#playing final fantasy from the start

[samuelhowitt]

Reflections on my Almost Five Years of Final Fantasy

This article will mention story elements of various Final Fantasy games, with major spoilers for Final Fantasy X and XV. Today marks five years since I published my first article about Final Fantasy on this website. On that day I had no idea what that would lead to. From the start of 2020 until around the end of 2024 I was spending a lot of time playing and writing about the Final Fantasy…

[nei-ning]

I REALLY like the way how Reno has been drawn in FF7 Ever Crisis <3

[daylighteclipsed]

While I’m talking, Cloud almost killing Tifa in Gongaga is not just a ‘would that be fucked up or what’ moment or even because Tifa has the true memories/proof to counter Sephiroth’s lies (though, that is part of it). It’s also because killing Tifa is the antithesis of who Cloud is. It’s the antithesis of the little boy who put his life on the line to save her and then dedicated his life to becoming strong enough to protect her. The antithesis of his promise to be there for her and the feelings behind it. “Cloud” and “Tifa’s killer” cannot coexist. “Cloud,” the boy defined by a desire to protect Tifa, cannot survive this. That’s why Sephiroth is trying so hard to get Cloud to kill Tifa. Sephiroth could kill her himself and that would still be majorly bad for Cloud’s true identity as he’d still lose his only tether to reality and the symbol of his conscience. But it wouldn’t be as effective as having Cloud do the honors. Sephiroth needs Cloud to kill the light in his own heart. He needs Cloud to kill his self. And there is no more definitive way than this.

[harbingersecho]

neath dark waters

[elinbean]

“Easily the worst thing the show did was rush through a dozen and a half of the “smaller” awards, with Geoff Keighley quite literally shouting them at the screen, rapid fire. You could blow through Best RPG, Best Racing/Sports Game, Best Multiplayer Game and Best Art Direction before you could finish a sip of the drink you no doubt needed to get through the evening. These awards are significant achievements for each game that wins them, and no one involved in these “lesser” categories gets to make an acceptance speech, and they’re not acknowledged for more than a split second. It’s callous and beneath something at least claiming to be an award show.”

“Ah, but what if you do win a “real” award? Well, you get essentially 30-45 seconds to make your speech, which seemed like a hard limit after Christopher Judge’s sprawling eight minute Best Performance speech last year. But that led to ridiculous, almost insulting moments like Astarion actor Neil Newborn having to rush through his heartfelt speech, or Alan Wake’s Sam Lake, Sam Lake getting played off early.”

Yeah respectfully. What the fuck was up with this

[elgaladwen]

Tifa Lockhart

[bbianca-jpg]

cody you have to stop. your swords to cool. your swag too different. your roommate too bad. they’ll smite you.

[zylphiacrowley]

Okay so now I'm thinking about rack focus and gpose and I just want to talk about it in regards to vanilla gposing. I've never been trained in filmmaking or anything so this is not expert advice but I enjoy absorbing cinematography tips and tricks as a very passive hobby so... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Anyway, rack focus is explained in this video:

or if you don't have the time/attention span to watch the video it's when you shift focus from one subject to another usually to draw attention to or emphasize a connection between the subjects your focusing between. It's used all the time in film and is an effective way to "show, not tell".

I've used it in some of my own gpose sets before like between these two shots:

These shots were used to illustrate how this character had just stepped outside to see the night sky for the first time in their lives. Could I have just used the single shot of them looking at the sky? Sure I could've and it would've been fine, but to shift focus is to allow the viewer to dwell on it just a bit longer to absorb the information and emotional intent behind the shots.

But of course, that wasn't done using vanilla gpose tools but you can achieve a similar effect with vanilla gpose tools! It's available right here:

I took these shots using vanilla gpose tools (with the exception of my gameplay shader which doesn't have any DoF settings on):

In the first one you of course see the chocobo in the foreground before switching to focusing on my character in the background. These might be good shots to set a scene. Catboy at the chocobo farm, what he gonna do next?

the settings I used for each shot:

Of course these were just really quick snaps I grabbed to try to illustrate how you can apply rack focus in gpose, so I'm sure with actual time and some messing about in your settings with various sliders and such, you could come up with something much more polished and nice than what I managed in 5 minutes. OTL

And even if you don't use it for rack focus specifically, I encourage people to play around with the Depth of Field sliders! Go nuts! You can easily take some really dynamic single shots with combinations of gpose settings and actions.

Edit to add this bit of important information from @candycryptids: If DOF is not doing anything in GPose for you, check your graphics settings under system. There’s a box at the veeeery bottom that will disable DoF for EVERYTHING. Make sure it’s ticked.

[myreia]

✦ D I S C I P L E O F T H E H A N D

Alchemy for potions. Blacksmithing for repairs. Leatherworking and weaving for mending. She is not an artisan, but the basic skills she has picked up over the years have served her well. Self-sufficiency has always been at the forefront of her mind, and she is pleased that she can keep herself afloat when needed. Besides, crafting is relaxing. A hobby or two here and there is good for her mind. —level 90 compendium

[drag00ni]

SUCH A JOY

[rocktis]

fanon my beloved vs. fanon my beloathed

beloved - zack's nicknames for cloud (spikey, sunshine, cloudy, etc) - kunsel has hacked into shinra's database and could cause massive damage to the company on a whim by tapping a few keys beloathed - "zack's so stupid lol he's such a himbo" - "cloud's just a cocky asshole who doesn't care about anything but money and himself"

[of-the-eventide]

WIP Wednesday*:･ﾟ✧

I'm gonna be doing wip Wednesday every now and then for a fic I'm writing just so it keeps me motivated. Everyone is allowed to join in too, tag me in all your wips I would love to see them!

While Ito walked through the small number of halls of the Scions headquarters with a uniquely passive face, their mind was a whirlwind of thoughts and unknown emotions. They could not have thought even for a second that this is where their brother’s suggestion of going to Eorzea would go. He sent them on their way with the words of ‘finding a purpose’ and while it could have amounted to something as grand as this, Ito was sure that Yoshiaki meant travel the land, see the sights, eat some good food, meet some people. Not joining a vigilante group of all Kami forsaken things…

They wandered the small building, ignoring waves and cries for them to join groups either drinking or playing a game of cards. If they noticed the wondering stare of a certain white haired Scion they didn’t care to remark upon it. Probably due to the fact that they continued to talk in circles around their head, chewing on nails as they paced between the halls they have now wandered to and thorough a number of times. Would Yoskiaki give them a pat on the back for this? The Scions were even heard of in Doma, hard not to when the fall of the moon was watched with keen eyes everywhere. So, yes Yoskiaki would probably pick them up and spin them around for having a hero for a sibling. Yet to find themselves here… That sure was NOT what Ito promised their brother by keeping safe. Hells, if they really thought about it they’ve broken that promise the minute they stood up for those refugees in Ul’dah and gained the ire of five prominent figures max. Then continued to go against it every time they took a more and more dangerous quest for the hope of… Of what? Now that made Ito pause their parade march around the building. What were they doing, really? What was the point to all this grandstanding heroism they somehow found themselves indulging in? Did they even even want to be here in Eorzea after all? Should they go home and quit, go back to trying to live their life as it was? And did they really accept all these quest in hopes to actually help the people being troubled or where they simply hoping… Were they hoping that something would finally put them down? It was a soft clearing of a throat did Ito bring themselves out of whatever spiral they were doing down. While it was quiet to their horns it seemed the figure was gesturing towards them for a second now if their eyes could tell them anything. Which… Wasn’t much really. Not when the figure sitting to their left was wearing clothes that basically covered every inch of skin the man had. “Are thee well friend? It hath come to mine own attention thee has paced a number of times past.” Ito’s eyes now snapped to his eyes, or well... Where they thought his eye would be with the goggles protecting his steady gaze from them. He was huddled among an ever growing pile of books, holding one in hand while the other held a wonderful smelling tea. He honestly could have been a statue in these books for how well Ito noticed them, quite still even as Ito blankly stared at them as if frozen. It was with a crooked brow, a sip of tea echoing in the silence, and an unanswered question did Ito finally snap out of whatever reprieve that held them still. “Oh… uh…” Elegant Ito really.

[daiourage]

Final Fantasy x Texts From Last Night pt. 2!

Same as last time → Warning! Vulgar!

Part 1

[duncanor]

I kinda wanna draw my fantasy/princess and the frog AU for byler again

Like, it's been years, I'm not really in the fandom anymore but it was a fun idea. I might, I might.. 🤔

[pagesofkenna]

re: chrono trigger... I can't recommend playing this oldie but good enough. But a bit of caution, i'd recommend it on the DS, if you can find it. If not, it is on steam and it works pretty well. I would recommend getting a controller rather than playing on your PC's keyboard. It's just easier and more true to the original controls.

The story is lovely, the turn based combat is one of the most enjoyable you could ever play - each character has their own skill sets and those skill sets also combine with your companion characters. You get single tech, which only you use and are unique to that character. Double techs, which are techs performed by two characters once they've both learned a certain spell or combat move.

so for instance, Chrono, whose element is lightening, learns Cyclone and Lucca, whose element is fire, learns flame toss - once they've both learned these separate spells they are able to perform Inferno together.

There's also triple techs which are the same thing but with your third character.

Last tip, it is so, so easy to speed through it and not level up much. Because the story is very engaging. Don't do it. Do your grinding. It sucks but you'll be glad in later battles because this is a nintendo hard game.

It also has fun game plus options (one of the first to do it) and a ton of alternate endings.

Please, give it a chance.

When I was a kid I gamed almost exclusively through emulators (we had an N64 and like two games I could play, everything else I played on the computer with an emulator) and Chrono Trigger was one of the games in our ROM library. I played maybe a couple hours, but I was a little kid and Pokemon was the only turn-based combat game I ever played all the way through because I liked the little monsters. I think at some point I realized this was kind of an important game from the era that I really should experience... I just never did

anyway, after Nintendo decided to shutter their support for the 3DS and the WiiU, I went through ROM libraries for both and downloaded a bunch of games onto both hacked devices. I don't have my 3DS readily on hand at the moment but I know I absolutely got Chrono Trigger, so... now it's just a matter of me actually putting aside the time to play it lol

I will also say, as much as I hate grinding, I've spent so much time wandering around Breath of the Wild doing little tasks (or grinding in recent Pokemon games) for the purpose of having something to do while bingeing a podcast, so I think I'm in a better place to tolerate grinding now that I was in the early 00s lol

[origamihoshi]

Wait game, I want Serina to deal with bloodlust now because she just had to adopt this silly thing!