Final Fantasy and Philosophy: The Ultimate Walkthrough

Hey lost- good of you to join the conversation.

I want to comment on your last bit, I think if you buy the game you can play it anyway you want, there is no "wrong way."

I think we all agree that while FF sort of has sort of preplanned what characters should be but that there is enough customization that the characters are "ours."
 
The way I see it, if the game makers want every character to be a certain way, then then they wouldn't have made it possible to customize everything. If, for example, using X/X-2 as I know it better, the makers wanted Yuna to be the only one to know healing/white magic, then they would have made the sphere grid in such a way that she could only follow her own path, and there wouldn't be the 'friend spheres' or the other spheres that allow one to learn stuff that others learned.

I know what you mean about AC Cloud not feeling right [[I have VII on my psp, and I've been slowly playing it, plus my research for my panel helps too]] and it just seems like he had gone through a personality change.
 
It is a good point that Strife & Lost make, about how the AC-Cloud isn't what we expect. I remember watching years ago and thinking, I don't remember Cloud as being that standoff-ish/loner-ish. Because at the end of my game of 7, the responses in dialogue I chose for Cloud were much friendlier. I remember that my Cloud went on the date with Tifa so in my mind, he wouldn't blow her off like their AC-Cloud did because my Cloud was closer to Tifa.

Isn't it interesting that going into the film we thought the AC-Cloud would behave as "our" FF7-Cloud would? It seems so silly in hindsight, because he clearly wouldn't.
 
I don't think there's much denial to the fact that you can customize your characters and make them how you want to. But the real question is, are the storylines meant to be interpreted in different ways? Is it okay to subjectively interpret the storyline of an FF game to your own desire, or do you have to go by the game designers' opinions of them as your end-all truth?
 
I guess my opinion is a bit subjective itself. If you want to subjectively interpret a story for yourself, then go for it- you bought the game that is your right. But if you want to discuss the events that happen with others, than you can't deny the existence of concrete things (like events that happened or things that didn't happen).

So yes to your question, I think things in FF story lines can be subjectively interpreted, like- does Aerith really love Cloud or is she still hung up on Zakk?

As an example, looking at a painting:
If you are to say something like, this painting really makes me feel calm and gives me the impression of serenity/or peacefulness. That is subjective and since that is what you are experiencing no one can say otherwise.
But if you are looking at the painting and someone says something like- this painting really gives me the impression of peace and quiet, if you ignore the reds and yellows. Then I think that isn't really ok.


An example from FF:
In the end, I think FFX is an uplifting game. This is ok because the ending does have some positive things and can leave you with a good feeling.

but if you say something like:
I think every aspect of FFX is uplifting. (Clearly this is wrong because you are ignoring all the deaths of innocent people at the hands of SIN & other tragic event that have happened).

Does that make sense?
 
Rydrum2112 said:
An example from FF:
In the end, I think FFX is an uplifting game. This is ok because the ending does have some positive things and can leave you with a good feeling.

but if you say something like:
I think every aspect of FFX is uplifting. (Clearly this is wrong because you are ignoring all the deaths of innocent people at the hands of SIN & other tragic event that have happened).

Does that make sense?
Click to expand...
Saying that death isn't uplifting would require me to be black and white, and Final Fantasy X isn't exactly a black and white game. Therefore, I don't see why I couldn't say the whole game is uplifting. It may unfortunately mislead a few people, but if it's what I think, I'd be being honest.
 
Ry, it's interesting that you said you expected cloud to be less stand-off ish. I actually felt the exact opposite. My cloud, from FFVII, was much more distant than your cloud apparently. I think what really did it for me was the whole "..." responses he would give to many questions, etc. But at the same time, I always envisioned my cloud having a very close relationship to tifa, in many ways much closer than the relationship he had to aerith (this was because i just plain liked tifa better as a character than aerith). So when FFAC cloud just up and leaves for part of the movie, i couldn't really identify with him. And when he doesn't maintain his quiet stoicism like he did in the game, i had trouble there too. Even the character design didn't fit well with me. I understand that comparing block characters and fully fleshed out modern CG isn't very valid, but I always saw cloud as having a much pointier chin. lol.
 
found it on google books going to read soon :)

sounds like a good book
 
I've only read the first part of it so far (about the differences between different people's Clouds). It's not bad, in fact, it makes me think more now when I play any FF game.

As far as my Cloud, I always tend to make him the same way...his dialogs are nearly always friendly, and I always give him mostly command materia, sprinkled with some support materia, the stronger magic materia, and Long Range, of course.
 
First- Its awesome to see so many people get involved here. Welcome FinalCzen, yunamad10, and bearsfdw.

FinalCzen- I think you misread what I was saying (we agree with each other), you can think FFX was uplifting but not every single aspect (everything that happened in the game was uplifting) like all the death and destruction by sin or the manipulation by yevon. That is all I was saying.


Bear you made me think of an interesting point [by talking about how your Cloud played].
Strife was your cloud a hitter, sort of fitting with the strong silent/standoff-ish type- high attack, high D, doesn't need help from others?
Mine was sort of an all around fighter, my swiss army knife: good attack, good magic, ok healer, some support magic. He was always doing what needs to be done, and because I used him at times in a healing & support role, I think of him as more friendly willing to help. Maybe that sounds really dumb to you guys but it might have contributed to my expectation of what his personality would be like in AC?
 
Rydrum2112 said:
FinalCzen- I think you misread what I was saying (we agree with each other), you can think FFX was uplifting but not every single aspect (everything that happened in the game was uplifting) like all the death and destruction by sin or the manipulation by yevon. That is all I was saying.
Click to expand...
Ah, okay, you're right. I was looking at it where I thought you were saying the developer had the correct point of view, not the player.
 
Ry, I used cloud as a hitter, true. But I honestly didn't assign roles to each character, which is one aspect of the essay that I didn't agree with. The author makes the point that the customization of each character's role in a typical battle molds and shapes our perspective of the characters. Personally, I didn't experience this very much since I typically attack with everyone. With respect to healing/summons/etc., I would just give everyone well rounded materia. I never said, "Ok, tifa is gonna focus on healing". However, I did do this with some of the other games, just not with FFVII. So in a way, all my characters were hitters. I think the true varied interpretation stemmed from the interpretation of the dialogue. Primarily because the tone, inflection etc. is all up to the reader's interpretation. Interestingly, this is lost when you transition into voice-acting. Part of the reason why I think most people interpret FFX and FFXII characters the same way. You don't typically see a lot of discussions focused on the personalities/motives/thinking of FFX or FFXII characters. I think this is part of the reason for that.
 
Gotcha, and I think you have a point about 10 and on, since it is voice acted then you can't read which emphasis you want in the line. I think this is one aspect I dislike about the new FF's.
 
To try to contribute to the discussion,

I personally feel that the voice-acting is very one-dimensional. The plots are pretty three-dimensional. So the voice-acting, I find, actually misleads me to an altered interpretation of the story than what perhaps I should be getting.

I actually would like to start topics on the interpretations of some voice-acted FF characters. But I'm not going to for now, I don't really have my flame-resistant shield on.
 
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