Questions For Final FFT Podcast

i offer the following in response to the question raised, in analyzing chapter 3, about why some fans dislike the Lucavi plotline: FFT was about to be, for the first time, in the FF series, an ethically interesting game. However, the Lucavi plotline reduces the complexity of the story. Everything you gentlemen argued about why the Lucavi plotline is fair and logical; it is very FF, and it is very well-told. However, this was going to be the first time that any FF game had any moral complexity. Not even the masterpiece of storytelling that is FF7 honestly has any real moral complexity, nor any game in the franchise (aside perhaps FF4). This game started off with a great ethical question posed at the end of chapter 1. To quote the Jesuit scholar St. Ignatius of Loyola, “How, then, shall you live?” Given that the world consists of men like Dycedarg, Folmarv, etc., what is the right choice? Delita moves in one direction: complete acceptance of the rules of the game, abandonment of “false” morality, and gain the power to make a real difference. Ramza chose obscurity and relative powerlessness. Delita achieved all of his goals, but at the expense of his soul/happiness; he has everything and nothing by the game’s end. Ramza chose pious struggle for what is right, and in the end died for it, obscure, arguably achieving little. Whose life was the way to live? This is a great ethical question because it represents real life. How do you choose to live your life in response to varying degrees of evil/corruption? However, the Lucavi plotline steals us away from an interesting question. The Lucavi plotline is VERY Final Fantasy. There are good guys and bad guys; kill goombas/terroists/monsters/aliens/whatever. This is uninteresting. The stage was set for a great comparison of two different choices in how to live life in a corrupt world, Delita vs. Ramza…but it got reduced to an uninteresting non-question of good vs. evil. I would have loved to see Ramza continue in his crusade for justice, perhaps ineffectually. Perhaps he can only do good at the margin because he is impotent: he threw away the power he had to effect change with Beoulve name. However, his soul is likely intact, unlike Delita’s. That is the better story that I felt was being set up, before the Lucavi plot consumed everything.

Robert Molt

Hey everyone, thank you so much for the time and effort put into these videos. I've really enjoyed them! My question: what do you think of the relationship between Ovelia and Delita? Do you think it's real, or Delita succumbs to the very thing he despises and manipulates her from the start? (For what it's worth, I think it's genuine, and my main reason to believe this is in the WotL cutscene where he states he will protect her on Tietra's soul. I do not think he would take such a grave vow lightly)

Hey guys, thank you so much for your awesome podcasts around FFT, that is my favorite game in the FF world, and I'm really glad that in 2022 someone decided to review the whole game in such detail as you, amazing work. So, are you guys planning to cover artifacts and lands that become available when the errands are being completed? Sorry for my English, I am exactly that Russian guy who loves this game so much :D

Not really a question, I just wanted to point out that while I have played most FF games, the story of this game (before your awesome podcast, of course) I had no clue about. I played it on GBA and later on mobile (War of Lions) and beat it, and I have no clue what the story is. Thank goodness the gameplay and presentation was that damn good. :P I guess I just button mashed through the story, and I fear if I ever play Triangle Strategy I'll do the exactly same thing... like I did when I beat Octopath :P

Michael R

Thank you! I have genuinely spent well over a decade thinking about Matsuno's games - I actually learned much of what I know of the English language from reading outloud the scripts (poorly translated as they are! lol) of Tactics Ogre and Final Fantasy Tactics as I played them in the early 2000s. Not exaggerating that Tactics Ogre and Final Fantasy Tactics was seminal influence on my worldview lol

I read your posts! I personally liked them very much ^_^

Sig

Wow had no Idea that Matsuda Actually commented on this. Guess I wasn't too far off w/ the Gain power but lose everything aspect. Though I am not sure how Matsuda could have thought anyone would interpret that scene as anything other than Ovelia's Death. Still guess it makes my head cannon feel a little better thinking that she lived. Kinda surprised to see so many people thought Ramza and Party actually died for real at the end of FFT. I do like the idea that Ramza and party forming a resistance group to Delita as that was the FFT2 I have always wanted instead of the FFTA crap we ended up getting. Anyway. Really cool read, Thank you for sharing.

5. How do you feel Ivalice compares to the Compilation of FFVII? My take is that XII, Tactics Advance, R. Wings and A2 fit well together, but Vagrant Story and Tactics are very far removed from the rest of the works. That said, I'm impressed WOTL didn't "compilation" up the game and wreck the vibe of the original like how much of the compilation did for VII.

4. How do you feel this job system compares to other FF games? This is my personal favorite job system, but I know many who prefer V and the MMOs.

3. Do you think more video games should attempt to have class politics in their storytelling, or are we currently in too toxic of an environment for those types of stories to be economically viable? (This is a bit of a leading question, but I'd just like you to touch on the political themes of the story --- seeming relevant as we are currently going through labor revolutions not seen since before our lifetime)

2. Do you think this game is more favorably viewed by the FF community than FFXII, and if so, why? In particular, the music and story seems to get much higher praise than XII (anecdotally).

1. What do you think of the twist of having the Christ figure act as the main villain?

I left a number of comments on Episode 1 and Episode 3 of your FFT analysis on youtube discussing the role of class and class struggle vis-a-vis the way class appears within the gameplay of Matsuno games, and with regards to Delita/Ramza/Gafgarion's relationship with morality and the class system (just as here, I post under the handle "orcbrand" on Youtube). If you would be so kind as to consider them in your future discussions, I would be delighted - I do think they're very relevant to appreciating the thematic richness of Matsuno games. For your convenience, I am including the comments I am referring to below: From Episode 1: The class-levels and level-scaling is a subtle echo of the themes of the Matsuno tactics games - all about class inequalities, and the difference between attempting to raise up people as a class, and individuals exploiting friction of power differentials to catapult themselves to the top. Tactics Ogre PSP remake is the most on-the-nose about it (no more character levels - we level up as a CLASS! individual weak CLASS strong), but the PSX game has its own simple approach (exp gains scaled based on difference in level between characters - when weak characters fight the strong, or even when they heal the strong -the difference in their relative power rapidly decreases with each action, no matter its effectiveness, by the character of lower level as he gains ten times more exp per action than the higher level character on the opposite end. It's a case of narrative-gameplay cohesion which helps internalize the experience of the game. Level-scaling has to exist here, because its not just a disincentive to grinding, but an incentive to grind with the explicit intention of achieving relative equality of the people in your army. It's like pottery gameplay rhymes story From Episode 3: It's hard not to notice the prevailing theme of class struggle and class consciousness in Matsuno's work in the 90s. It's a very nuanced take, as he doesn't merely suggest that the nobles are evil and the commoners are blameless victims, he juxtaposes ways in which people are evil across class and station, as well as where they are good. As Gafgarion as you noticed is the perfect foil to Ramza - where Ramza lives by a moral code by trying to avoid participating in the underhanded schemes of nobles, Gafgarion lives by his by participating in those schemes - both end up looking better than the amoral actors like Dycedarg or Gustav in their respective social classes, who don't really follow any code beyond personal convenience. In keeping with that theme, Delita represents how a revolutionary class consciousness in transcending its political and social station comes along with revolutionary morality ultimately ends up appearing just like amoral personal convenience-maxing of the nobles. Except that where the nobles act out of inertia and entitlement to their positions in the existing order, the revolutionary acts in pursuit of establishing a new order. The result however is that should the revolutionary succeed, as we know Delita does right from the outset, he assumes the same position as those he replaced, and his revolutionary pursuit becomes the same self-preservation entitlement of the previous order. The hero king becomes less human in earning that title, and though dies renowned and well loved - his true humanity is lost, and unknown. This is why the Durai papers are supposed to be so revolutionary in themselves - they overturn the order of the hero king Delita to reveal a man just as willing to instrumentalize human lives as Larg or Goltanna, a corrupted shadow of his mythic personality. The question we're left with: even if we overturn the fate pre-established by our birth, can people escape from the trap of our positions to be free for long? Delita wants to be free, to decide what he does and when he does it - to be sovereign. But Delita's ambition in itself does not overturn the inherent boundaries of class - he overcomes his class as an individual, but the class system remains intact regardless. It is Ramza who escapes the bounds of his class - by being born to greatness, and choosing obscurity. Addendum on the name Lucavi: Lucavi is a significant naming choice. In Church Slavonic and in Ukrainian "lukavy" means evil, wicked, malicious, cunning, untrustworthy. You see this word appear in the Lord's Prayer where in English you would say "deliver us from evil," in Slavonic "no izbavy nas ot lukavogo" lit. rid us of the evil one. Interesting tidbit

https://www.frontlinejp.net/2020/08/26/final-fantasy-tactics-ending-explained-ramzas-fate-and-the-return-to-ivalice/

ChocolateRob

Why do you think Matsuno included the post Credits scene w/ Delita and Ovelia and what do you think he was trying to say about the characters/world/life if anything? It was such a dour note to wrap up the game, and for me this was one of the most infuriating moments in my entire history of gaming. After all that time spent in the game trying to protect her only to have the person you trusted be the one to kill her when you could do nothing about it. Though Ovelia strikes first, it is because she thinks Delita killed Ramza and Alma, and believes she will be next. After all the official record states they are outlaws and heretics, so it's not a far fetched conclusion. It's also clear the wound she inflicts isn't fatal, as we know Delita goes on to Rule for quite a while; so once he disarms her, it would seem killing her was not an outright necessity in the moment. Unless she was actually right and forced his hand why kill her there and not just tell her what really happened? Despite Delita's claims to be swimming against the current in the end it would seem he too was swept up in it and became the very thing he hated. Using and sacrificing others in order to maintain power just as he in Teta where used and discarded at the start of the game. He got the power to affect the change he desired, but lost his ideals along the way. Ramza on the other hand held on to his ideals but got nothing. Delita even wonders aloud who got the better outcome. Perhaps, it's simply that power corrupts or maybe Matsuda is saying that the very position of leadership inherently requires such actions regardless of who occupies the position. All I know is as a kid, I had never wanted to kill a video game character more than I wanted to go back and kill Delita in that moment.

One of the biggest (and most annoying) tropes in rpgs is when you get a revered, powerful character on your party, or a boss character you narrowly beat with your whole party...only for them to be significantly neutered. Well, Matsuno kicked that one in the balls when he gives you Orlandu haha. He is a god-tier character in Ivalice...and stays god-tier when you have him. And as fun as it is, I find it interesting the effect that has on the game's narrative and engagement. Ramza is obviously hugely reassured and relieved to have the thunder god's aid, and so are we. So my question is what you think of benefits/costs of such a decision. Obviously, it skews the game's balance significantly, and it's a hard thing to give players such power so early and keep it feeling powerful. So from a gameplay perspective, not the best idea. But from a narrative perspective, you get one of the greatest fighters on the planet on your side and it feels like it, both in the story and the gameplay. You are empowered, and his relevance doesn't fade (like...say, poor Agrias'...). Everyone who replays FFT always thinks of the game as B.O. and A.O. (Before Orlandu and After Orlandu). Which is, frankly, how Ramza probably feels. And there's no way this escaped Matsuno/the team's notice. It was a very conscious decision to make him that powerful and prominent, balance be damned. So do you think it was a good thing keeping him so powerful, or do you think they should have gone the traditional route of weakening him to maintain game balance? And should other games follow that example?