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kkiez. finished dawntrail ⬇️(imagine i posted this months ago 7.1 & 7.2 spoilers now too )

Well! it was definitely an expansion. the rite of succession was FINE as an arc underwhelming but ultimately unoffensive each trial was really repetitive and heavy handed to the point it was honestly a little insulting im not 10 i can read between the lines sometimes it reminded me a lot of the 6. patch cycle where every single patch ended with the same friendship is magic lesson for zero. i think we get it, admittedly the rite of succession arc was my favorite, as i felt the worldbuilding and characters worked best for me in Yok Tural. I was pretty invested in the direction the story was going to take in 6.55, honestly really prepared for my adventure in tural far more excited than i was at its initial announcement trailer, i was left mostly confused by that haha. The soundtrack as per usual blew me away and i honestly never doubted soken anyway- i was also particularly impressed by the new areas in yok tural. they were so beautifully crafted i felt really inclined to just wander around and experience them up to shaaloani the areas felt so beautiful and intentional. a serious step up from previous expansions. though the narrative i felt was far too interested in rewarding wuk lamat over allowing her to grow into the role of vow of resolve. this is not wuk lamat hate!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! get out of here if you hate her..... I love that cat she was easily a highlight for me in dawntrail. though i just wish her arc felt more like a proper character arc. I really dont mind but she’s always right and everyone else is always wrong and that’s fine ok peace is good but like fundamentally her platform is maintaining how tural already is right? like it’s upholding the status quo **the working status quo ok i’m not accusing wuk lamat of conservative politics but what i’m saying is we see these very brief sped past moments of the status quo not upholding peace and prosperity for Everyone. merchants are having trouble because of poorly maintained infrastructure people are suffering financially regardless and the game never ever wants to address how in any way at all tural could improve to support its people besides maintaining the peace it’s always bad like this is so boring.... it just makes such an uninterestung, unfulling story. i dont feel like im watching someone grow i feel like im watching one cat girl 2 comically evil villians and also koana whos just there really. i cant help but laugh at the scene with gulool ja where he’s like my daughter… shes naive and not ready and it’s like dude i cant stress enough she’s the only person here the narrative treats as capable. overall the rite of succession clearly had enough ideas to make its own compelling expansion and ill alwahs be upset it wasn’t............ thats right it isnt the entire expansion. Something Happens. I need to talk about Solution 9 & my absolute dislike for everything that happens from here on out. Literally exploding into the story completely unprompted were introduced to the true villian and second arc of the story. Zoraal ja was set up to be the villian at this point, Krile very immediately calling out- and i shit you not- the extreme darkness she senses in his heart arousing suspicion pretty early on. even while bakool ja is acting cartoonishly villainous and setting everyone back zoraal jas wicked vibes are supposed to stick with you. but heres Sphene cute and unassuming and i would be so on board for sphene as an acting antagonist if it werent for what happens in 7.1 & .2 but im getting ahead of myself. Frankly, I find Solution 9 and alexandria as a whole to be ugly to look at, uninteresting in every way, and ultimately disappointing. Now im a pretty big final fantasy 9 fan, but dawntrail wants you to think of ff9 in my opinion, to distract from the sloppy writing and disjointed narrative. now it seems tumblr recently implemented a character limit so i guess i have to wrap it up. which ive never had to do for a tumblr post before:

sphene, like wuk lamat is attempting to maintain the working status quo of her people, despite the sacrifices it takes and like tural, despite the people who end up left behind. to the two of them the system is unflawed and should upheld because of the ill that will befall their respective people should it not be. it is sooo interesting that sphenes system can only exist at the expense of others and wuk lamat well there’s just nothing there… because the rite of succession arc was frankly rather rushed and the game would much rather you think wuk lamat is the correct choice, despite it being obvious by the other options being incompetent and evil. and koana is there btw. in case you forgot again. sphene as an ultimate twist villain, beholden only to the duty she was created for was, in my opinion, the best thing about her. its a shame it was squandered (in my opinion) by reintroducing her as placid and nonthreatening as humanly possible with the 'real sphene' reveal in 7.1. How absolutely boring and in my opinion, insulting to reintroduce the same woman as completely caring, mild, and toothless. 7.2 was to me a much better patch but Calyx as an antagonist is such a strange choice. i will try to be hopeful as i do think he is interesting as of right now, but im not forgetting the character youve chosen to represent the idea that humanity needs to transcend the confines of their flesh prisons is disabled. But that isnt to say I entirely hated dawntrail. the content for me was very easily some of the best in the series so far. the dungeons were mechanically incredibly fun, fast paced, and i very much so welcomed the challenge. and i havent forgotten what is to me the best thing to come out of solution 9: the arcadion. Where im honestly tired of everything else happening in the ninth shard im tuned in to my fantasy WWE melodrama. Mechanically fun like the rest of the content in DT the arcadion has what no other aspect of alexandria does; characters and a story im deeply invested in. Im incredibly excited for epic highs and lows of high school wrestling. If the cast of the first tier wasnt fun enough, the second tier really stepped it up flashy, fun, and incredibly impressive. Potentially my favorite series of the game if it sticks the landing as well as it rocked the introduction. Admittedly, I'm no ultimate raider, but FRU was incredibly impressive (to watch haha) I can only hope to be good enough in 5 years when its time to lock in for the arcadion ultimate

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McDonald's promotional 2001 Playstation mascot characters

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DRAKENGARD FEAT. IN GMR MAGAZING NOV 2003

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ok well its not elaboration.. but ECs official twt just openly describes reeve's 'inspire' ability which is kind of crazy...... inspire materia reveal for ever crisis? inspire materia to use a lulu / iris style plush in combat? dare i even say... a mr mew esque weapon? square enix feel free to hire me,

ok but seriously surreal tweet haha, prior to that i got smacked in the inspire face when @shinraarch actually mentioned it days after my tumblr post and i was like oh! were doing this again! anyway i still hold onto post cait sith reeve, although i think i dont remember if this was in my initial post but "black mage" reeve who fights with cait sith a la lulu.. can you tell lulu and shiki are my favorites......... maybe im just a weird freak whos looking for excuses to see him again but i really dont get why never stops using cait sith even when he doesnt need to conceal his identity... although cait sith being treated as his own silly guy even after the party is fully aware is cute to me xD

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ffxvi desperately tries to grapple with its identity as a final fantasy game while also trying to be something the series has never been before (m rated game of thronesesque dark fantasy) and honestly i think that internal conflict really is what kills the game most because it is at its best when it sheds its expectations as a final fantasy title and becomes its own thing with gripping political drama and high stakes in a less world-ending way. ultima kills just about all intrigue the story builds up which is especially disappointing because Annabella worked incredibly well as the games primary antagonist.. her and olivier were fumbled severely imo you cant get any cooler than THE! dion lesage having an actual unspoken war with a 10 yo

there was no reason (in my opinion!!!!!!!!!) to bring ultima into the mix and change the stakes so rapidly and drastically. wow this man is being manipulated by his evil cousin fucking wife into dragging the entire continent into a pointless war all while theres disloyalty stirring among the knights dragoon led by his OWN son but its all just ultima. like ok whatever but annabella would have made a vastly more interesting antagonist liek :P but of course it has a long history of intergalatic threats (usually god adjacent) that Should be the antagonists because its what final fantasy is. stakes larger than life, epic battles and flashy effects, i know i keep comparing ffxvi to heavensward, and i generally dont do that when criticizing games but i feel like its warrented for this: how thordan functions as an antagonist and final boss vs ultima

i think the most obvious difference is thordan is there and apparent since the beginning however ultima serves roughly the same purpose as lahabrea the background scheming ever-present force manipulating the game however lahabrea is merely a conduit by which thordan achieves his goal of being the god-king and not the surprise twist antagonist there to shed every character of their interesting appeal. barnabas suffers the most from this being easily the most interesting man here (i struggle to really say id like to see more of barnabas given what we do see of him is.............Well)but no matter what glimpses of his psyche we do get the allure is non existent because hes not a character in any meaningful way hes Just an extra limb to ultima who ultimately serves no narrative purpose besides saying cryptic things and be a boss fight (admittedly his fight is good. maybe the most ive struggled in the game which i mean as a compliment that dps check was brutal barely made it through by the skin of my neck spamming max potions when i could and relying solely on lb haha) where lahabrea acts as the mysterious force pushing the plot along hes only relegated to a dungeon boss as opposed to a trial because narratively it isnt lahabrea who wants this its thordan. its by his own hands that his god king form is achieved he feels like an actual character... barnabas is there to serve vague exposition that only goes barely explained by the end of 16

olivier and annabellas roles as antagonists feel more complete and thought out than the actual main 'villain' which is really disappointing, because any intrigue built by the conflict in Sanbreque is dashed when dion was simply wrong and olivier was ultima the whole time ooooooh

joshuas entire sideplot is relegated to following ultima similar to cloud but with none of the intrigue because we dont know Anything about ultima. hes only introduced to the plot as some vague concept joshua has an unexplained connection to (btw we still dk how/why joshua 'trapped' ultima in his heart/soul/whatever becos. none of it is elaborated on. i tried too i was hoping for an ff7og type hidden revelation if i did jotes side quests too but no....... i looked yall i tried i did

not to mention how joshua survivng kind of killed clives arc for me.. L3+R3 to accept the truth was kind of badass as fuck... too bad it doesnt matter and theres no truth for clive to accept joshua was never dead. clives arcs are perpetually meaningless. internal conflict about this power hes been given that could change the world for the better.. or worse and he could (and has) hurt/killed the ones he loves.. well doesnt matter joshua is alive and ifrit has caused no real harm to people who matter..

i remember talking to my irl, they were going off about fe3h about how the trailers built up political intrigue and expectation that was dashed when it all turned out to be villains behind the curtain manipulating everything with no foreshadowing and yeah... yeah

ultima was so poorly handled to me, nothing about his buildup felt coherent to me and all it did was serve to distract me from what i was genuinely enjoying (dominant political dramas) i really dislike it all.. god i wish there was more, theres a dlc coming out about leviathan, you might have honestly forgotten about leviathan because it was a single line of dialogue with no explanation build up or payoff. if you want to know why joshua namedropped leviathan and then moved on like it never existed pay square enix extra money and hopefully this wont be utter bullshit too lol.

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hurk....... hermes/reeve parallelisms. this is sick

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>ff7 rebirth wait i spent being so excited for the temple of the ancients & nibelheim

i thought id spend my time btween rebirth and ff7r-3 being excited fur the lifestream ........................... im excited for reeve tuesti

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i really wish 4 sum expansion on the reeve bein an 'inspire' in ff7.. obvis i no it was only ever conceptually but it kinda interested me.. in my hc inspire is a materia n i think dirge implies reeve n caits connection is mental in some way but honestly? cant rmbr and i dont care ab that game either way.. nyway mentally controlled perhaps but animated through materia.. ff7 og implies reeve directly speaks through cait (moving away seemingly fr privacy in the highwind to directly speak to heidegger & scarlet.. slipping n speaking accented (implying he speaks through cait literally n cait isnt just putting thoughts to word) in my head inspire is a materia tht animates where reeve is controlling it in a sephiroth esque way.. referencing his 'will' controlling jenova reeves 'will' controlling cait sith but he still has to speak for him... again im not a fan of doc or bcc.. kinda meh on cc (zack fair bias but cc plot hater) .. im largely making stuff up fr my own hcs sake but we kinda see ff7og jump btween cait n reeve so we know reeve isnt literally controlling cait so itz kinda my take on the mental link we no they have.. srry gonna b horrible here fur a sec my guy tht joined shinra n climbed the ranks with good intention and high hopes but became jaded by shinras internal corruption n was pushed to the brink after the plate collapsed i think the GS themed dolls n cait siths persona are a representative of who he is at his core and unfortunately its a little silly......... his scottish accent is a reference 2 his parents accents so we no cait sith is personal to Some degree.... god forbid a guy work a 9-5 n still be full of whimsy..i like WRO conceptually but im gna go out on a few hot takes n just shoot down what i absolutely hate

>wros military.. dnt like the solution to ff7s critique of shinras ultramilitarism is just the military but under the right people

>funded by rufus shinra.. srry his death being retconned pisses me off lol.. fuck no

>ac establishing barrets mako alternative is..................... oil? the wros alternative is oil.......??!??!

cool concept but i think the wro allocated shinra's (company and family) abundant wealth to construction (they oversaw edge's construction) but to alternative sources of fuel.. windmills in cosmo canyon solar panels in costa del sol hydropower in nibelheim the possibilities are endless.. barret directly oversees construction cait sith tells the party he evacuated midgar to the slums and we know marlene and elmyra fled to kalm presumably lots of others did too.. housing refugee support and renewable energy construction r priorities over a full military.. n listen i dont think its entirely realistic not to have anyone keeping people safe in a world with regular fiends escaped dangerous experiments and just general monsters but WRO doesnt have a "military" military.. just WRO force thats less militaristic and more.. task forcey.. anyway after shinra's fall i dont think reeve really needs cait sith outside of combat.. since i already hc inspire to b materia i think hed b a prolific materia user.. perhaps not the most fit to fight being in his 40s and having worked a desk job for a majority of his life....... but it would be funny if he used cait sith similarly to how lulu fights w her dolls......... and being (like lulu) black mage...esque.. the way aerith is white mage esque

probably has a gun too. just to be safe

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have irls that always devolve into talkin ab the 3ds w ..... unfortunately i dont care ab the 8th gaming gen nearly as much as i care ab the 3ds.................................. every game that utilized the dual screens ended up being so unique gameplay wise i wonder if well evr see a gen of games where the console was part of th art of the game. not evry case but still a majority of the 3ds catalogue is pretty near n dear 2 my heart

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im bewitched by reeve tuesti currently..... ff7 rebirth hit in a funny way.

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playing bloodborne for the first time and having a "guy whos only played x" moment but with drakengard of all things

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i wanna uhhhhhh update my ffxvi post: i did end up giving it a chance and so i will elaborate on the Me (tm) official review: theres a lot buckle in (spoilers for th3 entire game)

ok.,,,,,,...... now dat were all here letz go

First id just like to say soken delivers another phenomenal soundtrack(no surprize there) Historie - the holy empire and Titan lost are some of my favorite tracks in the game i cannot say i expected anything otherwise and it was a delight to get to every major dominant battle to hear what he cooked

on the topic of battle the gameplay was another huge plus for me. when all else failed i found myself returning to ffxvi for the gameplay alone because it is very genuinely fun, fast paced, and i enjoyed the variety of each eikon it kept rhe game fresh for me espically when it slowed down in every other aspect, i enjoyed every eikon battle to death whenever i couldnt decide if i /liked/ the game while playing i remember fighting titan. i had no clue how the fight would play out despite being late to the scene and i was blown away by how good it was. everything about it was so enjoyable it honestly empowered me to get to the rest of them and bahamut was just as much of a treat. it helped i love dion (i will be getting to characters) and his phase themes (beyond the heavens&ascension) were brilliant. the bahamut fight much like titan did not disappoint. for me at least it felt odin had a bit of a much welcomed difficulty spike enjoyed that fight a lot even if it wasnt as cinematic as bahamut and titan

speaking of... cinematic scenes were a weak point to me.. as cool as they were and they /were/ i cant help but feel like there had to be a better way to interrupt the fight. sometimes it really took me out of the moment to have my fight paused to just like press a button or mash or some shit. its fine just got old /fast/

as far as the rest of the battles they were all fun adn well and good.. i enjoyed every fight theme and found every fight mostly enjoyable although i cant help but feel the DPS check section fighting ultima where you kinda fly arounf him in circles would have been leagues more fun if it was a drakengaerd 3 style synced to thr music event... imagine that....it would be so awesome it woukd be so cool................. anyway as far as the actual final fight.. well lets get to the characters and story first

i wont be discussing the controversy surrounding the game because, despite it impacting my experience playing the game in very real ways, it just isnt what i wanna get into in this base post

alright. maybe i wasnt paying rnough attention but the story to me fell apart when ultima became a bigger actor on the stage. absolutely dont get the lad or the crystals. were destroying yhe mother crystals cos theyre killimg the planet fine well and good the story's pacing in this part was really wonk to me haha it would go from desperately boring an sluggish to fun for a moment and then just so boring again. it wasnt until the final two mother crystals when i became invested in whats happening. the mothercrystal plot twist was like oh ok well cid died for nothing /shrug i really dgaf either way i only really care my beloved mid. i really found myself most invested when characters i liked specifically becme involved with the plot (dion its dion its always dion)

dion's story to me was easily the best (yes my favorite heavensward character was aymeric. whos fucking surprised) fang and and vanille always had the most profound impact on me as far as ff relations go and its def because they were the closest thing we had to a canonical queer relationship and i will say dion and terance felt.. good? i know theyre not the /best/ and fang and vanille were leagues ahead of them a decade ago bit theres that just the way theres no question about their queerness just felt so good to see as a long time queer fan of the series who put up w its homophobic moments lol........... they were definitely a genuine highlight for me and their relationship was so beautiful and refreshing i wish we saw more of them.. especially because clive and jill just did not hit lolll. i couldnt believe how little i resonated with clive, joshua too. for me i usually have no problem relating to the main cast they all feel so human and real even when theyre cartoonish theres an undeniable down to earthness and relatability of most of the ff main casts i just couldnt bring myself to really care about clive

jill's story was for a brief moment something interesting and exciting. this was a woman in a yoshi p game w her own arc where the male character plays a fully supportive role and she isnt put in a passive role for her own story to move someone elses development along jill for the briefest moment maintains her own active will to get closure on her trauma where she isnt punished for it its just so disappointing its her only moments in the game. her character arc is chapters short and afterwards she would almost exclusively play passive roles, even giving clive her powers after they share an equally intimate scene both naked and venerable only for a dynamic to be reinserted through the form of dominant's power

clive was just nothing to me, i honestly tried to like him and i did mostly enjoy joshua as a character but i just did not ever care for his story ultima was so unfleshed out and strange ffxvi was best when it was pretty grounded to the on continent conflicts, the story doesnt feel like it was built around ultima the story honestly feels like it was built around the empire and ultima was an after thought. and man vs empire and then suddenly extraterrestrial/celestial freaks are involved isnt even uncommon ff plot progression. i could play like 5 other final fantasy games at that point. if the combat in ffxvi werent so addicting it would have nothing. (untrue of course it always has a brilliant soundtrack) i just really did not like the way the game built off itself it never felt natural or believable. none of the conflict with ultima felt grounded or natural or like it was built up in any meaningful way

i really dont understand the hype around clive hes very genuinely just a pretty face. i just dont care about u at all no matter how hard i tried

i never cared about hugo or benedickta either, although theyre like tertiary antagonists to be fair

joshua was another highlight for me. hes just very polite and jote was cute if definitely underutilized. i really dont have much else to say i wasnt surprised he died

clive i knew would die, that was a spoiler i knew w out a doubt going in and i was completely disappointed in it anyway. joshua made sense at Least he was basically dying the entire game and dion well. it makes sense yoshi p would kill the one gay man we cant have shit in eorzea but seeing clives entire arc be no dont kill yourselfffffff..... the world and its endless beauty is a bounty of possibilities and meaning. just to die anyway feels well. it just feels and to be fair clive did sacrifice himself for the lives of others but the scene where cid tells clive not to kill himself- regardless of how ungentle he put it- just feels so empty because well clive u could hav just killed yourself there i guess. sorry you were a slave for 13 years youll die before you get to live your life for yourself. like cmon narratively a more satisfying arc for him would have been to overcome this and live for himself even if he has to live w out joshua. he can move on hes done it partially before hes accepted himself he must live but he doesnt get to

its a shame. also unrelated the final fantasy namedrop made me reel but i forgave it for honestly being a little camp......... the lodestone name drop is Not forgiven. just horrible someone shpuld be fired

i dont really have much else to say and out of a desire to post this soon im gonna wrap it up. honestly i had high hopes for final fantasy 16 and im not one to go "oh final fantasy now sucks" because i Love ff13. i love ff15. i liked ff14 a normal amount. but ff16 just felt underwhelming compared to them.. it looked leagues better dont get me wrong even if ill always think ff13 is visually the best out of 'modern' final fantasy for its incredible cgi cutscenes good art direction and the ps3 charm the realtime cutscenes in 16 sometimes felt undynamic in comparison but real time vs cgi is very literally games hardware vs movie so........ not comparable tbh the environment and general worldbuilding of 16 was just so lackluster. the world felt so unreal even if it looked incredibly real, the plot was unfocused at times and inadequately built up, the characters are mostly uninteresting, and the character eith the most meaningful connection to clive was torgal. well torgal and cid but cid dies and leaves a gaping hole in the 'good character' category when it was just him mid and dion to begin with

still fun to hunt rank s's though ☝️

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ぬくい…ほこほこですよ…

It's warm...so nice..

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ちゃしろさんは　うちの中が気になるのよ

The orange white cat is interested in the inside of our house

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👎👎👎 i think abt nier and smtiv specifically and my tummy starts to hurt. i really like nier(brother) and flynn theyre a special type of special to me i luvv them,, idk i thinkits their kind of off putting and fucked up nature idk. i like them so much .idk im not explaining it well i cant really explain it its becos theyre like. fucked up (affectionately) but r still like presented as legendary / story book-esque heroes ...... idk i like when they kill things and stuff

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