as much and- having longer lifespans and more of a multidimensional perspective than humans -resolved never to allow it to happen again.
Despite their immortality and non-locality, the Archareons can only perceive this event through the dark glass of prophecy. While prophecy on the esper scale may see farther than on the human one, both humans and espers relate to it in the same way. A prophecy, for these purposes, is an amorphous thing: a statement from the future with a limited range of success or failure conditions.
Malacore, who was subsumed by the Water Crystal before Darius released him, is the one who is actually capable of manipulating the crystals in such a way that the Blackmoon Prophecy may be fulfilled. This prophecy specifies that Malacore’s opposition is the axis on which Malacore’s decision will turn. From the Archareons’ perspective, Vahn and the party are the ones actually swinging the axe and therefore they are the ones who must be stopped.
The Archareons are also having non-human pattern-matching issues: Darius was a dragoon from Branch. Vahn is also a dragoon from Branch. As far as they are concerned, “these kinds of humans” appear to be working in concert. Almost immediately after acquiring the ship with which to travel to the continent of the Wind Shrine, they are capsized by an Archareon. This Archareon was summoned by Gylfi: the one we saw fighting Hans, Biggs and Wedge at the Water Shrine.
Now…Malacore shoves, espers push back. Gylfi appeared to comfortably take some responsibility for what is happening both with Darius and the crystals. Is Gylfi a third-dimensional proxy for the Esper World Archareons? Or a collaborator with Malacore? Both seem possible, just now.
Espers also introduce our first actual taste of character customization: nethicite crystals. Obviously magicite exists in this game but its only use appears to be teaching Vera how to summon different esper spirits. Nethicite can be equipped to anyone, bestowing passive buffs and additional points for various stats upon leveling. These are, of course, good for cultivating stat emphases in the long run and circumstantial protection immediately.
So far, I have encountered three nethicite-yielding boss fights in the main plot: Syldra (MP leveling bonus), Quetzalcoatl (defense and HP leveling bonus) and Atomos (magic leveling bonus).
Considering how I acquired the Valefor nethicite on Mount Palumpu, I think this may be a good time to talk about other game play factors that start loosening up. Laka the thief is recruited shortly before entering the Naddaha Pyramid, which I appreciated. I like FF thieves; both for the stealth build and the perpetual item-farming. Goblins can be encountered in the vicinity and an interesting little item can be stolen from them: Goblin Glove, with a little book icon. This comes in handy post-Naddaha once Ami the blue mage (my favorite FF mage class) is recruited. I’m wondering if those book items are how Ami will be learning most of her blue magic? Stealing the items from the relevant monster makes a lot of sense. I can see how this might annoy some people but coordination between thieves and blue mages kinda hits me where I live.
Anyway: Goblin Punch will make Valefor way less scary (Valefor’s nethicite crystal boosts HP, speed and vigor upon leveling).
We also start seeing some recognizable dungeon-design conventions from the mainline series around here. Naddaha Pyramid is a FFIV-style gauntlet of winding paths and high encounter rates. The treacherous swamp of Connal Curach has stone-to-bridge jumps and thick fog, like the shipwreck graveyard from V.
Also during the Laka-to-Ami-juncture- the obstacle transcendence abilities of the party leader have so far appeared to be removing single-tile obstructions. Elina with the Mysidian glyph barriers, Laka with picking locks and Ami with persuading the Moombas of Mount Palumpu to step out of the way.
Yes, I did have to show you each frame of that
The music gets a little more diverse at this point. The Naddaha Pyramid has what at least sounds like the music in Ultimecia’s final dungeon from VIII (on a related note, music in boss fights have been from VIII and V, thus far). Once the party starts making their way through Mount Palumpu toward the Wind Shrine, the music gets distinctly non-retro themed. Like, recognizable low notes on a viola in a distinctly non-midi format. The mines of Kohlingen have a version of the ‘Phantom Forest’ from VI with a lot of woodwind instruments and a bit less harp-plucking than expected. I liked it though.
Since so much of what we are listening to comes from mainline Final Fantasy games, the music choices can sound a little referential at times. I’m still kinda waiting to see if certain associations expand or not, like all the FFVI musical cues happening in relation to the nation of Ivalice. Or the FFV boss music during the fights with Gylfi and his cohort.
It is also impossible not to notice just how many place names and character names are taken from other FFs. Lots of main characters like Balthier and Cecil. The name ‘Vahn’ also comes from a pre-existing game but he’s also the only one with a main character name doing main character stuff.
It is easy for me to imagine certain things. Like each mainline FF takes place in its own tangent universe. These tangents proceed from a convex arc, enabling them to go as far as possible without intersecting. Final Fantasy Blackmoon Prophecy may be a lateral level above or below. If the main character from a mainline FF is, perhaps, causing the mutually exclusive tangent…than Blackmoon Prophecy appears to be a level up or down from there. The souls of the divergence-authors are now circulating in a contained environment, with everyone else. If Vahn got caught in the web of the story, then maybe it is because it could have happened to anyone in this version of Gaia.
Some other things I wanted to mention-
Mount Palumpu
The blue Whip creature on the ground has a tent if Laka can manage to successfully ‘steal’ from it. Laka is level 8, here, with 39 for luck and 56 for speed. Vahn is the only one with a better luck stat and Laka is obviously the fastest party member so far. Laka always moves before anyone else has a chance but she can only steal a tent from a Whip once every few dozen attempts. For now, it looks like the luck stat determines whether the ‘steal’ command works or not, as in most other Final Fantasy games.
Also- the Headless monsters you can encounter between the Rift Shrine and Connal Curach? Kinda look like female Armadullahans? You can steal Spirit Shards from them. ‘Shards’ are basically permanent, single-increment stat boosters, like the stat+ and ‘source’ items from VII. The stat+ and ‘source’ droppers were hidden in the crashed Gelnika, though. The demake of VII for the NES (the Lugia2009 version- not the Chinese bootleg it was based on) had a lot of monsters late in the game that dropped stat+ items, which felt like a way to add some character build freedom near the end. We’ll see how Babineau implements stat+ / shard droppers going forward.
The Headless are also damage sponges who can hit the whole party at once, though, so have fun with that.
Final Fantasy Blackmoon Prophecy is an RPG Maker fan game by Daniel Babineau. Babineau began development in 2003 and completed the first playable iteration in 2011. After over decade of patches and updates, a streamlined, final-draft ‘remake’ was released a few days ago. Presently, Babineau is developing a sequel.
The nostalgia and referencing are immediately apparent with some interesting inversions.
The most obvious ones so far riff on FFI and FFIV. A beloved dragoon named Darius has lately been going a lil crazy with wild emotional reactions and inferences about everyone’s loyalty and worthiness. He looses it too hard with a prisoner, threatens to have them summarily executed and bristles when fellow dragoon Vahn tells him that’s not how it works. He storms off, rants to the king about it and gets drummed out of the military. A brief investigation to the Water Shrine ensues and guess who shows back up, eventually?
Vahn’s sprite looks like Bartz from V
Darius’ falling out and expulsion is rather efficient. Irrational person says irrational things, threatens a detainee and strikes a fellow dragoon. Everyone agrees on this and they get rid of him because they respect the rule of law. Last time things went this smoothly in a 2D Final Fantasy, Kefka was on the brink of reshaping the face of the planet and terrorizing everyone into worshipping him.
Our main character Vahn shares his first name with the main character from FFXII. XII and XII: Revenant Wings are set in a place called Ivalice along with FF Tactics and Vagrant Story. In Blackmoon Prophecy, Ivalice is a known location in the wider world. We learn in short order that the people of Ivalice worship the dragon Bahamut as a deity and that Ivalice is at odds Branch, where our player characters start out. An Ivalician general named Braak was the prisoner that Darius threatened.
I suspect the majority of music in this game comes from the Pixel Remaster versions of I-VI and a few of them have abrupt splices in their loops (copy right protection?). Excepting, of course, the music that’s obviously from PS1 through present, like ‘Who…Are You?’ from VII during a dramatic moment and the FFIX Chocobo Forest music for the, uh…Chocobo Forests.
The majority of musical cues are from IV, like the basic fight music and the Baron Castle music for Branch Castle. A lot of FFVI cues are associated with the nation of Ivalice but not exclusively (an early non-Ivalice village has ‘Kids Run Through the City’).
The random encounter rate is suspiciously low for a retro-style Final Fantasy game, at first, but ramps up once you get out of your backyard. So far, combat abilities are learned from a pre-existing roster for each character with occasional ability-and-stat-bestowing items.
Vahn’s ‘jump’ command also seems to have a clear purpose, early on. I know that the turn-skip was always supposed to be a risk-vs-reward mechanic but it actually works that way, in these early battles. Vahn leaps into the air, skipping his turn and taking no damage. Either Hans or Oalston have to just take all the hits during that beat so you have to keep them alive until Vahn descends with his massive physical attack.
In IV, there were a lot of temporary, scripted NPC party members early on. The point was to give you an early taste of what different classes can and can’t do before the permanent, “real” bearer of the character class showed up.
(Possibly…? A few of them turn out to still be alive and playable later which always struck me as kind of pointless..especially after having more competent party members to do that stuff longer by the end game period)
Blackmoon Prophecy clearly uses a similar approach to character class ‘tutorials’. The dragoon character class eventually gets a dedicated exploration with Hans, Biggs and Wedge. I dunno yet if this game has a red mage class but so far the dragoons seem to have most of the ‘red magic’ stuff going for them with an occasional ‘jump’ button, like Freya from IX.
Oh hey- when you finally have a full four-member party in Mysidia (judging from its portrayal in IV, is Mysidia supposed to be the FF version of Mystara?) you can choose your own party leader. Different pcs have different obstacle transcendence abilities, like Elina being able to remove Mysidian glyph barriers.
The four-member party also makes it clear that the ‘defend’ command has more than one function. This game is inspired by early Final Fantasy so the absence of an active time bar lines up. Nonetheless, there is such a thing as turn order determined by everyone’s relative speed stat.
This, here, is an ideal case in point. Context from FF in general tells us that restorative magic is lethal to undead. Thus it is here. So Elina casts Cure on the Fossil and takes it out in one shot. Oalston should also be leveled enough at this point to one-shot a normal Bomb with Blizzard. That leaves the purple-tinted Grenade, which seems to have more HP and hits harder when it blows up.
Unlike most classic Final Fantasy, our summoner Vera has a firm melee emphasis (vigor seems to translate into physical attack and it’s her best stat). Buy the Mythril Blade while you’re in Mysidia, equip it to Vera and you’ll notice that she can usually one-shot the Grenades before they can cause trouble.
But– Vahn has been leveling since before any of these three were recruited. That gives him an inconvenient speed stat, here in the Gulgur Volcano. With Elina, Oalston and Vera, you could probably end the battle in the screenshot up there in one turn. If you just plug in a ‘fight’ command with Vahn, though, he will act before any of the other three have a chance to. This could have a few consequences. Depending on who Vahn strikes first, the Grenade might have a chance to explode. Ending the fight as quickly as possible depends on Vahn using the ‘defend’ command.
You’ll probably find the magicite that allows Vera to summon Shiva and a Blizzard Staff for Oalston, eventually, which will make things easier. Until then, you’ll probably spend less time dying and using up healing items if you pay attention to who is good at what and how the speed stat effects turn order.
That was a neat little tutorial segment without needing to be told what’s happening. Good job, Babineau.
I’m pretty sure this fight has a scripted loss but…if you manage to inflict poison on one of the two beings in the front, it will do fifty-thousand points of damage each turn. I couldn’t resist playing through it three times since I kept wondering if the poison status effect was a secret route out of the scripted loss
Here’s the opening post if you want to get caught up with my passes through the Nerve Tower and blind analysis
The Nerve Tower is visible in the opening cut scene, with three Sense Spheres visible on the top.
The view of the Nerve Tower upon spawning into existence likewise appears bracketed by two structures, like the alley in the opening cut scene. Even the three Sense Spheres are in evidence (I think…?).
In light of subsequent passes through the Tower, the symbiosis and separation of the main character from another half (potentially Alice) is referred to in the opening cut scene as well. The opening cut scene ends with a look at what appears to be a white Distorted One or grotesque resembling a pair of conjoined twins, bleeding from their mouths. The Distorted One is cut down by the apparent viewpoint character. A bloody feather see-saws to the ground. The camera pans up toward the Nerve Tower, seen at roughly the same angle as the earlier alley perspective and the perspective of the player character once the game starts.
Also concerning symbiosis and entanglement: if you attack Alice, she says “I shouldn’t have been born. There are times when I think that. (…) I want to remember the times before I met you, when we were melded with each other.”
When you fire the Angelic Rifle at the God of Preservation and Creation on the seveneteenth basement floor, she says she wanted to be “one with you” again before she dies.
Alice only “met you” once she was separated from “you”. Under your onslought, she seeks a comforting memory: the time when “you” were both “melded with each other.” It sounds like a yearning for a time before the separation but what to make of the use of “melded”? Were they somehow combined from separate entities to begin with?
From the way Alice and others talk about this event, you would think it was a trauma inflicted from without, as if they were the same being and always had been. It could have been an externally imposed trauma simultaneously with the initial “melding” not being original. There’s that glimpse of the naked man and woman embracing- perhaps they joined together as a kind of corporeal marriage? If so, the pain of the separation leads us to think that this existence was harmonious. Whatever was done to them was done against their will.
Some of the Distorted Ones (like the Sack Thing) talk about your experience, in particular. According to them, you suffered horribly.
The Sack Thing also attributes the following quote to the Archangel: “If the Creator and Preserver has a core, then the world can be remade as many times as one pleases. The next world will be created and preserved by me. I will return the world to normality in an instant.”
Some of Sack Thing’s earlier dialogue: “The Pretend angels are speaking. They’re saying ‘Go to the Nerve Tower’.”
Eliza wants to give birth to a Sense Sphere to heal her mother’s insanity. She also makes cryptic mention of an “insane Sense Sphere”. Where else have we heard discussions of insanity? The God of Preservation and Creation has gone mad. This is the player character’s “sin”, according to the Archangel.
How did the God of Creation and Preservation go mad? Getting torn in half. Kinda like the player character. Oh yeah, and Eliza and the Archangel resemble each other as closely as the player character and Alice. Maybe they were similarly torn in half. Beside Eliza are multiple non-funcitoning Sense Spheres.
Alice, who appears in a room with a single functioning green Sense Sphere, says that the Archangel is the one who tore you apart. “In order to drive the Creater and Preserver mad. In order to become the Creator and Preserver himself.”
Alice, on the fifteenth basement floor: “You’ve been torn apart twice now.”
The Mind Reading Thing, on the sixth basement floor during either my fifth or sixth pass, says “(t)he image of another can sometimes be seen within master. Nearly identical, and yet quite an entirely different person, it seems.” Evocative of both the player character and the Archangel.
On a different occasion, the Mind Reading Thing says “(m)aster’s mind is quite like a landscape, painted with layer upon layer of grief. (…) There is a scar on master’s waist, yes, a large scar under your clothes which was not caused by the Great Heat Wave. Master is haunted by that large scar from so long ago…alas, pitiful.”
On the early basement floors, a ghostly, feminine face appears and says “(d)o you remember our wounds? Have we forgotten the origin of that scar?” (…) “I recall that pain, even now. My final day with you, when I was murdered!” (…) “We used to play chess, didn’t we? We’d take a turn as we awoke one by one.”
In our simulation paradigm, our obvious representatives of the simulation’s function appear to be the Archangel and the Nerve Tower. What do nerves do? Connect brains to bodies. Some of the Horned Woman’s dialogue after the fourth pass: “Regret. Distortion. Archangel. Dabar Fusion.”
In Baroque, there are characters that have other beings or worlds inside of themselves. This includes the player, the angels, Distorted Ones and the Koriel. They have things inside of themselves or a receptacle that they wish to suppress, manage or embody. The Box Thing describes this exactly, the Mind Reading Thing describes someone called “the master” experiencing this. Eliza wants to “give birth” to a Sense Sphere and the confined, metal-plated angel in the lower basement levels (held before an off-limits Sense Sphere by a black and a white bird) says that the memory of their “SINS” are in the “SENSE SPHERE”.
They say they cannot be “PURIFIED”. I wonder if to “purify” is to separate something from yourself. It gets kicked down the ladder of nesting-doll worlds (becomes an Idea Sefirot) and you regenerate healthy tissue like a starfish and remain intact on your own level. Should you die on your level, you will go up the ladder and emerge from a Sense Sphere. The spheres from space (Idea Sefirot and Sense Sphere) are the ladder.
In the world of Baroque, Sense Spheres are treated like objects that can send and receive matter between two different points. If I’m right about the design of the Nerve Tower, then Sense Spheres and their matter transmission were incorporated into engineering and technological infrastructure. Just before the Great Heat Wave.
This may have occurred “historically” but this is also clearly reflected on the first level of nested Nerve-circuits, within what may be a biomechanical simulation, hosted by a dreaming mind.
The Sense Spheres could have been employed for total control over matter: move it, store it in an information state or wipe it from existence. Thing Thing’s behavior implies that Sense Spheres can be a bottomless source of stuff…but Thing Thing appears to just wait outside of them and see what randomly pops out. Maybe this was done with more intention, once upon a time.
And what was our theorized eliminative use of Sense Spheres, again? It appears to be dividing things from oneself; a scalpel of the soul. On your plane, the excised information-matter is reduced to an Idea Sefirot. Its existence goes down a level. Does it then become possible for you to emerge from a Sense Sphere, one level above? Are your hands now on the ladder?
If the God of Preservation and Creation is the outermost layer, then the dreamer in the suspension chamber may be that very woman. Her subconscious channeling of the simulation embodies half of the world and she herself embodies the other half.
A lot of Final Fantasy VII fans (my age and older) have been overthinking it for a long time. In case this seems like an inordinate amount of thought to put into a video game analysis.
Anyone who played Final Fantasy VII in the late nineties or early 2000s probably remembers the GeoCities and AngelFire fan communities. I could probably write an entire post on those websites. One of them contained a long narrative poem describing the entire game from Sephiroth’s perspective. On an ‘about’ page, the author declared that Professor Hojo was her soulmate. Many of these revolved around gaming urban legends, like the surprisingly common belief that Aerith could be brought back from the dead (not that there was any lack of online guides on chocobo breeding or beating Emerald and Ruby WEAPONs). Many of these websites ended up discussing lore and the grounds for various interpretations.
For example: one prevalent myth about resurrecting Aerith was that there was some hidden way to throw a phoenix down into the pond Cloud lowers her body into. On my own favorite among these ancient websites (link below), the blogger Seraphim debunked a number of theories before getting to his own. When he came to the phoenix down chestnut, he explained that a phoenix down does not actually bring anyone back from the dead. When a character’s HP hits 0, it symbolizes becoming too weak to continue fighting. In a lot of online conversations between fans, the symbolic meaning of the mechanics were a common topic. Another one was the relationship between the battle screen and what was literally going on during combat.
For Seraphim, this mattered because it emphasized the true nature of the dilemma. Aerith is not conked out; she’s actually dead. The nit-picky exhaustiveness of these discussions had some funny foundations. No one would resurrect Aerith because it could not be done…which only drove the search further into the margins. Some bloggers tinkered around with the GameSharkPro and found ways to trigger Aerith’s dialogue for points in the game she’s not alive for, which was taken as confirmation by some.
What actually happened was that Square was going to script at least one permanent character death: Barret or Aerith. They based their decision on play tester reactions which led to the situation we have now.
Brief digression- This proves what a happy accident Final Fantasy VII was. Big name video game developers and film studios make a lot of creative decisions by committee.
Getting back on topic-
Aerith’s dialogue for the last two-thirds of the game was cut, but since the game was originally scripted to have everyone for the whole thing, the dialogue was still there in the code for data miners to find.
The real reason why Aerith had cut dialogue occurring after her death was not confirmed by Square until a few years had gone by. If the fans were determined to find their own answers, though, you couldn’t blame them. Especially since so many of the events depicted within the game depend on interpretation.
Massive spoiler warning for the original game.
The planetary force called Holy barely manifests in time to stop Meteor. When I first completed the game, years before the Advent Children film or any of the additional games and novels that flesh out the lore, it appeared to me that Midgar did not survive Meteor. But the planet, Gaia, did survive.
After this planetary near-miss, we get the ending credits followed by a cut to the relatively far future. The character Nanaki belongs to a species that is extremely long-lived. Although he is over forty years old in the period where the game takes place, that only puts him on the level of a teenager. Presumably, in the succeeding decades, he matures more. Nanaki appears to have cubs in the flash-forward, with whom he is hunting/exploring/playing with. He follows his cubs to a cliff overlooking the remains of Midgar which is completely overgrown with plants and wildlife. Gotta admit, that looks like a conclusive statement on the fate of Midgar.
Our last post-credit scene is a brief cut to the opening cinematic, where Aerith’s face fades in over an apparent starscape.
In the absence of any direct explication within the base game, both of these moments rely on some active reading. These may be the most mysterious scenes in the game- but they’re not the only ones that rely on inference or interpretation.
The crowd that was determined to resurrect Aerith latched onto a few of these smaller mysteries. If you manage to get back into Midgar’s ground level late in the game, there is a ghost of Aerith in the church in the Sector 5 slums. Aerith’s polygon flickers for a moment and vanishes before you have the chance to approach her. In Wall Market, at the beginning of the game, Cloud has an uncanny hallucination of a doppelgänger in the Honeybee Inn which has no clear in-world explanation.
Many of Cloud’s hallucinations are telepathically directed by Sephiroth or Jenova…but not all of them. Cloud has a moment in the opening bombing mission where he freezes and a voice in his head says ‘this isn’t just a reactor’. This is, in all likelihood, a trauma-response like PTSD triggered by memories of the Nibelheim reactor. Cloud’s trauma surrounding his hometown Nibelheim is frequently used by Sephiroth and Jenova as a point of entry for their psychic manipulation. But that trauma still exists irrespective of them.
In light of the story in general, this feels like an intuitive way to make sense of Cloud’s episode during the bombing mission. But there is no direct comment on it within the script. Cloud’s hallucinatory doppelgänger in the Honeybee Inn, however, has no implicit explanation furnished by Nibelheim, Sephiroth or Jenova. Presumably, the doppelgänger hallucination is an organic event.
It feels funny using the phrase “active reading” in reference to playing a video game, but it’s hard to get reeled in to Final Fantasy VII without some active reading.
While the nineties gamers determined to resurrect Aerith would necessarily be disappointed, they were on to something essential.
Final Fantasy VII is about death. A lot of it is, anyway. Two of the main characters exert massive influence on the plot after they die: Aerith and Sephiroth. These two are also deeply enmeshed with Cloud, our viewpoint character.
Seraphim pointed me in the right direction here. My favorite part of his analysis was his assertion that the real main character of Final Fantasy VII is Aerith and that Jenova is the real villain.
Seraphim categorizes Cloud and Sephiroth as victims but he does not offer any comment on Cloud’s function as the viewpoint character. If Jenova and Aerith are the real plot-movers, then Cloud’s place in the foreground is more of a way of orienting the perspective of the player/audience. Cloud is the lens through which we see the story but not a major character within it- almost like a narrator.
Placing Aerith as the main character is not as much of a reach as it might sound. Especially considering one of the most important recurring plot elements in Final Fantasy: the paradigm shift. I ended the intro post the way I did for a reason.
In the intro, I mentioned Cecil, Terra and Zidane. Terra lived much of her life as a mind-controlled war slave. The story of Final Fantasy VI effectively starts when Terra regains control of herself. Cecil begins his quest as an unflinchingly loyal soldier and Zidane as a petty thief. None of them are the same in the end.
The plot of many Final Fantasy games rests on two layers of crisis. There is an earthly antagonistic force which is empowered by the influence of a deeper event. This second layer is often exposed half way through the story and can cause (directly or not) a basic re-evaluation of motives in the main characters. This almost always includes the protagonist. This is the paradigm shift I was referring to.
Final Fantasy X and Final Fantasy XIII situate the paradigm shift within a conflict of free will and determinism. Final Fantasy XV was also about the clash between destiny and autonomy but FFXV was not able to portray their version of the paradigm shift before the second season of DLC was canceled. As the game’s existent material stands, it appears to depict the return of an old paradigm rather than learning to live in a new one. You could reasonably disagree with that, as Square’s plans for the real ending were expressed in the novel The Dawn of the Future. But none of the video game material communicates that ending.
FFXIII initially props up Lightening as the main character but in the end Fang and Vanille move the plot more than anyone else. FFX, XV and XVI examine doomed martyrs and their growing bonds with those they must leave behind. FFXV may not have had the chance to depict its paradigm shift as intended but a thematic echo survives in the arc of Noctis. All of these games were also flagship titles for the new consoles of their day. It makes sense that there might be influences behind them that are parallel or derivative from one another. Final Fantasy VII was also a flagship release for a new console.
The paradigm shift within Final Fantasy VII happens on a number of different levels and story junctures. One such connecting moment is the party’s exit from Midgar. And, of course, the occasion for it. Intriguingly, Final Fantasy VII Remake follows the story up to this same plot point. Final Fantasy VII Rebirth picks up from there.
This early glimpse of the paradigm shift happens when the second crisis absolutely T-bones the first. The automated systems of the laboratory are dead, including the locks on your cell doors. President Shinra is dead. A ghostly sword vanishes from his body and Palmer swears he saw Sephiroth kill him.
In roughly 1 & 1/2 scenes, one big bad is eclipsed by another. Before this, the moral paradigm of the story was plain: a small handful of rebels versus a powerful establishment. Now, there is something that both the party and Shinra are equally threatened by.
Cloud (ever the strong, silent type before now) suddenly starts talking. He is the only one offering answers, however flawed or psychologically filtered. This puts his memory and testimony squarely in the foreground.
If not the main character, Cloud is definitely the viewpoint character. This viewpoint is mostly consistent across the paradigm shift and is consequently shaken by it.
Not many other Final Fantasy games tie the audience point of view so specifically to one character. Final Fantasy X did it. In VIII, the cuts back and forth through time at first appear to be some kind of direct reflection of Squall’s mind. XIII has an omniscient narration that later turns out to be the voice of Vanille. None of them pushed it as far as VII, though.
This transitional moment between Midgar and the rest of the world is also when the (eventually) two dead characters draw closer to the center of the story. The rescue of Aerith draws the party to the Shinra Building and the apparition of Sephiroth takes them out of it.
Let’s flesh out the thematic function of those two as “dead people” a bit more.
Aerith is kind of a no-brainer. Her greatest influence on the plot is exerted after her death and she seems to anticipate that something like death will be necessary before she can summon Holy. Sephiroth is a bit more tricky.
As is typical of Sephiroth, Cloud is directly affected. This is one of the reasons I’ve been at such pains to establish Cloud’s function as a narrator. This also relates to the fact that Cloud does not belong to the same “dead” category. But he’s not really like anyone else, either.
The transition between the two crisis layers is intimately tied to the shifts in Cloud’s mind. This creates an association between Cloud’s mind and the story structure. The link is preserved through his mental collapse and the summoning of Meteor. After that, Cloud disappears beside Sephiroth’s frozen body and resurfaces in Mideel, incapable of speech or any other outward expression. His reintegration into the party requires Tifa to join him in his mental solitude.
This is important for a few reasons. One of them is balancing Cloud’s point of view with the outside world. This then has to reconcile with the rest of the story, in which Cloud’s point of view dominated the foreground. The weight of the outside world is clear when Cloud himself has to accept it. The scope of the story gets bigger than Cloud once he “gets over himself.”
Sephiroth’s place in Cloud’s mind changes as Cloud himself does. With that in mind: excluding the blurring of Cloud’s stories and memory dynamics, what actually happened to Sephiroth?
He fell into a mako reservoir. Because of Cloud. Put simply- Cloud killed him. Along with everything else Cloud lied about and ignored…Cloud has also been carrying the private knowledge that he killed Sephiroth. And that, to the best of his knowledge, Sephiroth has been dead for five years.
Five years later, his reappearance is not unlike a haunting. Before Sephiroth began sending his consciousness through a telepathic network of Jenova cell carriers, he existed in his original body. That body was pushed into a mako reservoir by Cloud, and ghosts often haunt their killers. Just like Barrett conjectures in Final Fantasy VII Remake, Sephiroth’s body ends up in the center of the planet, from which he and Jenova project their hauntings.
The psychoanalytic theme of suppression is emphasized by Cloud’s retelling of the Nibelheim incident garbled with his neurotic identification with Zack. One of the subconscious functions of this identification appears to be avoidance or disguise. The pain implied by this avoidance easily matches something very Freudian.
In Frued’s outline of the Oedipal complex, the castration anxiety at the dawn of the genital stage of psychosexual development is suppressed by rejection of the opposite-sex parent and identification with the same-sex parent. Cloud’s rejection of his own weaknesses prompts a sort of denial within himself which compels him to blend his self-image with male identity models, like Zack and Sephiroth.
If Zack’s example provided Cloud with a story that he would choose over his own memory, then Cloud’s stated motive (later in the original game) of neurotic shame makes sense. It makes just as much sense, though, when one considers only the truth of the Nibelheim incident without any stated motive in the present. We have already seen Cloud state his admiration for Sephiroth and his desire to be like him as a child, during the flashback with Tifa at the water tower. Watching your hero lose his mind and massacre your hometown is a blow…but so is killing your hero with your bare hands.
Many of the psychoanalytic themes become clear at this point. Cloud’s character arc rises and falls around how he crafts his identity. In his formative years, he preferred to deny his emotions and emulate others. In psychanalysis, one’s shadow self is a version of yourself containing every trait you wish you didn’t have. Zack and Sephiroth gave Cloud’s juvenile mind identity models that he used as an escapist fantasy. If Cloud was ‘escaping’ the weakness he perceived within himself, then identification with Zack and Sephiroth is determined more by what Zack and Sephiroth are not rather than what they are. Cloud only drops Sephiroth off the mako reactor catwalk after Sephiroth goes on his rampage.
Sephiroth and Zack represent power fantasies to Cloud but they are also the absence of his self-repulsion. When Sephiroth reveals himself as repulsive, the emotional betrayal is visceral. This anguish would have been present when Cloud made his suicidal, single-minded effort to kill Sephiroth. Cloud also spent most of his life wishing he was Sephiroth, which would continue to be part of the backdrop of his mind after the panic and agony of the moment was over. Responsibility for Sephiroth’s fall would not be easy to accept.
Meanwhile, all the psychic projections into the bodies of Sephiroth clones and SOLDIERs are proving that Sephiroth is not dead after all.
The metaphysics of souls, transmigrations, the uncanny and the parallels between a body and a puppet still matter…but before moving on from psycholoanalysis, I want to spend some time on the differences between Cloud’s memory of Sephiroth and Cloud’s memory of Zack. The memories of both figures furnished subject matter for Cloud’s delusions but I do not think they are equal. Final Fantasy VII Rebirth takes pains to emphasize this difference.
Consider two levels of power fantasy: one is that the world comes second and everything is about you. Others barely exist and when they do it’s for your benefit. The second level is to be valued by others.
Since Rebirth concerns the events between Midgar and the Forgotten Capital, Aerith’s place in the love triangle is foregrounded. Meanwhile, in an adjacent timeline, Zack managed to survive his last stand outside Midgar and jumped forward to the present of the main timeline. It looks like Zack has wandered into a world with no place for him, with a comatose girlfriend and bestie. On the other side of the wall of destiny, Cloud the bestie is subconsciously emulating Zack and growing close with his ex-girlfriend. One begins to wonder if the original love triangle (Aerith-Cloud-Tifa) matters as much as the new one (Zack-Aerith-Cloud).
A Freudian assessment comes easily to mind. Within his cluster of subordinate timelines, Sephiroth is omnipotent. In VIIR, Sephiroth’s Whisper-conglomerate contains multiple timelines worth of Gaias. The universes within (which haven’t been devoured yet) all have skies with a massive light-phenomenon called the rift in the sky. Zack may be in VIIR because he happened to be outside of Midgar when the wall of destiny appeared but it is just as likely that Sephiroth wanted him.
In Rebirth, Marlene tells Zack that- unless Cloud wakes up soon -a “scary man” with long white hair will kill Aerith. Zack looks over his shoulder at Cloud and I found his facial expression difficult to interpret. Rebirth also introduced the idea that- when a SOLDIER “degenerates” and succumbs completely to Jenova -their hair usually turns white. Marlene may be “talking about” Sephiroth but when Zack looks at Cloud, he might not be thinking about Sephiroth.
If we assume that this situation is constructed by Sephiroth, then maybe the Zack-Aerith-Cloud triangle was also Sephiroth’s doing. In my Rebirth theory (check the ‘Final Fantasy’ section in the menu for the whole thing), I entertained the possibility that VIIR’s extra-dimensional Sephiroth came from his own timeline, separate from the one we all know as well as the slightly different one that Zack ended up in. There are circumstances in Rebirth which made me wonder if Cloud had a special role to play in extra-dimensional Sephiroth’s timeline of origin- an essential ally.
In Rebirth‘s Kalm-narrative, Cloud remembers the death of a soldier who accidentally fell into the rapids of Mount Nibel. Later, he seems to recall that this person had been Zack. Also in Rebirth, Cloud remembers Tifa’s death at the hands of Sephiroth. As Cloud tells this version of things in Kalm, it feels almost as if Tifa was why he stopped his story when he did. Her death is a painful memory that he would rather not dwell on, at the same time that Tifa is sitting right in front of him.
This made me wonder if Cloud’s role in extra-dimensional Sephiroth’s original timeline depended on a personality change that was brought about by the deaths of Tifa and Zack. In Gongaga, extra-dimensional Sephiroth tries to convince Cloud that Tifa is dead and that the Tifa seen in the present is a shape-shifted cell-carrier.
As a traveller between timelines, extra-dimensional Sephiroth understands that any other Cloud he meets will probably not be the same as ‘his’ Cloud. He may therefore decide that, if he ever wants ‘his’ Cloud back, he would have to create him. As in- find Cloud in another timeline and make him viscerally experience the deaths of Zack and Tifa.
At the same time, there is blossoming romantic chemistry between Cloud and Aerith. Love for Aerith was also the threadbare hope carrying Zack through much of his arc in Rebirth. An acrimonious love triangle in which Cloud kills Zack out of jealousy would play into extra-dimensional Sephiroth’s hands. Perhaps more so, if Zack’s jealousy was aroused first and Cloud was forced to defend himself.
In classical psychoanalysis, suppressed jealousy and suppressed desire are inexorable forces. This story doesn’t play out that way, though, and I think that matters.
Since Square Enix has encouraged an association between Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII Reunion and the VIIR project, the Crisis Core plot is relevant to this. There’s a decent chunk of the latter half of Crisis Core that consists of a kind of escort mission: Zack escaping Nibelheim with Cloud.
Owing perhaps to a difference in tolerance between SOLDIER graduates and everyone else, the concentrated mako bath within Hojo’s lab hits Cloud harder. He is inert and incommunicado for the entire time he is on the road with Zack. Yet Zack always addressses him and otherwise behaves as if Cloud is lucid and mentally present. Cloud could not express himself and was completely dependent on Zack. With Zack’s allowances for Cloud’s presumed perspective and interests, it’s almost as if Zack is exteriorizing two sides of a conversation. This is done, specifically, as Zack’s means of determining and caring for Cloud’s interests. Later, Jenova uses Cloud’s projections upon Zack as material for false memories.
We know that Jenova has been using cracks in Cloud’s self-worth for psychological leverage. Feelings of unworthiness can furnish morbid envy…but the Crisis Core story introduces an essential difference between Cloud’s memory of Zack and his memory of Sephiroth.
Given Cloud’s perspective as a Shinra tropper, we can imagine that the visibility and status of Zack and Sephiroth would be enviable. Zack did something that Sephiroth never would, though: carry him out of love and try to understand and care for him in spite of the communication barrier.
No, this is not (as far as I know) discussed in the open. The inclusion of CCReunion into the VIIR canon means that it still matters, though. Barring future lore elaborations, I wonder if it is never discussed on purpose: these would, for Cloud, be memories of silence and vulnerability.
(During the times he was conscious, anyway. Cloud’s reaction to Zack’s death implied that he was aware of his immediate surroundings and situation at least some of the time.)
In the timeline where Zack finds himself in Rebirth, both Cloud and Aerith are rendered mute and motionless by mako poisoning. Once Aerith’s surrogate mom Elmyra enters the picture, she fully takes charge of Aerith’s care, leaving Cloud in the hands of Zack, just like the Crisis Core roadtrip. Sure enough, Zack continues to talk to Cloud, in the way that he always has (not to mention talking to Aerith). A few different scenes start from Cloud’s alternate timeline POV in the wheelchair (above), which plays well when the scene immediately follows Cloud taking a nap, as though he’s dreaming of the other timeline.
In other words, Rebirth shows Zack caring for mute and helpless Cloud…while Cloud in another timleine is emulating Zack with uncanny, The Talented Mr. Ripley-like ease, as sparks fly between him and Zack’s ex.
Between the two identity models (Zack and Sephiroth), Sephiroth telepathically urges Cloud to take any delusiory short cut to make things fit in the present. Whether or not Cloud is emulating Zack just as cynically is an unspoken question in Rebirth. Then the final battles start crossing dimensional boundaries and Zack and Cloud find themselves pitted against the same foe. After they are separated again, two different alternating scenes play of Cloud and Zack reciting the same oath with the Buster sword.
What really establishes the differences between the two identity models, though, is that Cloud cannot beat Sephiroth alone. After the dimensional rifts happen during the final battle, Cloud fights first alongside Zack and then with Aerith.
And, of course…those of us who played the original know that Cloud and Aerith were never meant for each other, anyway. All of this makes it difficult to think that Cloud could ever wish to steal Zack’s life no matter how Jenova takes advantage of his feelings.
And now, back to metaphysics and the soul.
In the intro, I spent a lot of time on the aesthetic motivations behind Final Fantasy character design leading up to and including VII. Hironobu Sakaguchi has explained that, up through VII, characters were modeled after puppets in dioramas. Since the influence of Dungeons & Dragons is all over Final Fantasy, I’ve occasionally wondered if they were also modeled after miniatures on a map. Especially given how the combat screens from the 16 bit games retained the chibi-doll character sprites whereas the monsters looked hand-drawn or painted. VII used the symbolism of non-literal chibis to acquaint the player with non-literal imagery in general, to build a foundation for a larger-than-life story.
I cannot help but wonder if the role of bodies, souls, hauntings and transmigrations in the plot is a knowing elaboration on the metaphorical language of puppets. Both Jenova and Cait-Sith talk about toys and puppets in a metaphysical context.
The metaphysics of the soul in FFVII also mark a central event in any other fantasy story: the unveiling of the cosmology. Lord of the Rings depends on our knowledge of Middle Earth history and the role played by Sauron. In FFVII, we get little snippets of cosmology throughout. But the metaphysics of the soul, projection, transmigration, haunting and the like are when the player/audience sees the cosmology- free from explication- in the present of the story.
Fantasy typically relies on an internal consistency to establish its own rules. That is why cosmology matters so much. In other words: fantasy depends on a central myth. Through explication, we hear a lot about Lifestream, mako extraction and Jenova. But we only see the central myth at work through Cloud, Aerith and Sephiroth. Mostly, we see it through Cloud- even when Cloud is seeing Aerith and Sephiroth.
If Cloud has visions of the afterlife and the “true nature of reality”, then he appears to embody the mythic archetype of the pilgrim. And he resembles one pilgrim from world literature, in particular. One who, “midway along the journey of our life”, woke to find himself “in a dark wood”, having “wandered from the straight path”, who is then led through Heaven and Hell by two separate guides. Both are deceased souls. One of them was an inspirational identity model of his youth. The other was a woman who elevated his romantic yearning to spiritual wisdom.
Even the love-triangle subplot of FFVII plays into this. Dante Alighieri modeled Beatrice after a woman he had fallen for. He avowed that he would write about her in a way that no woman had ever been written about.
If Cloud is an archetypal pilgrim, then he gets the literary fantasy treatment. He is not just a mythic pilgrim, he is Nojima and Kitase’s (to say nothing of Sakaguchi’s) version of a mythic pilgrim. He was also the last Final Fantasy main character to have the chibi-doll design. A design pattern that Sakaguchi felt was evocative of a puppet show.
The layering of the soul-investiture and puppet themes indicate the central myth. Cloud, the pilgrim, sees the world beyond the tangible. In the end, he masters his fear and grief and is less daunted by death. Not unlike Gerda from The Snow Queen or Dante.
Yes, all that explication about the Lifestream and mako and Holy still matters. But something told through explication just doesn’t shine as bright as a dynamic that unfolds through the course of a story.
Not that there’s any conflict between one or the other in this case. The major emphasis of the world-building is the transmigration of souls. Holy is a cumulative spiritual force embodied by souls en route to their next life. The exertion (or will) of this force is what people in FFVII are talking about when they say “the planet.” This holistic divine will is what is invoked with the white materia and the plot depends on it.
The central myth concerns the afterlife and its relationship with the rest of the world. Anything beyond that point is a matter of interpretation. That being said, I think there are a number of probable interpretations. The frequent use of psychological imagery depends on a distinction between literal and non-literal. References then stand out even more.
References to World War II are particularly hard to miss. Heidegger is named after Martin Heidegger, the German philosopher that collaborated with the Nazis and had a few of his students sent to concentration camps. Professor Hojo is also clearly modeled after Josef Mengele and the Cetra have an ancestral legend of a place called The Promised Land. The first Cetra victim of Hojo we see is Aerith, who is one of our two dead main characters.
Sephiroth has been initiated into a zero-sum game by Jenova. Among the cell carriers, Sephiroth is the dominant personality beside Jenova herself. In the Northern Crater, Jenova attacks the party in her original body for the first time (Jenova-SYNTHESIS). After defeating her, the first clash with Sephiroth (Bizarro) has two separate torsos, as if the body is split between two occupiers. In Sephiroth’s next incarnation (Safer), he has clearly come out on top. The extraterrestrial being is still the same except now it’s named Sephiroth instead of Jenova. After Safer-Sephiroth goes down, he tries to jump ship into Cloud’s body.
Sephiroth strives to absorb the Lifestream transmigration nexus into himself. Aerith, meanwhile, is attempting to channel the planetary will, shared by all in the transmigration nexus, for their own benefit.
The first allegorical Jew of the game lays down her life to preserve the divine and familial (one might say “brotherly”) harmony between all souls.
There are two basic concepts from Hinduism which also appear in Bhuddism: Atman, the individual soul, and the greater universal tapestry to which in belongs, called Brahman. Interpretive traditions like Advaita Vedanta maintain that the wholeness of one depends on connection with the other. This is evocative of the Bhuddist concept of interbeing: the irreducible essence of the individual is nurtured and cultivated by the outside world. One necessitates the other.
In Final Fantasy VII, a soul grows and matures during the mortal journey and takes that accumulated vitality with them when they die. The soul passes into the Lifestream transmigration nexus, where the maturity of that soul will diffuse among all others and nurture them, before starting the cycle over again in the next life. This also analogues the indivudual / collective unit of the Jenova cell carriers. Some fans theorize that a being like Jenova is what happens to a Lifestream once it’s excised from a planet.
Then there’s the combined Semitic and Christian symbolism of Aerith. A few years ago, I replayed the original FFVII with a close friend. During the last psychic exchange between Aerith and Cloud in the Sleeping Forest, my friend commented on the similarity with the Agony in the Garden of Gethsemane: the kiss of Judas by which the Romans knew Jesus.
Cloud as an archetypal traitor makes too much sense for comfort. I remember, when I first played through the Temple of the Ancients, I was horrified when Sephiroth’s mind control took hold. A different, child-like segment of Cloud appears to separate from his body, and then he beats the shit out of Aerith.
I guess this is one of those moments in which the puppet show either works or it doesn’t. In my opinion, it was uncomfortably successful. That scene, along with the first two scenes with the ‘Who…Are You?’ scoring, were nightmare fuel to me as a preteen (pretty cool reimagining of that song in Rebirth, btw, which somehow didn’t make it onto the commerically released sondtrack).
I’m tempted to read that implication as more relevant to Cloud’s feelings about himself at that moment, than anything else. All of Cloud’s guilt- all of his worst thoughts and feelings about himself -have accumulated into a perfect storm by the time the party arrives at the Northern Crater. Sephiroth then goes for the psychological / telepathic jugular by erasing his sense of self and convincing him that he’s a botched Sephrioth clone.
The gradual, layering use of non-literal and psychological imagery allows the historic, literary and religious allusions to rise to the surface without speaking too loudly. This is, pretty much, why I’m confidant that the commercial and cultural engineering of upper Midgar has a soft 1940s influence. That, in turn, creates a close degree of association with the cinematic themes I mentioned in the intro. I thought that cinematic expressionism was a close relative of literary fantasy to begin with since they establish internal consistency using very similar narrative cues. More than anything else, though, I find it easiest to associate the early 1940s-ish imagery of the original’s beginning with the two most visible nuke analogues: mako reactors and WEAPONs.
The analogues between mako reactors and fossil fuels and nuclear anxieties are apparent. The WEAPONs are a bit less obvious, though. WEAPONs are ageless beings originally conjured by the planet to fight Jenova. Since Jenova’s cells have been dormant for thousands of years, so have the WEAPONs. Once Meteor is summoned, the primordial kaijus start waking up.
Kaiju movies showed up just after WWII. Nuclear fallout creates giant monsters that level cities. The kaiju cultural footprint has become ubiqitous enough to lose any specific association with the post-war era but the rest of the original FFVII makes the WWII themes difficult to ignore. The WEAPONs may not have been created by human meddling but they are summoned by it. They were originally created to fight a hostile alien and humanity- in late FFVII -has made itself equivalent to hostile aliens. Human meddling didn’t create them: it was just the last straw.
When Shinra goes completely off the rails, there is no one to say no to Heidegger, Scarlet and Hojo. Scarlet and Heidegger build a giant mech called the Proud Clad which has no in-world model other than the WEAPONs, as if Scarlet and Heidegger saw them and thought “that looks cool, let’s do our version”. Heidegger and Scarlet build their own WEAPON while Hojo is using every reactor in Midgar to power the Sister Ray and blow the seal off of the Northern Crater. The kaiju born of human meddling only appears when the most powerful humans lose their minds. After that, the world has seven days until Meteor and barely makes it by the skin of its teeth.
Then VIIR and Crisis Core introduce the possibility that Midgar has never been in a period of peace. After the ceasefire with Wutai, Shinra experiences a rash of SOLDIER desertions and defections. Rebirth tells us that at least a few of them (not depicted in Crisis Core) joined Wutai, such as Glen Lodbrok (even if he’s little more than a Sephiroth finger puppet like most of the cell carriers).
In the VIIR games, AVALANCHE is a global, decentralized guerrilla network with ongoing operations against Shinra. To the chagrin of Barret and the Midgar cell, AVALANCHE also has interests in common with Wutai and collaborates with them.
So Shinra declared victory against Wutai and has still never known peace. Since Hojo’s work on the SOLDIER program, there just hasn’t been an incentive for peace. The military apparatus of Hojo, Scarlet and Heidegger has become a self-perpetuating institution. The historical parallels are apparent.
I was not expecting how much this game was going to charm me. I mean, I knew it would be memorable, at least: I first read about Fantasian in a 2021 Washington Post article that I ended up referencing in another entry about Final Fantasy VII. Why was a PS1 game from 1997 capable of telling a story that cinematic, human-scaled storytelling of modern game design can only handle a little bit at a time?
This is, pretty much, what’s going on with the modern VIIR trilogy. Midgar, in the original FFVII, consisted of a handful of corridors to walk through, random monster battles in the corridors, two mini-dungeons (mako reactors) and a normal dungeon (Shinra Building) and a sort of corridor-dungeon hybrid (the sewer). Midgar, as a fictional premise, is two massive, metropolitan cities stacked on top of each other. To reinterpret the beginning in Midgar according to modern game design, you can’t rely on the same handful of corridors, 1 and 3/4 dungeons and some fights.
One obvious reason for this is modern game development conventions that (on one level or another) emulate film and photo-realism. These conventions turn against a fundamental design principle of 80s and 90s JRPGs, though, which gave them much of their vitality.
Some of this was incidental to early video game development: software was a simpler thing, back then. The first intuitive solution was that games needed to be simple and self-explanatory. See Tetris, Centipede, Q*bert, Pac-Man, etc. The second solution is to have simple game mechanics cover more conceptual ground like some of Nintendo’s early hits like Mario, Zelda and Metroid.
Final Fantasy derives from the second group but has older roots. Today, FF is known as a foundational JRPG. Most of us know that the J stands for ‘Japanese’. These kinds of games are typically Japanese but they are also most often video games. Then there’s the history behind the other three letters.
Tabletop RPGs are all about a gaming rule-set covering larger conceptual territory. If the design of early video games necessarily co-existed with board game design, someone was bound try to pull off video game Dungeons & Dragons. Not only are tabletop RPGs built on appealing to the imagination with a gaming rule-set…they are built on using that rule-set for everything that the people at the table can think of.
I heard that tabletop RPG kits in the 60s through the 80s made use of both miniature figurines and paper cut-outs. In FF I-VI, the player characters are represented in combat by simple, chibi-like sprites. The enemy sprites were a bit more detailed; appearing almost hand-drawn. They look like miniatures and paper cut-outs to me, anyway.
It now becomes easier to understand how 16 and 32 bit games were capable of telling stories that make modern developers feel burdened rather than empowered with realism. If you can connect a simple rule-set with imagination, then you can turn a handful of corridors, battles and roughly one dungeon into a sprawling dystopian cityscape.
Such a basic appeal to the imagination hinges on the player’s understanding that they are interacting with symbols rather than portraiture.
The Washington Post article confirms all this in almost as many words. While discussing the aesthetics of early Final Fantasy, Sakaguchi and the interviewer hit upon the analogy of puppet shows. Fantasian was meant to be a return to this kind of JRPG design.
See…I’m spending all this time not talking about the game itself because it’s hard to nail down the kind of depth and richness this brought to early JRPGs. Part of becoming more realistic means becoming more concrete and less interpretive. Video games have become more realistic but- like modern film -they have also become both more visual and more literal.
This does not mean that video games are worse off nowadays (any more than film is) but it does mean that video game narratives need to work harder to cover shorter distances.
So the WaPo article piqued my interest. I wanted to play Fantasian as soon as I read it but- at the time -it was only available on Apple Arcade. I don’t object to mobile games on principle but they’re definitely not in my lane. Luckily, there’s a modern console version now.
The environments in Fantasian are built from photographs of intricate little dioramas.
That means lots of opportunities for stuff like this. In general, locations operate like the layouts of the PS1 Final Fantasy games, with the pre-rendered backgrounds. The diorama imaging means- along with the PS1 style layouts -that there can be things like circumstantial cuts and close-ups. Every location has a kind of preferred camera angle but you can still do things like see the diorama layout by approaching a location from different entrances.
Fantasasian Neo Dimension looks better than the old Rankin/Bass stop-motion Christmas movies…but something about the magical, moving toy world reminded me of those movies. This effect would be stunning for a game like Kingdom Hearts.
Especially transitional shots, like the one that connects these two images. On a certain level, it’s obvious (even without context) that these are dioramas. At the same time, the camera is used to imply appropriate distances and size proportions.
Nor are the aesthetics the only reinterpretations of older concepts.
When you start developing more of a party, most of your squad has some way of making use of the three dimensions of the field of battle. Leo, our main character, uses piercing attacks that can be aimed through rows of monsters for maximum damage. Cheryl has a wide damage radius and Kina can launch spells in bending arcs.
I’m not that far yet but even stuff like these little moments of gondola navigation in Vence feel really natural and fluid. Then there’s the cut-scenes.
A lot of them look like this; especially the quieter, character-driven moments. The first few story book segments cover flashbacks but soon even character interactions in the present unfold as prose.
It’s a small part of the overall game and it wouldn’t surprise me if most people skip these on principle. But I absolutely love the commitment to the mid-nineties JRPG narrative cues.
Once voice acting showed up in gaming, it was everywhere. I’ve also mentioned before how Diablo II and Final Fantasy X seemed a little over-eager. Lots of devs apparently thought that American accents reading lines with no inflection was better than no voice acting at all.
What we lose in translation is a seat closer to the action. For me it does, anyway. Reading the dialogue of character interactions enables me to experience those narrative beats through my own intuition.
Maybe this will clear it up: what did Cloud’s voice sound like in the original FFVII?
Just think about it. I feel like I know what he sounded like. The same way I know what the voices of characters in novels and comics sound like. It’s a really simple design nuance but it’s capable of a kind of immersion that visual and audio realism is not.
Not that this is a super-serious, super-artsy joint. It’s still a video-game-ass video game with an anime-like story. It doesn’t take itself too seriously…but it does take a moment to breathe and get comfortable in the space that it’s capable of filling.
One of the first things you do is battle a tree that magically grows money. Your party gets stalked by a goofy Team Rocket / Ginyu Force villain posse with outfits and poses. The story book segments can also be a little goofy. Just a little. Some funny grammar here and there, maybe a few too many words that end with “ly” (laughingly, captivatingly, etc).
There is also a cartoony love triangle that involves the main character’s backstory, adding a touch of humor to the mysterious lost-memory subplot. There is an implication that Leo was a Zidane-like flirt, once upon a time.
So far, the tone could not be more balanced. But…
This. Just this. Not taking things seriously- just getting comfortable in the space that’s already there. Maybe it’s a little thing but I didn’t know how badly I wanted this kind of narrative experience back.
The Sense Spheres are an interesting piece of world-building. The Neck Thing says that they came to Earth through outer space and are composed of an extraterrestrial substance. Furthermore, the Sense Spheres appeared simultaneously with a global, destabilizing event called the Great Heat Wave. Also known as God’s Wrath.
Thing Thing didn’t exist in the original version of Baroque, so I don’t know how seriously they figure in the lore. Those sources exist on the internet but I’m doing this blind. Taken at face value, though- the behavior of Thing Thing implies that the practice of grabbing things that emerge from the Sense Sphere has precedent.
This appears to be the main difference on the PS1 version: if you read Thing Thing’s dialogue closely and you connect the right dots in the Nerve Tower…it’s possible to get a clear picture on what the Sense Spheres are useful for. As far as I know, the Sega Saturn version required you to figure out the use of the Sense Spheres on your own. Additionally, the Sense Spheres in the first Baroque only sent items to the sixteenth basement floor.
I dwell on how much Thing Thing matters in the lore because it could effect the world-building. If we accept Thing Thing as canonical, then their behavior implies that the use of Sense Spheres to send stuff back and forth is common knowledge.
Or was common knowledge, anyway. I wonder if the Sense Spheres were used as technology in the final days of civilization as it was known.
On the fourth level of the labyrinth, there is a ghostly woman named Eliza. In one pass or another, she says that she wants to give birth to a Sense Sphere to restore her insane mother. Above her, things that look like small Sense Spheres float near the ceiling.
Also on the fourth floor (so far), there seems to usually be another woman called Alice. Like Eliza, Alice floats and vanishes like a ghost.
Alice disappears beneath a green Sense Sphere. To date, I have not encountered the green Sense Sphere outside of the room where the random map generation places Alice. Alice’s Sense Sphere is functional but the many small Sense Spheres of Eliza are not.
Otherwise, Sense Spheres are usually red and fixed to the ground. The contrast this has with the floating Sense Spheres feels relevant to their possible origins, mentioned by Neck Thing. If they came to Earth from elsewhere, it sounds like the kind of thing that humans might tether in order to make use of. The presence of grounded Sense Spheres at the entrance and the deep basement looks like an engineering choice. One might suspect that the grounded Sense Spheres relate to the purpose of the Nerve Tower.
Then…there’s the apparent connection between the player and the Archangel. The Archangel has a projection outside of the Nerve Tower. Inside, you discovered their body impaled on a spike protruding from a Sense Sphere.
So, after another Tower circuit-
You recover a memory of looking down at another version of yourself from a higher floor in the Nerve Tower. It might also be worth mentioning that the you on the ground watched the upper you fall to your death. At what appears to be the moment of impact, several white feathers flutter by the ground-level you.
If anyone was wondering: I’m not sure what triggered that. At first, I thought it was because I found Koriel, languishing in a biomechanical immortality device, who gave me his Idea Sefirot (i.e asked me to kill him and take it).
While I don’t know exactly how I triggered the “watch yourself fall to your death” ending…it’s possible that it was because I did it with Koriel’s Idea Sefirot in my inventory. Maybe that’s it, but I’m hesitant to make assumptions. Or maybe it has to do with passing through the Nerve Tower roughly four times in a row. Dunno, just now.
What an ‘Idea Sefirot’ is comes through, of course, by the words of other people and implication. While I was experimentally attempting to give it to various distorted ones, they treated Koriel’s Idea Sefirot with tight-lipped avoidance that seems half emotional repulsion and half propriety. The Coffin Man says that “holding stuff like other people’s Idea Sefirot makes me feel depressed.” Thing Thing, normally happy to hold onto other people’s stuff, wants no part of it. They almost sound prim: “It would be better if you held onto this. I’m fine”. When you try to hand it to the big guy wearing the white robe with the cross…he says he thought he recognized you: “You’re a member of the Koriel, right? I don’t need the crystals of any Koriel”.
Eliza, in the Nerve Tower, likewise spurns the offer: what she needs is your “pure water”. The one you just tried to give her is undesirable, apparently, because it is not “yours”. Idea Sefirot’s are unique for each person and to offer one to another seems to provoke taboo-avoidance. Maybe because Koriel gave this to us while serving a neverending prison sentence. I wonder if an Idea Sefirot is some sort of ephemeral, after-death vessel.
Speaking of: the Archangel delivers some interesting dialogue, after you make your first complete circuit through the Nerve Tower. Feller says that we must learn to survive, even if it takes awhile. As if by way of explanation, he adds that the Sense Spheres are everywhere. He goes on to explain that the whole world is connected and that a piece of your consciousness is “absorbed by the orbs” and fed back into another version of you. The process is reminscent of the Idea Sefirot. I don’t know if it’s possible to run into Koriel before the third circuit but I at least didn’t find him until round four (‘Myself +3’ lingering mysteriously in the inventory screen). If he is off limits until the fourth pass, then the Archangel’s speech after the first one makes narrative sense. Set-up, y’know.
Yet our situation differs from Koriel’s.
Rather like the Archangel, you are (on one ocassion, anyway) bilocated at two ends of the Nerve Tower.
The distorted ones also have different, successive dialogue. It is from them that we get the earliest overview of the wider chronology: first, there was a global environmental disaster called the Great Heat Wave, which appears to have happened simultaneously with the apparition of the Sense Spheres. Between now and then, the Great Heat Wave turned the world into Baroque.
Between Neck Thing, Alice, Eliza, Thing Thing and the Archangel, we learn that there must have been an intervening period. Human society discovered they could use Sense Spheres for instant travel. Someone eventually builds a complex, Tower-like machine which incorporates multiple grounded Sense Spheres. Two red ones outside of the entrance and one in the deep basement. Having only gotten so far as the middle of a fourth circuit, I’ve usually encountered two additional red Sense Spheres between the surface and the bottom. Lastly, there are the small, non-functioning Sense Spheres of Eliza and the functioning green Sense Sphere of Alice.
(I’m pretty sure that there have always been two red Sense Spheres outside of the Nerve Tower…right? I have this nagging suspicion that there was only one Sense Sphere at the entrance to begin with and a second one appeared later. I’m not sure of it, by any means, but it’s crossed my mind)
However short this intervening era was, many of the present circumstances arose during this period. Neck Thing tells us that the Great Heat Wave is known, to some, as God’s Wrath. Similarly religious language appears even earlier than this: during one of the opening cut scenes, there is a flash of black letters on a white background: “(w)hat must we do to heal our sins?”
Next, consider the discussion of “madness”.
In one of the earliest (if not the first) encounter with Alice, she asks if you remember throwing her mind into chaos. When you do not appear to, she bristles: was it only a game, to you? She sinks into the water below, saying that she is not suffering. Nonetheless, she asks why you didn’t hold on tighter.
On the sixteenth floor, we find the Archangel’s body impaled on a spike, emerging from a gray, metallic Sense Sphere. This he attributes to the Great Heat Wave, “or should I say, the Wrath of God.” He explains that “this” is all your “sin”. What sin, exactly? Driving the God of Creation and Preservation mad, causing the Great Heat Wave.
The purgation of the mad god is the only way to absolution, according to the Archangel. This, it seems, was the reason he gave us the Angelic Rifle outside. In the final, seventeenth floor, the God of Creation and Preservation waits. If you wait long enough, this feminine being will cover the screen with a giant block of dialogue: “Don’t go mad”, over and over again.
During the fourth pass, Alice asks if we intend to follow the Archangel’s orders. She believes that the Archangel told you to come here, to the fourth floor, and shoot her (Alice) with the Angelic Rifle. She wants to remember the time before she met you, when you both were “melded” together.
If you follow the orders from the sixteenth-floor Archangel and kill the being on the seventeenth, she says that she wanted to be “one with you” again before she dies.
At the beginning of the fourth pass, the Sack Thing says that “(y)ou and the other” screamed during a surgery. According to Sack Thing, the player character said “(w)hy are you tearing us apart? I don’t want to live if it means killing a part of myself.”
On the fourth floor, Alice says that the Archangel tore you both apart. “In order to drive the Creator and Preserver mad. In order to become the Creator and Preserver himself.”
In Baroque, tearing something (or someone) apart could have a few different meanings. For contrast, there is an “angel” worker in the Nerve Tower with a second face growing out of his shoulder. He jokingly refers to himself as a “composite angel”. Alice’s reference to a time when you were both “melded” together could certainly point to a literal meaning: that you were once one being and now you are two. It definitely feels intuitive. But there is another meaning that prior imagery has hinted at.
After my first death, this image briefly flashed over the suspension chamber.
After the fourth pass, the Horned Woman has a surprising realization about “that” face. She recognizes it; says it resembled her own. It may be a mistake to assume that normal social cues apply here. Let’s say, for the sake of argument, that she’s not saying this for a completely abstract or non-existent reason. If the Horned Woman is speaking plainly, it is possible that she is reacting to you. Yours is the familiar face that resembled her own.
Concerning this…let’s take a look at the instuction manual:
More specifically-
Is it just me, or is there a resemblance between Alice and the player character?
If such a resemblance is intentional, could this tell us anything about the separation they experienced?
Then there’s this pair-
Maybe I’m giving in to a little pareidolia and/or overthinking it…but I wonder if these two share the same connection as Alice and the player character?
With the Archangel’s (The Higher) place in the sequence of events, they could easily be a kind of alien. They typically influence everything around them and possesses information that they don’t immediately disclose.
Perhaps the Archangel went through a version of the separation before setting foot on Earth? With Eliza being their ‘Alice’?
Contrast that against Baroque’s pre-Heat-Wave human societies. Earth, in general, experienced the Sense Spheres and the Heat Wave as totally unfamiliar, external phenomena. You could say that the Archangel has the contextual knowledge of a non-Earthling.
The resemblance between the names ‘Alice’ and ‘Eliza’ stands out, as well.
Don’t forget the earlier cut scenes with the suspension chamber and the off-screen voices. We are still dealing with the possibility that this is some kind of digital simulation, technologically channeled into the player character’s sleeping mind.
If we keep assuming that the player character is the one in the suspension chamber, whose mind plays host to the simulation…would it then follow that the Creator and Preserver represents a facet of themselves? Such a scenario would readily accomodate the significance of being “torn” from Alice.
Nonetheless…is the resemblance between the Horned Woman, Alice and the player truly innocent?
The prospect that Baroque is occuring in a bio-mechanical simulation leads in the other direction. Dream logic would then be part of the world-building…and uncanny doubling is a common dream phenomenon. The player, Alice, the Archangel and Eliza could be different layers of the oneiric nesting doll.
This also implies that the most common experiences constitute the bulk of the probable design of the simulation. Whatever the simulation is expressing…it is probably doing it through the Nerve Tower and the Archangel. If this is the bulk of what the simulation expresses, then the Nerve Tower and the Archangel are the most direct point of contact between the human host of the simulation and the machine they are connected to in the waking world.
(spoiler warning for original FFVII, FFVII Remake & Rebirth)
So, I was wrong about something-
My only firm prediction for Rebirth didn’t pan out.
It did not end at the Whirlwind Maze, in the Northern Crater. It seemed obvious, at the end of Remake, that the second leg of the story would begin almost exactly at Kalm and Cloud’s first telling of the Nibelheim incident. I figured, since the story would begin with Cloud’s recall-narrative…that the Whirlwind Maze would make for the perfect dramatic ending. Cloud’s memory is challenged directly by Sephiroth with the full force of Jenova’s ability to shape-shift and spell-bind.
Cloud seems almost suspiciously vulnerable to Sephiroth’s psychic duress. He soon becomes convinced that he was a failed Sephiroth clone, made in the aftermath of the Nibelheim incident, with DNA samples from Sephiroth in his post-Jenova state (that, I imagine, is what Cloud recalled Hojo keeping in the tanks in the Shinra Mansion, what with the skin and the hair and blood, most of which could probably have been taken forensically after the Nibelheim incident- skewered leg, other tussles during his rampage, etc).
I thought it was a great opportunity for a cliff-hanger that would, at a convenient narrative stopping point, add maximum drama while expanding the scope of the story, boosting the set-up to the third act.
Cloud’s psychic glimpse, early in Remake, upon meeting a robed cell-carrier for the first time. That background was also a reason I thought the Whirlwind Maze would play a significant role soon
Nonetheless…Lifestream-tinged wind-storms made their appearance in the final act of Rebirth, even if it wasn’t in the Whirlwind Maze. Similar looking phenomena dominates the horizon in the Terrierverse, where we find Zack.
One wonders if these visual cues will come together when the final third of VIIR does portray the Northern Crater and the Whirlwind Maze. If they will mean what they meant in Rebirth but within the Whirlwind Maze, nestled against the edge of the crater.
Before going that far, let’s review what they actually were in Rebirth. They manifested in the sky in a certain cluster of worlds. These include the part of the Terrieverse that Zack wanders into at the end of Remake and the beginning of Rebirth. Elmyra tells Zack that some people think that it heralds the end of the world. Shinra appears completely galvanized around it, in spite of other recent blows to Midgar like the fall of the Sector 7 plate, the bombing of mako reactors and something that was widely perceived as a tornado.
It seems obvious to me that this is because of the interdimensional nature of what happened at the end of Remake. Rather: what usually happens when Sephiroth conjures a wall of destiny. Sure enough, at the end of Rebirth: Sephiroth manifests the wall of destiny on the outside of the Forgotten Capital of the Cetra. The last time this happened, someone (Zack) ended up in a cluster of worlds where the sky is covered with the same Lifestream-like glow as the whirlwinds in the Northern Crater.
One possible reading is that the Whirlwind Maze in the Northern Crater is dimensionally-unique space. The cluster of worlds containing whirlwind-green horizons may be distinguished by the fact that their entireworld(s) are covered with the dimensional uniqueness of the crater, rather than a discrete location within a world.
What if: the Northern Crater is where it all came together for extra-dimensional Sephiroth. The event that broke the Sephiroth/Jenova/Whisper-conglomerate out of the first timeline also set them on the rampage that leads to the other two timelines. An interdimensional phenomena arising from a certain place may express itself in the same place across timelines. In a few different worlds, it looks as if a particular location is haunted by interdimensional weirdness. This could be an outside view.
In the world where we spend the most time with Zack, the whirlwind-glow is commonly called the rift in the sky. That looks like an inside view.
From the ease with which extra-dimensional Sephiroth omnipotentally manifests in the worlds with the sky rifts…it seems to follow that those are the worlds that are under the pressure of extra-dimensional Sephiroth’s Whisper-conglomerate. Directly against it, maybe.
How far out can Sephiroth go, exactly? How far out was extra-dimensional Sephiroth during his appearance in Remake and then in Rebirth?
Speaking of him-
Near the end of Remake and throughout Rebirth, the story can be divided between the timeline containing the party and the timeline containing Zack. At the end of my Rebirth review, I considered the relevance of a third timeline, where the extra-dimensional menace originated.
Before now, I’ve assumed that extra-dimensional Sephiroth originated from the “first” possible timeline that we, as gamers, are aware of: that which begins with the first Crisis Core and ends with Advent Children and Dirge Of Cerberus. That, of course, would go with the assumption that Jenova ultimately “won” in that timeline- either at a future date not portrayed or subtly “winning” in the present. Jenova (and, presumably, Sephiroth) won and turned Gaia into another flaming vessel for Meteor, from which to proceed to new planets and timelines to conquer. Maybe the mysterious fate of Genesis (post-Crisis Core and throughout the Deepground program in DoC) had some bearing on Jenova’s apparent victory in that timeline.
The theory has a ring of truth, considering the tone of the ending of the original Final Fantasy VII. Yes, it left room for some hope. Life, post OG VII, continued after the apparent fall of both Jenova and Shinra. Nanaki, at least, fills out the typical lifespan of his kind and begets a family along the way. Midgar, however, suffered damage from both Meteor’s approach and the abrupt, last-minute intervention of Holy. Some hundreds of years later, Nanaki and his cubs unexpectedly find themselves on a cliff, affording a panoramic view of Midgar, completely overgrown with wildlife and greenery.
Yet Midgar is only one human city-state: it’s downfall can only relate to the downfall of Shinra. Maybe humanity isn’t on top, just then, but wasn’t the whole story about humanity’s growing pains anyway?
The tone of the ending is tough on humanity but it is also fair, considering events up until then. A new planet-threatening crisis derived from human meddling (Genesis, post DoC) would cut against any possibility of a positive arc for humanity…but if Sephiroth and Jenova somehow came out on top “in the end”, then maybe it wasn’t looking good for humanity anyway.
Or, if Genesis didn’t “cause” it, then maybe Genesis was the one who brought Sephiroth’s extra-dimensional Whisper-conglomerate over the veil. Maybe the circumstances need to be the same to make contact with other Gaias, hence the insistence of “enforcing” the original timeline (Nanaki’s flash of the original ending near the end of Remake, i.e. “[t]his is what will happen if we fail here, today [sic]”).
Given some lore introduced in Rebirth, though, I’m not sure if extra-dimensional Sephiroth did come from the original timeline. The behavior of the black Whispers in Remake were clearly interested in enforcing the original timeline. We now know that the intentions of the black conglomerate-Whispers are not just enforcement of its creation, though: maybe enforcement of a temporal entry point? One that depends on the unfolding of the original timeline?
The enforcement of that timeline matters at least a little; the ‘analysis’ blurbs for the Whisper Harbinger’s three lesser Whispers say that they are protecting their timeline of origin. In a recent Ultimania guide, some of the creators of Remake effectively told the interviewer that the three end boss Whispers are Kadaj, Loz and Yazoo from Advent Children. The Ultimania statement, the ‘analysis’ blurb in Remake and the behavior of the Whispers in that game all attest to the enforcement of the original timeline. If not for origin, than for an entry-exit causality juncture which (presumably) enabled them to survive the original timeline.
This would also necessarily mean that extra-dimensional Sephrioth did not come from the original timeline, though.
Jenova-facilitated contact from a third timeline would explain some of Cloud’s memory-flashes in Rebirth. One of them dates back to the beginning of Remake, when Cloud encountered a robed cell-carrier living next door in an apartment building. Lots of robed figures, against a windy, rocky background, with some jagged peaks that I find reminiscent of a location from the original. More recent memory-flashes include the deaths of Zack and Tifa.
Strictly speaking, the original Final Fantasy VII furnishes some intuitive answers. By the end of that game, we knew that Cloud was harboring Jenova cells ever since Hojo experimented on him and Zack in the Shinra Mansion. It’s commonly interpreted that the psychic sensitivity and shape-shifiting potential of Jenova caused Cloud’s personal cell colony to fabricate memories, such as the ones demonstrated in his telling of the Nibelheim incident in Kalm.
We also know, from the original, that Sephiroth will use any psychic pressure that could possibly help him. If its helpful for him that Cloud start believing that he’s a Sephiroth clone, Sephiroth will see it through. If Jenova and Sephiroth in Rebirth have that much in common with the original story, then artificial memories of Tifa and Zack dying are definitely something that they might try. The vision of Cloud in the cell-carrier robe, seemingly shuffling around the Whirlwind Maze muttering “reunion”, could also be a whole-cloth fabrication, for that matter.
How many whole-cloth lies have we seen from Sephiroth, though?
The frozen, crystalized heart of the Northern Crater, as seen from the scale of viewpoint characters (PS1, obvs)
The biggest candidate would be the idea that Cloud is a Sephiroth clone. Yet, considering that Hojo likely dosed Zack and Cloud with Jenova cells from biomatter left by Sephiroth, it isn’t entirely off base either. Sephiroth and Jenova will control the framing of apparent information and elimate information but they don’t appear to add information, except in a blunt, copy-paste way. Cloud’s delusions of “being” Zack are crafted around his observations of Zack. Cloud can’t even leave out the traits he doesn’t want idealized- those are given to a random Shinra trooper, who just happens to be in all of the situations Cloud himself actually would have.
The telepathic pressure of Jenova seems to lie more in misrepresentation and projection than outright fabrication.
Obviously, if you think that Jenova can do fabrication, then you can sweep those recent memory-flashes into the ‘deception’ category.
I’m inclined to think that the memory-flashes of Cloud in the robe, the death of Zack and the death of Tifa are probably based on something, even if the source and the meaning isn’t direct. A third timeline accomodates this, especially considering that it was probably a timeline in which Cloud turned as ugly as Sephiroth (to say nothing of the role played by the loss of Zack and Tifa).
In the version of this theory that I arrived at during the end of my Rebirth review…this timeline makes itself known to Cloud (potentially from a young age) for very specific reasons. A very specific reason that can hide in the shadow of existing world-building.
Remember how much the VIIR devs have emphasized their attachment to faithfulness. Any new cosmology innovations will not likely edge out existing cosmology.
Narrative changes have been made, of course, but I think the majority of those arise from the modern graphics, which tie the scale of the perspective to human physical proportions. Things that happened in the overall plot of the original game find their way into comparable places, if they can’t be in the same place (Fort Condor-related sub quest in Junon, even if the actual Fort Condor location isn’t there, etc).
Dramatic changes have also been made with extra-dimensional Sephiroth and the Whisper-conglomerate. But I think those changes are more likely to rhyme with the original cosmology than contradict it.
This rhymes with Cloud’s mental wounds.
The dude has had a painful relationship with self worth. His last commuincation with Tifa, before her childhood accident on Mount Nibel, was urging her not approach the rope bridge because there was nothing to find; the local folklore about Mount Nibel is folklore only and the land of the dead is not there. Cloud only made his presence known once Emilio and others left Tifa alone on the mountain. He accompanied her to the rope bridge and brought her back to Nibelheim. In the original, Cloud was smeared by Emilio and the others- stemming, apparently, from the shame of their abandonment.
His first experience sticking his neck out for someone ended with at least a temporary bad reputation and isolation from Tifa. After that, the quiet anger and resentment of Cloud’s early adulthood began to sink through. At age thirteen, he tells Tifa that he plans to join SOLDIER, in emulation of Sephiroth.
Here, it becomes helpful to remember the beginning of Remake: something happened, with a leaky mako pipe, that had some connection with Aerith’s awareness of the other timelines.
Nibelheim is also the site of the first mako reactor. And it’s known to leak. And early-teen Cloud is nurturing his indignance with power fantasies.
The original story accomodated this with the relationship between Cloud’s inferiority complex and his eventual dosing with Jenova cells. Obviously, both of those things are still present and active in VIIR.
Jenova is known to shape-shift and use psychic manipulation. All she needs is a psychological exploit. But this is a world where Jenova is connected, across timelines, to extra-dimensional Sephiroth. One of the trickier parts of differentiating between extra-dimensional Sephiroth and local Sephiroth is that both rely on Jenova which means telepathic influence could be coming from one, the other or all of the above.
What if Jenova had reference material to use on Cloud, from the Whisper-conglomerate? Say, a timeline in which Cloud became a famous 1st Class SOLDIER alongside Sephiroth? Feeling small can create big dreams.
This timeline, as far as we’re concerned, would look completely random unless it was built up beforehand (Cloud in the robe, Tifa and Zack, etc).
The death of Zack (in the rapids of Mount Nibel instead of outside Midgar) is also clearly not meant to be a throwaway memory-flash. When it happens, Cloud says to Tifa that they need to tell Aerith, for her closure. Tifa tells him that she will take care of it, later, in privacy.
Later, if you end up with Aerith during the second Gold Saucer visit, Aerith delivers a combination of familiar and unfamiliar dialogue. She comments on Cloud’s uncanny resemblance to Zack in his mannerisms and bearing. Cloud assumes that she is beginning to grieve because Tifa told her how Zack died. He says (pretty much) “Tifa told you, huh?”
We then get a brief flashback to that conversation and Tifa apparently choked: she only managed to say that “Cloud remembers Zack now” before losing her nerve.
Aerith, therefore, has no obvious reason to know what Cloud was talking about.
To address some concerns of Aerith’s awareness:
Before now, Aerith had revelatory little memory-flashes about the “original” timeline. Throughout Rebirth, those visions are less available to her. She tells Tifa, in Kalm, that she lost a lot of those memories (presumably when they crossed the wall of destiny on their way out of Midgar). Aerith tells Nanaki that she managed to regain some of them and gain further insights. In spite of that, Aerith doesn’t appear to have the whole, intact, extra-dimensional awareness that she did in Remake. When Aerith touches other people in Remake, they get flashes of the original CC-DoC timeline. That touch-effect isn’t present in Rebirth.
What all that means is: Aerith doesn’t necessarily know how things turned out “first time around.” Meaning, she may or may not have any awareness of how Zack died outside of Midgar, much less Cloud’s memory-flash of him falling into rapids on Mount Nibel.
So. Back to Aerith and Cloud, during their Gold Saucer date. Aerith might be unaware of any subtext that would let her know what Tifa was driving at. Aerith may have no idea what Cloud was talking about with the “Tifa finally told you” line. In any event, Tifa did not tell Aerith what she said she would and Aerith says nothing to imply any contextual knowledge of this.
(Not to stray too far from the Gold Saucer date…but consider what Tifa probably thought of Cloud’s dead-Zack-in-the-rapids flash. Cloud has already voiced the idea that Tifa herself appeared to die after Sephiroth slashed her open. Maybe it’s manipulation from the third timeline but Tifa seems to think it’s psychosis. She has also sat through a telling of the Nibelheim incident by Cloud, with Cloud doing all the Zack stuff. Tifa likely assumed that the memory of Zack’s death on Mount Nibel was purely delusional. In that case, she wouldn’t want to freak Aerith out over Cloud’s problem and therefore froze)
If someone starts with the VIIR games with no knowledge of the original, the vision of the Mount Nibel rapids might appear even more significant.
Another reason I find the possibility of a third timeline compelling: in the original, Sapphire Weapon goes down after taking a mako cannon shell at point-blank range, never to be seen again. If that was meant to be the death of Sapphire, then I wonder if the ending of Remake may have included another hint at the third universe.
Basically, I think the Whisper Harbinger in Remake looks like Sapphire Weapon.
In the original, Sephiroth’s organic body- from which he psychically projects into cell-carriers -is suspended directly above Sapphire Weapon’s head in the Northern Crater.
Dunno about this next comparison exactly but I couldn’t help but notice the narrowed eyes-
This always stood out in my memory as one of the few times we see Sapphire Weapon’s eyelids move in the same way they did before (you know, like they did behind the frozen wall within the Northern Crater)
To say nothing of the one obvious deviation from Sapphire’s traditional design-
I think the arms might be the only thing that PS1 Sapphire DOESN’T have, yet allowances must be made- Sapphire Weapon wasn’t originally suffused with an excised Lifestream dominated by Jenova and Sephiroth, so…
These similarities feel even more significant after seing how Rebirth depicted the Lifestream-view of the interdimensional incursions of Sephiroth between worlds.
VIIR features a new Weapon-being, known to come and go from mako reservoirs in at least two ruined reactors: first in Corel and then Gongaga.
After everyone’s first evening in Gongaga, they wake up to disturbing news. Shinra is fast approaching the mako reactor ruin and Whispers are preventing members of the militia from approaching. The party encounters them on their way to the reactor but they seem far less interested in them then they were in Remake. Cloud sees one of them assume the shape of Sephiroth, which I suspect was simply extra-dimensional Sephiroth making his presence known to him.
At the reservoir (which is still somehow drawing mako despite being non-functional), the Whispers are swarming in a spiral overhead. Cloud is overwhelmed by Shinra troopers when extra-dimensional Sephiroth manifests, telling Cloud that he needs to embrace his anger without reservation. Cloud then becomes an unstoppable BEAST, brutally and efficiently cutting down all in his path.
Tifa is alarmed at this sudden change and approaches him. Sephiroth repeats his assertion that Tifa is dead and that this person is a Jenova cell-carrier. Cloud mumbles this as it’s relayed to him and Tifa is flabbergasted: she already showed Cloud her surgical scar, how could he still be on about this?
The Whispers in the sky disappear and Cloud attacks Tifa, who dodges his blade only to fall backwards into the reservoir. As she falls, extra-dimensional Sephiroth and the Whisper-conglomerate (worst band name ever) withdraw from Cloud and he realizes what he’s done.
Tifa, meanwhile, gets swallowed by the Weapon. This Weapon, by the way, has a Huge Materia socketed into its body. Rufus, earlier, told his cabinet that Weapons appear when the planet is in danger and contain their own Huge Materias. This, apparently, pertains to Weapons in general and not just this specific whale-like one.
Next, we are rooted in Tifa’s perspective, inside the Weapon. The environment has at least a passing resemblance to the Lifestream astral plane from the original- the one Tifa and Cloud end up in after a Lifestream swell erupts in Mideel, where she psychically helped Cloud separate his own memories from the cell-colony illusions.
Here, like Mideel in the original, Tifa concludes that she is within the Lifestream. On this plane, the Weapons are not just defenders of the planet: they are her avatars.
To everyone’s awestruck relief, the Weapon surfaces from the reservoir again, to return Tifa in a flash of green light.
Tifa later tells everyone (after a therapuetic debriefing with Cloud) that she saw the planet in conflict with an outside menace. This maps onto Tifa’s vision of the Corel-Gongaga Weapon fighting against the Whisper-conglomerate. For part of this, Tifa is looking outward at the Lifestream from within the Huge Materia in the Weapon’s belly. After going a few rounds with the Whispers, the conglomerate parts, revealing extra-dimensional Sephiroth, who lunges through the Lifestream and cuts open the Huge Materia, ending the vision.
Immediately before gouging the Huge Materia that Tifa is looking out from
Speaking of Cloud and Tifa’s Lifestream adventures…they still have a distinctly psychological structure, even with their significance beyond the individual. Weapons represent the will of the planet, much like Holy. The planet contains the Lifestream. Yet Weapons can interact with other continuities from within it, both inside and out like a Russian nesting doll. As if the Lifestream contains avatars from different timelines, like multiple personalities within the same mind.
If Sephiroth and the Whisper-conglomerate are going from timeline to timeline absorbing different Lifestreams, an avatar through which to travel to other timelines would be important. Also: if Jenova’s ultimate goal (perhaps her life cycle) depends on subjugating entire Lifestreams, that could be expressed as bending the planet to her will. The will of the planet would become her own, perhaps capturing the local Holy and the local Weapons.
Meanwhile, in a certain timeline, Sephiroth is suspended in the Northern Crater, directly over Sapphire. Just sayin’.
This is a rogue-like, such as Diablo. Also like Diablo, it appears to include a small community outside of an apparently unique ladder of progress- leading either up or down. This game also has a first-person perspective, which I don’t think I’ve encountered in an RPG outside of Shin Megami Tensei and Persona.
Subtitles indicate offscreen voices in the opening cutscene. These voices are talking about sedatives and simulations and whether or not someone is conscious. We are left with the impression that the span of time we keep groundhogging over and over again is what they mean by “simulation.”
About that last part-
Baroque has recognizable RPG mechanics. Level-and-EXP-based progression with stat-building, equipment collections, implied “role-play” what with the first-person POV (nineties versions) and our self-named protagonist.
Little of which has any bearing on the player progress data recorded by the game, other than the “suspend” function. Without “suspend” (quicksave) there is no way to maintain progress in the Nerve Tower between sittings. Which places all of the onus on a complete trip without a single death.
There is a separate category of save data called “arise”, which starts you at the beginning of your most recent pass through the loop.
That’s our rogue-ladder, by the way. Diablo has the pit below the cathedral, Azure Dreams has the Tower of Monsters and Baroque has the Nerve Tower.
One of your first acquaintances on the “ground floor” urges you to hurry to the Nerve Tower before saying anything else. A moments’ distraction or idleness is paid with by either HP or VT, so you might decide to hurry up on your own out of a vague sense that doing expected things has positive results.
No one ever says so, in so many words. But it’s an intuitive assumption.
With some effort, it bears out this time. Setting foot in the Nerve Tower, alone, does nothing. Relief is eventually offered by monsters called “grotesques.” Upon death, they turn into little white spheres, along with any other item drops. The spheres are what keep things somewhat comfortable, as killing grotesques for spheres regularly is the only way to keep VT topped off.
To start with the familiar-
HP is, of course, hit points. You want them as far above zero as possible and taking hits make the number go down.
So long as you don’t get poisoned, HP counts slowly toward its upward limit, based on leveling. This slow recovery happens as long as VT is above zero and VT ticks away, roughly, with the seconds. Running out of VT will cause your HP to drain rather than heal. Without a quick infusion of VT, this drain can kill you.
So the solution is killing grotesques whenever possible. While you’re grabbing the VT orbs and trying not to take hits, it also pays to make prompt use of any restoratives you come across. If either HP or VT is full, they usually bump up your upward limit.
Conservation is best saved for after you’ve KO’d a few times. By then, you should be a little more acclimated to how long-term play works.
Speaking of- levels and stats do not carry over between KOs. Neither does your personal inventory but items can be secured in a kind of dead-drop.
A bit of a grind, really. But people who play through the second quest of LoZ Outlands for their blogs don’t get to complain about difficulty.
With care and repetition, it becomes apparent that the tower is only so long. Or…I guess…its successive basements so deep, since that seems to be the direction we’re heading. If you have a few hours and are willing to roll with some trial-and-error, you could, conceivably, clear the whole basement in one sitting.
One must not count their chickens before they hatch. It pays to see through sticky situations. A recent favorite of mine is running low on both VT and HP surrounded by grotesques I couldn’t possibly kill in the time in takes to survive contact. Like many rogue-likes, Baroque has randomly generated floors. Strategizing must therefore happen in somewhat broad strokes.
It is possible to survive those situations but it is also possible to die because of HP/VT. The random level-generation accounts for a lot of stuff like item drops. A little bit of patience can be surprisingly rewarding.
So things get punishing. What’s actually going on, though?
Rather soon, you realize that you begin the same time loop over and over again, with each death. In some loops, there are unpredictable cues and statements about how the particular loop you’re in right now relates to the other loops. Clustering, usually, into A. it’s different this time or B. it’s never different.
My first death occurred in the Coffin Man’s “training ground”. This triggered a cut scene of a coffin-like suspension chamber. With the context of an earlier cut scene, it makes sense to assume that the player character is inside it.
If you managed to talk to the Archangel before that point, he says that, at “this time”, he exists where he stands and, simultaneously, somewhere else. He says that this “is because this is not the real world”. He goes on to say that, eventually, the player character will awaken to a reality where such “illusions do not exist”.
After dying during the training of the Coffin Man, the Archangel treats you as if there is nothing to say or explain. He appears surprised as he notes that you are, apparently, struggling to speak, and have lost your memory.
A background observation slips through before your muteness and memory loss are apparent. The Archangel says that, if that’s the only problem you have than you’ve been lucky. He realizes it is not the only problem when he observes your (somehow) apparent memory loss.
If, at that point, we are truly free of the simulation and have entered the real world for which the sim was a model…it would make sense if things happened suddenly that were not expected to those who appear to be in charge. Accidents happen in real life. It may or may not be relevant to note that this is the first time I’ve encountered one of his most well-known lines: “(t)here is significance in you using it”, as he hands off the Angelic Rifle.
(The Angelic Rifle will level any grotesque you encounter but it only has five shots and I have not seen any ammunition item drops)
At this point, I have a few questions. One of them is how many of these events happened because of something I did, immediately prior? Did I get the second suspension chamber cut scene because I died in the lair of the Coffin Man? That had also been my first death. Could the second suspension chamber cut scene simply be triggered by your first death?
Neck Thing, one of the NPCs clustered outside of the Nerve Tower, says that the Coffin Man makes him sick by profitting off of the catacombs. This tempts me to attribute the recent change of circumstances to dying under the roof of the Coffin Man. During the second suspension chamber cut scene, one of the off-screen voices asks if “he” just died. Two contrary opinions follow: “this one is garbage to” and “it’s off the charts!”, as if two people saw the same thing and had opposite reactions.
Less defensible but I can’t help but wonder: the suspension chamber cut scenes imply that the simulation is created in concert with your unconscious mind. If the oneiric projections are the basis for representations in the simulation, then consider this: there is a figure for whom you feel instinctive discomfort. You have no idea whether he is a human being or not or what his life and thoughts consist of. Regardless of his humanity or lack thereof, he is one of those whom the Archangel calls “distorted ones”.
Their lives and thoughts must consist of something, though: however incomprehensibly “distrorted” they may be, they are obviously sentient.
Yet for no reason that you are aware of, you give this person a wide berth. He carries a coffin on his back. He is both dangerous and duplicitous and appears to enjoy a kind of power. This I think is implicit in his ability to somehow profit from what happens in the catacombs.
One thing your subconscious might be wrestling with is what just happened, immediately before going under. Perhaps you were compelled to step into the suspension chamber yourself. Maybe you volunteered for it. It entailed a degree of risk, which your subconscious would also necessarily be aware of.
The whole notion of what just happened could make a menacing impression on an unconscious and suggestable mind. You may have thought, before losing consciousness, that this suspension chamber could well be your coffin. Something like the Coffin Man would make sense as a projection of your unconscious mind. If that happened, then such a projection might be something that the simulation drapes one of its NPCs in. Especially if this NPC has some sort of direct link to the life-support or a background program for the narcotic sleep control. Something not so different from the renegade programs portrayed in The Matrix: Reloaded and Revolutions.
An association between the second suspension chamber cut scene and the Coffin Man seems likely. A simulation-based one writes itself.
This is not the only possibility but it is easy to dwell on. At this point, you are aware that dying in the Nerve Tower and repeating the loop all over again is the most basic game play experience. Whatever else happens, whatever may be true about the context of your plight, that much has proved reliable. Being locked in a simulation would accomodate this.
As eternal as the time loop may be, though, the locals do not appear unanimous on it.
Repeated passes through the loop will also eventually draw your attention to a number in the lower right corner of the inventory screen, when hovering over the (so far) changeless presence of an item called “myself”. When you start off, the number next to your “self” is -1. With each death in the Nerve Tower or complete passes through it, the number increases to 0 and onward. The opening cutscene features a montage of images including a black screen with a large ‘-1’ in the lower right corner.
On the subject of whether every pass is unique or every pass is the same, this stands out. It is the only thing that is visibly changed with every pass through the loop. The dialogue of the distorted ones change as well but with each fresh loop it’s almost as if the prior loop might not have happened. Each floor below the Nerve Tower is randomly generated. The growing number of “selves” is the only clear evidence of consistent, long term progress on the “arise” memory card data (other than wherever the NPCs are in their dialogue trees).
There are other ways that long term progress can manifest, if one is bold, observant and persistant. With the ability to make multiple passes through the Nerve Tower with no relief but the “suspend” quicksave, you encounter things called Sense Spheres. On the original Sega Saturn version of Baroque, items tossed into Sense Spheres would appear around the last one on the sixteenth basement floor. I am, however, doing this on the PS1.
The PS1 features its own unqiue distorted one: Thing Thing. Thing Thing normally tells us about how he collects things that get spat out of a Sense Sphere just outside the Nerve Tower. Yes, it was always there- but nothing draws your attention to it early on, except its relative closeness to the Archangel (or his projection or bilocated presence). Anyway, deck Thing Thing in the face and he will offer to return up to five articles you previously threw into the lower Sense Spheres.
With a lot of care and maybe some luck, Thing Thing enables a way to add some cumulative progress to successive passes through the Nerve Tower. With adroit judgement of the things you send to the surface, you can leave yourself equipment to start your journey with or power-ups that buff said equipment or even level you up before setting foot in the Nerve Tower.
AilixChaerea 