SCREENSHOT Let's Play Final Fantasy Tactics A2: The endgame

[Parrhesia]

Oh, yeah, it's not the rank that scares me, I just mentioned a few updates back I get inexplicably nervous around Loads Of Nines in games.

Voodoo was a fun attack!!

[euklyd]

hey man voodoo could always be worse – it could have 99% hit rather than 100%

tonberries would be so unfair if they weren't so awful

[Parrhesia]

tonberries own and i love them

[euklyd]

I'd agree if you'd said "boysenberries"

they're just so non-threatening when you can kill them long before they have a chance at reaching you

I think there was one early on that had like actually really good defenses relative to where you'd be at, but that was about it I think?

[Parrhesia]

UPDATE 106

Spoiler

 

The clan tourneys in Fluorgis supposedly attract the 'wildest of competitors without fail.'

Yoana's consistently been the most popular character, so she will be our champion.

Orreg here is- are you shitting me?

If you can keep your head when all about you
 Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
  But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
  Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
  And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;
  If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
  And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
  Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
  And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make a heap of all your winnings
  And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
  And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
  To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
  Except the Will which says to them: “Hold on!”

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
  Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
  If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
  With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
  And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!

BYE.

Shoutout to the one Kopykat [sic] fan. Being sad. RIP you lot, you never scored.

Oh hey, it's the representative of famed clan The Doubler.

What an intimidating prosp-

BYE.

Moving on.

Oh hey, Bedeviled - remember them? They hired Pyrrh once.

Huh, Destroyer's the boost-all-stats thing for boss enemies, often in Speed Bat-

BYE.

We even managed to convince that cuntish blue mage who bandwagoned against us to support the red!

Back to basics to conquer Goug.

I kind of want to say that this one soldier has been supporting us since the start. Black mage has been there for a while too, right?

Yeah they're terminally underlevelled too.
The law is against Grouping - which also means... with enemies, it turns out.

You know, these fights are meant to be nonlethal, but we just turned a moogle riding a chocobo into a fucking band-aid.

Next.

I skipped Violene's line but it was something like 'when we win we're going to spare you'. 'Spare' was definitely involved, anyway.

Man, we really should've done the Cups earlier. But you have to be in the right city in the right month, so...

They abducted our black mage! It's Prima Donna - all four of them. Spot the Devotee (sr.) in the crowd! As a neat detail, the seeq are all jumping rather than just cheering.

Wellll, so much for completing this without breaking the grouping law...

Oh well.

The seeq are dejected lmao

We have some time left, so... let's sort this out.

Cryptically, the mission objective is to 'see the battle to its end'.

Grant has Pummel, Air Render and literally like 40 more speed, he should win this easily.

... Huh?

The fight starts out badly for our man.

But then, well, pummel. And a doubleturn. Ward's already like half-dead.

Oh dear. Let's interfere!

Let's not interfere!

He chokes what would've been a kill with a miss, but. Critical: Berserk is probably the standout candidate for the worst reaction in the game.

Oops.

Well, the dialogue's the same if we kill him or not - and we just fail flat-out if we kill Grant. A weird quest, one that doesn't connect to any other quest (though takes place in the hidden area revealed in Odd Places - a quest we'll have to revisit).

We haven't quite done everything we can do without completing the Ritual, but I think it's fair to say that we've... well, 273 quests completed, it speaks for itself.

Next up on FFTA2?

Let's finish this.

 

Spoiler

 

 

[Parrhesia]

UPDATE 107

Spoiler

 

Here we are.

We never find out that much about Illua. She's at the head of Khamja, which has done little to act directly against us, and she wants this book. Is this monologue just an extended metaphor... or a genuine belief that the narrative is on her side?

If we die here, what's left in Khamja's way?

It begins. Illua has a time mage and an arcanist that the law is against harming, and a red mage (who only knows doublecast and elemental spells) and summoner who we're free to slaughter.

The units that you voted for were Yoana, Ursla, Wolfe and Rodanu - Kyrie and Nathala are level on seven votes, and I take the latter.

Ezel. Goddamn. Berbier.

So it's a fair fight.

Relatively.

One has to wonder just who Khamja are, and the game doesn't make the best opportunity, really. I've got my own theory. It's not canon.

FFTA1 happened in some capacity - or left its mark on the world. Marche left his.

Ezel and Montblanc are here, as is the city of Goug and a number of general shared concepts. But it's fair to say that it was a while ago.

What happened to the Clan? Raw Steel, in our FFTA1.

(The canon name is 'Nutsy', and fuck that.)

An extremely powerful clan which overpowered the leadership of the nation and then... vanishes from history. Montblanc leaves to form his own.

They go to ground and consolidate their holdings.

The law has always been against them, so why the hell do they need a judge? And unlike the Clan of Worms, they did not come to prominence through love and kisses - there was explicitly a clan war from the beginning of the game, which they won, coming to dominate the entire region through force.

So many years pass, and the people are just like... this guy basically broke the royal family and vanished. That's where the story ends, right? Who cares about the muscle that uplifted him to that status?

The more principled/independent-minded of them depart - Montblanc and Ezel, specifically. And so this pack of mercenaries continues to quietly dominate from the shadows.

FFTA2 is around 15-25 years later, in the real world - God knows how long in-character, but within the lifespan of a moogle/nu mou. FFTA1 did not Literally Happen As The Game Went Out, there's too many discrepancies for that, but before any geographical hangups... I mean, the game let you set up the map however you bloody wanted.

In this continuity, Marche likely never directly existed - it was more that he was transported to the zeitgeist of what was happening in Actual Fantasy Ivalice. I guess.

Either way. Khamja is never given a past outside of being old, storied and sinister, almost obscure, but the kind of guys you tell your children will get them if they don't eat their vegetables.

And bluntly, why not use this interpretation? If FFTA1 is an unreliable narrator of what happened in Actual Ivalice, if Khamja is never given a solid backstory...

Why not connect the dots?

But it doesn't matter, in the end. This darkworld Raw Steel are trapped, and doomed.

The Clan of Worms actually gave a fuck about people. It fought when forced into it. It maintained the law. It didn't take cities by force, but... through obscure and bizarre local laws, and it conquered far weaker or less virtuous custodians to do so.

Time to end this. Illua falls. The first stage is over.

Power?

Power.

Illua's working to a different script.

They start scouting around. Illua's nowhere to be found.

Adelle is the only character in the game to have multiple sprites - first under Illua's influence, and now this. Is someone who clings so firmly to a facade (and, remember, the Heritor subquests are optional) going to want to be perceived as weak?

She wipes her eyes.

Marche left his reality behind. He left a void in his clan. They turned to ruin.

But I'd like to think we've made a more solid foundation to leave behind, and a better Ivalice.

You know what's next. We finish this.

 

 

[euklyd]

3 hours ago, Parrhesia said:

So it's a fair fight.

Judges are like the epitome of "unfair fight." In 99% of cases, following the law is nothing compared to being able to revive your own units, which nobody else in the game can do besides you. And undead.

I really, really like the narrative of Khamja coming from FFTA1's irresponsible realm- and/or world-destroyers. Very fun.

[eclipse]

I disagree, since I NEVER let that many nu mou into my clan in FFTA!  I dunno what's up with Khamja, but Marche hated 'em, so they were always kicked out.

[euklyd]

1 hour ago, eclipse said:

I disagree, since I NEVER let that many nu mou into my clan in FFTA!  I dunno what's up with Khamja, but Marche hated 'em, so they were always kicked out.

Parrhesia did say the more principled founding members left. No wonder Khamja let in so many Nu Mou!

[Parrhesia]

UPDATE 108

Spoiler

 

Khamja is gone. It's just Illua left, and her mad quest for prominence.

It ends here.

The behemoths... well... this shit can't be made up. Illua's unchanged in stats to before, but has lost her most dangerous ability (the rift attack) in favour of a self-full restore and a target all that cryptically 'hinders foes while invigorating allies'.

The time to fuck around has gone, though.

We're strong enough to overpower them now.

Stay down this time.

The end of her road. Power for power's sake lead nowhere.

 

 

[euklyd]

On 1/28/2017 at 3:59 PM, Parrhesia said:

UPDATE 107

  Hide contents

Adelle is the only character in the game to have multiple sprites - first under Illua's influence, and now this. Is someone who clings so firmly to a facade (and, remember, the Heritor subquests are optional) going to want to be perceived as weak?

 

ok but

On 1/28/2017 at 3:59 PM, Parrhesia said:

UPDATE 107

  Hide contents

 

12 minutes ago, Parrhesia said:

UPDATE 108

  Hide contents

 

first thing I noticed tbh

this final boss is probably the least interesting of all the FFT games? (most interesting mechanically, but even that's not so much interesting as it is "interesting")

I guess I'd actually consider Tactics Ogre's final boss sequence more mechanically interesting, just for phase 1

[Parrhesia]

Yeah, but that's just a recolour.

And yeah it's not a terribly interesting final section. The second in particular is... unnecessary, and trivially easy - and the first takes place in a map we've seen plenty of times in the past! (First encounter with Duelhorn, hell, even a Bonga Bugle mission). The third's probably the highlight.

[SoloCross]

Man, Illua didn't even get to use Sheol...

[euklyd]

The third is just tedious and feels like a letdown since like, it has so little to do with anything we care about. I barely care about Illua, let alone her contract with Master Hand.

Final boss meta spoilers? FFT/A/A2 + TO

Spoiler

 

FFT's final boss was the culmination of the villains' plans, and foreshadowed/lead up to slowly and well. 

Tactics Ogre's final boss was FFT's but less broadcasted and less sensical.

FFTA's final boss was the embodiment of the thing you've been fighting the entire time, and also a fairly symbolic fight? And had a pretty strong presence in the story for most of the game.

FFTA2's final boss was...a giant demon out of nowhere? That you fight by playing whack-a-mole????

 

 

[Parrhesia]

Oh yeah in terms of actual place in the story it's is extremely arbitrary. I think the actual epilogue (like, after the gameplay's over) is reasonable but I'm not really sure why the Ritual exists or where it's meant to fit in.

Playing FFTA2 just... all 24 main quests from start to finish would be really fucking dissatisfying.

[Parrhesia]

UPDATE 109

Spoiler

 

It's Final Fantasy. There's three phases.

https://youtu.be/km7tkoRUMpg

Bit by bit.

There's just one issue - the wisp teleports when hit. The archers will be on that.

Now it's behind the hand.

The battlefield's sprawling enough it's hard to get good screencaps, but the Core acts as the team medic.

Guinness gets right in its face, gets hit and... counters. Reactions being against the law. Well, Power 5 was really nice while we had it...

Underwhelming. Ursla moves to punish but instead steps on a leech trap.

The Core charges the wisp. What this does, I suppose we'll find out.

Yoana's gonna handle this.

Skylasers fall on Ursla. Nathala's going to have to go into medic mode.

The wisp does the underwhelming confusion I'd mentioned from an earlier Jagd fight... but it does fuck me over a little. Nathala can't reliably kill the hand, which resists all elements..

Screen turns white, there's a bestial growl, and...

The way's clear.

Little-mentioned fact - snipers, and thus Ursla, have good natural evasion.

Yoana can't get a good angle - no melee range, and no straight line either. It's a moot point - her damage is ignored.

The wisp begins glowing smugly at us - we need to take care of it first.

It only has the three possible locations... the core heals it significantly, of course, but it's on the ropes.

FUCKIN'. URSLA. WILL NOT GO DOWN.

The Core heals him again, but...

It's too goddamn late.

Well, the Neukhia is officially on tilt.

But who knows what this thing might do?

And Rodanu has always been ready for this.

He knew what he signed up for.

Note the colours of some of these crystals. Yoana can't do a lot of direct damage right now, but...

This, I assume, shuts down the Grand Cross - it actually set a series of explosions, one by each golden crystal.

Here's the thing, though.

We have archers. These are the killing blows, crushing over half its health in a single volley between them.

...

...

...

...

 

 

[Dandragon]

and then everyone died. the end.

[euklyd]

yo that was a different Tactics game

I don't have anything to say about this final boss that I haven't already ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ 

[Parrhesia]

UPDATE 110

Spoiler

 

We awake in this field.

You remember this field, though, don't you? Where it all began.

And he's not smiling, anymore.

There's still so much work to be done.

There's so little waiting for him on the other side.

https://youtu.be/UQS_pveR89A
This is his family now, surely.

This shares the same leitmotif as Guinness', Cid's and Adelle's themes - in fact, the four of them are essentially the same song with a few minor differences and different instrumentation (Guinness uses flutes, Cid uses brass, Adelle uses woodwinds).

Years have passed. He's killed people. But also grown as a person, too, one able to face atrocity unimaginable in the 'real world'.

He knows.

The first time we heard the leitmotif, of course, wasn't with Guinness' theme itself - or even Cid's.

It was this music-box.

The central plot of FFTA2 isn't exactly winning any awards, but the ending strikes the right poignant note.

The grimoire itself is gone. For now. What the hell was it doing here... ?

Questions for another day.

...

Life goes on for the clan.

And for the world as a whole. We left the world a better place for our journey.

And he shuts the door.

Next up on FFTA2:
You know as well as I do that he comes back.

Annoyingly, I'm going to have to finish the endgame again because I neglected to make a Real Save near the end of the game and, well... the Game Completion save basically just puts a gold endgame star on an existing save file. But it shouldn't take long. Delays like this are why we have a buffer!

 

 

[euklyd]

0/10 doesn't even destroy the world when he leaves smh

the ending song is p good, although I think my lowkey favorite is still grief

[Parrhesia]

(The best in the game is Front to Back, for mine)

I'll probably take the rest of the week off before returning to daily updates as we clear out the postgame.

[euklyd]

yeah front and back is also pretty amazing, but I don't actually remember where it's played

I don't think I actually have a favorite tbh

[Parrhesia]

31 minutes ago, Euklyd said:

yeah front and back is also pretty amazing, but I don't actually remember where it's played

I don't think I actually have a favorite tbh

Confronting Illua at the start of the endgame, but a few other times - it didn't really seem to be anyone's theme in particular.

[SoloCross]

My favorite is Looming Crisis (Also known as that theme that plays against Cinquleur, Ewen 1 and the Swordking)

Edited February 1, 2017 by SoloCross

[euklyd]

I think I mentioned it before but Grief is actually really good when played at x2 speed as well

completely different feel tho, much more can-do

e: I did of course find this out as I was skipping through sad scenes on an emulator

Edited February 1, 2017 by Euklyd