The summer recap drought is over, along with summer! Here’s my latest check-in with the wack idiots of Final Fantasy VI.
I do apologize for the lapse in content recently. As I mentioned in the comments a few days ago, I bought a house this summer and it completely sidelined pretty much every other project I had on my plate. Never buy a house. It’s so dumb.
Locke keeps his dead
girlfriendbeard’s corpse perfectly preserved in his basement. Oh lordy, how did I not realize how messed up something like that was before someone pointed out how messed up it was.You know, between “I have a girlfriend, but she’s dead and I’m looking for a way to bring her back to life, but I just haven’t found any leads yet” or “I have a girlfriend, but she lives in Canada”, I’m not sure which one is more believable.
And I also didn’t think anything of how the party just leaves Terra alone and completely unguarded, not to mention completely naked (though going by Dissidia, her esper form doesn’t seem to actually have any “parts”), in a city full of criminals who all look exactly identical before someone pointed it out. What’s wrong with me?
I was gonna say at least Rachel isn’t a Canada Girlfriend because the party actually sees her in person, but for all we know that’s just some random lady in a coma and Locke is passing her off to everyone as his lost true love.
Having recently re-acquainted myself with South Park, the whole “Canada girlfriend” thing made me think of Rachel having the weird bisected mouth and farting on Locke all the time and laughing about it. If only. That would’ve made his backstory much better.
I remember seeing someone, once, suggest that since one of the facedown sprites in the streets of Zozo resembled Cyan’s wife, someone dragged her corpse over there and just dumped it. And I like that explanation.
Also, in retrospect… I always liked Locke, even though I thought his backstory was pretty cheesy. I thought he was hot. (Hey, we’ve all had shameful crushes.) Having read this recap, though… WHO THE FUCK CAME UP WITH THE IDEA TO KEEP HER AROUND IN THE BASEMENT TO REVIVE HER?! No, don’t wanna know. Even if it wasn’t his idea, he accepted it and committed to it and ffffuuuuu- dude’s messed up. Have fun, Celes. Good thing she’s got that ice-elemental theme going on, since Locke obviously likes ’em cold.
Speaking of Rachel, her sprite (with its giant collar, poofy blue hair, and closed eyes) always gave me the impression that she had a giant Mr. Mackey-esque head and vampire fangs. Creeped me the hell out as a kid… mmmkay?
(Also, Jesus, nobody ever ages in this game! I mean, I like the idea of a hulking, roided-out baby Sabin stamping around and freaking out over King dad’s death, but… fuck, even Final Fantasy V tried harder with the flashback scenes.)
Good to see you back, at any rate! Congrats on the house, and thanks for the awesome recap! And good god, I can’t wait to see what you-or-Ryan make of the opera scene. Pffff. (In Setzer’s defense, though, he gives us the airships, and his design’s kinda cool, even if he’s a bit of a turd. Plus, the Darryl backstory, unlike Locke’s, is actually kind of sad and touching. Even if the logistics behind obtaining the Falcon make my head hurt.)
In fairness, I didn’t really see the Rachel thing that way either until I was staring it in the face while recapping. It’s one of those things you only examine critically when you’re examining it critically, if that makes any sense.
And thank you! Our introduction to Setzer should actually be coming soon–I intended this to be a bigger recap and actually taped through the attack on the Empire, but I got this far and got really tired of everyone being annoying.
That is the exact reason I have never been able to finish Enchanted Arms, which, and I do not exaggerate, has the stupidest protagonist ever in an RPG. His companions don’t exactly help, especially with the annoying factor.
Oh man, Enchanted Arms. Atsuma was the very epitome of “Idiot Hero”. You can probably count on one hand the number of cutscenes where he DIDN’T make an ass of himself or demonstrate his complete lack of intelligence despite attending a prestigious magic school. He even needed a tutorial to learn how to open a goddamned TREASURE CHEST. He needed a tutorial for almost everything actually, and almost all of those tutorials boiled down to “stand in front of it and press A, you fuckwit”. And then they repeated it several times. “So I stand in front of it and press A?” “Yes, that’s right, stand in front of it and press A.” “Alright, I’m going to stand in front of it and press A!” I swear this game was meant to be Baby’s First JRPG. And yeah, most of the other main characters are pretty annoying too in one way or another. (Keyword “most”. If I recall correctly, Raigar was blessedly competent.)
Even so, I couldn’t bring myself to hate the game. I don’t know why. The majority of the main characters are annoying, the plot isn’t terribly interesting, and the difficulty is all over the place, and when that happens with a game I usually sell it so that I can have money to buy something that might hopefully be better, but this particular game seems to have a certain charm to it that prevents me from being able to dislike it, if that makes any sense.
I agree. It probably helps that Raigar doesn’t talk much.
On the other hand, I always thought that Toya and Makoto wanted a child, so they settled for raising a retarded man-baby instead. Soemtimes, that’s all they’ll give you at the RPG Adoption Agency.
I had the same reaction: “How the fuck did I not notice how creepy this is?!” I only played through this, like, a million times and didn’t realize Locke was terrible.
Thank you for experiencing the creepiness on a deeper level so that we can all be better people.
I got this far and got really tired of everyone being annoying.
Good thing you did, considering the next things that happen involve Locke mooning over Celes’s tits, and Ultros reappearing.
…Then again, Ultros deciding to push a giant 4-ton weight on Celes is one of my favorite moments in the game when I let it happen, so I can’t hate him too much.
This was amazing, per usual, and I can’t wait for the next installment. One moment, though, was truly a highlight.
“As they’re talking about her, Twiggy goes into a seizure of sorts on the bed, complete with odd motor-revving/tuning fork noises, and suddenly she leaps out of the bed, in between Edgar and Guile, while Winona Don Knottses like an old pro. She zooms around the carpet, looking and sounding every bit like a feral vacuum cleaner, before plotzing right on her face at the north end of the room. Winona pokes her to make sure she isn’t dead. Compassionate.”
I need to use the phrase “feral vacuum cleaner” in conversation somehow. thanks Sam for this especially witty and evocative turn of phrase.
Congrats! I also bought a house this summer and feel your pain. House buying is the dumbest.
Good to see an update on the ADD-laden adventures of Locke and Twiggy!
Firstly, congratulations on the house! I hope you’re now settled in and enjoying your new home.
Awesome recap which is actually making me want to play FFVI again (believe me, that’s quite the accomplishment).
Count me in as one of the people who never really thought about how questionable some of the stuff in this game is. Locke’s backstory is kind of making my skin crawl, when all it used to do was bore me. Esper!Terra being left naked and alone in a town full of shady dudes is pretty jawdropping too.
Also, the GRRM innkeeper made my day. <3
Thanks, guys. Pretty well settled into the house now. We’re at least a couple of months out of having to go to Lowe’s or Home Depot every other day.