LogFAQs > #954886595

MZero, I know you hate IX but what specifically grates you about it? I can see hating the gameplay, art style, even the cast, but the plot structure and themes are done so well imo! (Agreed on Necron).

Emeraldegg posted...

Why were you under the ship in the first place...?

I knew I was taking a risk putting 'never' there! But the reason for that was so Quina could explain how the teleporter works when they arrive at Memoria, so it's still fine imo.

Not much room left to post my remaining thoughts!

Zidane
I've spoken at length about Zidane already. At first I really didn't like him, then I started to warm to him when he had some really nice poignant scenes with Vivi and Dagger (and was nicer to Steiner), but I didn't actually fundamentally understand him or connect with him on a deeper level until we get to Terra. Honestly it was very brave of the writers to hide their hand for so long with what they were planning for Zidane. But it absolutely works, everything slots into place and retroactively he's much more interesting after the You're Not Alone sequence.

After all his cavalier optimism he ends up breaking harder than anyone else in the crew (under extraordinary circumstances mind you), and it takes the combined efforts of everyone to pull him back up again. More than anyone else, Zidane's arc makes me want to replay the game so I can look at his early positive cocky image knowing what's buried underneath. I think I admire how they wrote him more than I actually like him as a person, but he really does well and truly earns himself the protagonist role by the end of the game. I think Zidane is someone who you can't divorce from context. He's the glue of the group, and it's impossible to judge him in isolation. The friendship themes only strike so true because of Zidane, and the game would not be what it is without him at the helm.

Dagger
Dagger is a weird one. My thoughts on her followed the same throughline as my thoughts on Zidane in a way. I never disliked her, she has some nice intrigue early on and a naturally compelling internal crisis regarding her mother and her position in the world, but for a while it felt like the game was going through the motions with her. She's a damsel in distress, a rebel princess, a white mage with a heart of gold, all these tropes we've seen half a dozen times in the series. But every now and then she had a scene that made her more unique and atypical from the archetype, something that made me want to look deeper.

Her scene with Zidane in Madain Sari is a big one for her, but of course the turning point for Dagger is Alexandria's destruction. At this point I was fully on board with what the game was going to do- she had lost her family and her home, failed in all she had tried to do, and a happy ending seemed utterly inconceivable. I feel like she wasn't too far off from Celes' low point in VI, but thankfully she had her friends around her. Seeing her not concentrate in battle was a sign that this was not some phase, but a very deep depression that was consuming every waking moment for her (I really don't get how people hate this!). I had no idea how they were going to lift her out of it but I trusted the writers at this point.

Strangely, I don't actually love her big turnaround scene. I love the idea of it, I love what comes afterwards, the hair cutting is framed really nicely, but for some reason the scene with her and Zidane at her mother's grave just didn't feel as authentic as other key moments for me. The dialogue was a little stitled, and I got the impression the game was just ready for her to be 'fine' now so she was, I think they could've given things a little more room to breathe or they could've shown her gradually coming around the way Vivi does.

That said, everything that comes after her turnaround is fantastic, and she is at her best in the last act of the game. The glorious change in her profile picture, her being fully supportive of Zidane and her friends, knowing exactly what needs to be said or done to help them out, she's finally comfortable with herself and it shows. In the end, it's a successful arc I think.

Steiner
I was drawn to Steiner from the word go. His moral predicament is instantly captivating- he's not torn between his service to monarchy and his moral compass the way Beatrix later is, he is instead completely blind to what his kingdom is doing and sticks his head in the sand as much as he can to avoid facing the truth for as long as possible. Obviously you know that dam is going to burst at some point, and watching the gears slowly shift in his mind through the first act of the game is very fun.

Steiner has great distinct relationships with more of the cast than anyone else (except Zidane). There's his relationship with Dagger that grows more strained as he becomes more in denial than her about her own mother, there's his wonderful instant friendship with Vivi (that manifests in gameplay!) that is more meaningful looking back at how black mages are treated by most of the populace in general, and of course his initially groan-inducing rivalry with Zidane that winds up being very heartwarming by the time Steiner accepts him as a comrade. Steiner is at his core a good man, always desperate to do the right thing but deeply delusional about what that actually means at the start of the game.

His arc is great, and I like that when he does finally turn on Alexandria it's not a difficult moral decision for him- he merely sees (finally) that they are monstrous and does what comes naturally to him. Most of the characters have a moment in the game where they break, and he handles his pretty well considering the pressure and time constraints he is under when it finally hits.

My only complaint about Steiner is that he, like so many others, tails off in the back half of the game. He obviously has much closer ties to the political plot than the sci-fi stuff, but it's a shame they couldn't find a way to incorporate him more later on. You can even pinpoint the single moment he fades into the background: when he, Freya and Beatrix stay behind to fight in Alexandria while the others escape, and despite the game constantly shifting perspectives up to that point we never go back and see what happens next, they're just all fine a timeskip later. This is the killing point for Freya and Beatrix's arcs, Steiner fares better but not as well as I'd like. Still, he is one of my favourites in the game for sure.

Vivi
Sweet, lovable Vivi. The purest manifestation of innocence in this game, it is not difficult to see why he became so beloved by the fanbase. His arc is where the game gets the most explicit about its thoughts on life and death, and they rather brilliantly show this through the single innocent child character having to face his own morality. It's brutal, of course, but the slow build is what makes it so good.

Considering how heavy Vivi's material is, I like how they kind of underplay it throughout the entire story. He doesn't have a massive break like the others, he just quietly realises the truth and gets confused and depressed, before having a good long think about it and slowly progressing to some kind of acceptance. His scene with Zidane in Madain Sari, all his scenes with #288, his ending narration, Vivi's quiet growth throughout the story is an absolute highlight of the game for me. I'm not sure what I expected from Vivi going into the game knowing how popular he is, but it wasn't this. Even after all his development he maintains doubts and worries, and never fundamentally changes who he is. It's maybe the most naturally developed character arc in the game, and honestly there's not much else to say. A great, great character.

---

Slowly becoming a Final Fantasy aficionado.
Just beat: Final Fantasy IX!