LogFAQs > #954822027

Thanks for more Ozma tips, I will make another attempt another time. For now, I have a game to beat.

Kraken and Lich are disposed of without much issue, as are the remaining card masters. We walk through space and Garland tells us how memories are connected and traced back to a single origin of life, a crystal. I feel like they shoved this in out of the blue to give another crystal reference to old FFs, the metaphor stood fine on its own without a physical crystal being the origin of life imo.

Garland exits the narrative here, and I have to say I really enjoyed his presence. He does not regret his birth, and leaves Zidane with the advice to 'take care' of Kuja. I guess you can read that both ways, but it's probably meant in the literal sense.

We enter the Crystal World. Honestly all the static background images in this last dungeon have been gorgeous. We confront Kuja, who has nihilistically accepted his own mortality but insists on bringing the world down with him. Zidane has some good lines countering him, and we're into a fight with Deathguise.

Deathguise very rudely starts the battle with Meteor, wiping Vivi and Dagger (yes, I couldn't help myself and went back to the OG team for the finale). We manage to recover and aside from that he's not much issue, and then we're onto our big showdown with Kuja. Good music here. This fight isn't too tough either, he's basically an easier version of Hades. Zidane enters Trance and fittingly ends him with Grand Lethal, and of course Kuja casts Ultima once more, seemingly killing himself and triggering the end.

Now even for this series, the introduction of the final boss is veeeery late. IV's was earlier than this and X's was mentioned before he appears, but this guy literally shows up out of nowhere. Necron appears to be the embodiment of death, and surmises that Kuja's attempt to destroy the crystal conclusively proves that life only exists to die (...OK). He wants to send us to the Zero World, a place with no life and therefore no fear. A pretty terrifying concept. The gang help each other get up, Zidane declares that our memories will survive even if we don't, and it's time for our final boss fight.

Necron is indeed more difficult than the others. He has a barrage of impressive spells, and constantly casts Protect on himself, neutering Steiner's Shock a bit. But by far the most annoying attack of his is one he borrowed from Exdeath, Grand Cross. The name of the spell alone conjured bad memories for me, and sure enough it inflicts a ton of very bad status effects. Remedies for all! Thanks LotM for the Regen tip, I cast Ark in lieu of Curaga and it works just as well. At one point Vivi is dead and Zombied and it takes a bit for me to realise the problem and get him back up, but there's no reason not to use every item available here so I do just that.

In the end, it is a confused Steiner who gets the final hit on this guy. I briefly wonder if there's going to be another phase, but nope that is it. Necron disappears as quickly as he arrived, and it's time for a long set of ending scenes. The gang is rescued thanks to Beatrix, Cid, Mikoto and in a surprise twist, Kuja! Zidane decides to head back to the Iifa Tree to be with Kuja, reasoning that in different circumstances he could very well have ended up like him. It's a nice hero move, particularly because he's not rescuing Kuja here, merely providing comfort for him at the end. There's some slightly dated scenes of Zidane running along the roots, and we get some more shading on Kuja in his final moments.

As odd as it is for the game to give Kuja a last minute face turn, it works pretty well imo. Largely because it's not framed as a grand redemption and it doesn't really change anything, he just realised what it meant to live once he had nothing left. What really sells it is a nice monologue from Mikoto vowing to remember him fighting against his destiny. I really like how they use her here in the ending despite her being such a small character.

Some time later, we get an overview of how everybody is doing now, with some really nice narration cutting between each scene. My initial assumption here is that this is Dagger's narration, but the last one talks about their memories becoming part of the sky, so maybe that bit was Zidane. Maybe it's a mix of everyone. I guess it's not important, the themes of the game and Zidane's impact have affected all the characters in large ways and they've all grown to look at life differently.

The scenes are pretty good here (Fratley! Though we don't know how he lost his memory still, it's nice that he still loves Freya), though there is a worrying omission of Vivi. Has he died, gone adventuring himself, maybe the narration was him? What did they mean by 'sons' anyway? IDK, I don't want to think about it if he is actually dead >_> The more I think about it, the more his absence can only mean one thing, but I am going to stay in denial.

We finally see I Want To Be Your Canary performed, and of course Zidane reveals himself to Dagger. Cue the actual ending, with Dagger's song given lyrics over the end credits. I'm gonna need time to process this. It's a good ending, a little cliche in places but the game stuck to its themes and wore its heart on its sleeve to the end.

I'm so happy I met everyone... I wish we could've gone on more adventures. But I guess we all have to say goodbye someday.

I - II - III - IV - (TAY) - V - VI - VII - (VIIR - DoC - CC) - VIII - Final Fantasy IX - X - (X-2) - XII - (RW) - XIII - (XIII-2 - LR) - XV - Tactics - (TCB)


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Slowly becoming a Final Fantasy aficionado.
Currently playing: Final Fantasy IX!