#ajora plays dffoo

[ajora]

ENNA! Enna Enna Enna! I love her. Posting for girlfriend.

Bonus: Changed my message from “Failing at Lufenia” to something more like Enna. 

[meimikana]

Meimiday 2022 Wall of Awesome

GET EXCITE!

January 28th is my birthday, dubbed Meimiday several years ago by my friends (I think it was hojo who started it). For those years, I would spend all day watching streams from said friends playing games for my birthday entertainment. Ten years ago, however, when asked what I’d like to see I kinda just went “Why don’t you just beat some games?” and so the festivities truly began. Most of us frequent the Backloggery, so it’s kinda easy to see why it has snowballed~

GET DEM X BUTTONS READY!

Neko :B: & :C: inbento :C: Piczle Cross Adventure :B: & :C: Travel Mosaics 7: Fantastic Berlin

cephiyumi :B: Castlevania: Harmony of Dissonance :B: Sisters Royale: Five Sisters Under Fire :B: Color Slayer :B: Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow :B: Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity

bat boss :B: Dark Souls: Remastered

Pally :C: Battletoads :B: Sega Ages: Thunder Force AC

eski514 :B: Sid Meier's Civilization® VI: Poland Civilization & Scenario Pack :M: Final Fantasy XIV Free Trial: A Realm Reborn (all relics created on free trial before unlocking HW) :B: Sakuya Izayoi Gives You Advice And Dabs :B: Castlevania: The Adventure :B: Crayon Physics Deluxe

Hojo :B: The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings :C: Rare Replay :C: Genesis Noir :C: Mega Man Legacy Collection :B: Dragon Quest Heroes: The World Tree's Woe and the Blight Below :C: Kickle Cubicle (At lassssst~)

Sobou :B: Super Neptunia RPG

Geminias :B: The Darkside Detective :B: The Darkside Detective: A Fumble In The Dark

Drumble :C: Shantae :C: Rampage :C: Eschalon Book II :B: Borderlands: Game of the Year Enhanced

iErebus :B: Metroid: Zero Mission :B: Super Mario Land

SaintTweeter :B: Deathsmiles 2 :B: Samurai Warriors 5 :B: Record of Lodoss War: Deedlit in Wonder Labyrinth

Lyndis :B: Daggerfall

Chris :B: Castlevania: Rondo of Blood

Trace Bullet :B: Retro City Rampage

Krile :B: Yoshi's Crafted World

kariohki :B: Theatrhythm Final Fantasy: Curtain Call

Rarutos :B: Boyfriend Dungeon :B: Taiko no Tatsujin: Rhythmic Adventure 1

Endaso :B: Hatred :C: Ego In A Coma (自我、状態、昏睡。) :B: Midnight Shift Remake

Try4ce :B: Guardians of the Galaxy

Slythex :C: Watch Dogs: Legion

Macc :C: Super Mario Bros. 2 :C: Kirby Squeak Squad

John :B: Azure Striker Gunvolt 2

fireemblemlord :B: Guilty gear -Strive- :B: Killer instinct

Honorable Mention: Floony (headed off on a trip to the ancestral birthplace of snow) :B: Final Fantasy IX

Honorable Mention: Young_Scott :B: New Pokemon Snap

Honorable Mention: PaperLink :P: Gal*Gunvolt Burst

Honorable Mention: Hojo :B: Mega Turrican

Honorable Mention: Ajora (My wonderful, amazing girlfriend~) :B: The FFV event in FFBE :B: The Jegran related event in DFFOO

[ajora]

Faris’ LD just dropped in global DFFOO. As I’d been following Japanese twitter users and expecting this, I saved up. Skipped other characters whose kit I wanted just for her.

The game was kind to me and just dumped her new LD weapon in my lap on the first free draw. Guess I’m gonna sink those gems in Butz and Galuf when their LDs come to global, instead ᕕ(ᐛ)ᕗ

Some comments:

Love that the game leaned hard on Dancer class for her. Gels well with her acrobatics in WoFF

Gladius is ugly, I’m keeping the Air Knife look for her.

Her LD board’s passives tosses out framed debuffs instantly at start of battle and it’s wonderful.

Relatedly, heh, Lenna’s LD, Yoichi’s Bow, finally dropped in Japanese DFFOO last month and it’s every bit as powerful as I hoped for. She uses !Mix, which has always been my favorite skill in FFV. Can’t wait to be useless in Lufenia for the rest of the year just to save up for it.

* Also I love how vaguely threatening her “おやすみ” (goodnight) is when she uses Dragon Breath.

[ajora]

I took some screenshots for @meimikana‘s annual birthday event. I got really lucky in that I got Ramza’s LD weapon on the first draw last night, and his BT on the third. I just decided to pour all my resources into beefing him out, because he’s from one of my favorite games (Final Fantasy Tactics) and I genuinely respect that his character arc was fighting the Church to save his sister. And there was that whole thing where he got involved in uncovering the Church’s lies and manipulations. Ramza’s one of the few male characters I still care about.

Threw in some ExDeath screens just for personal amusement. The localization really makes him sound like a preacher.

Bonus: Ramza’s Burst is Ultima and uses the FFT spell text, which is a touch I really appreciate. Also appreciated the grass whistle nod in his LD passive skill. And of course the special Escutcheon that’s probably the one you get at the temple ruins in FFT by knocking Rafa’s courage down to chicken levels and having her climb up Worker 8 to get to the treasure on the top of the column. Kinda wish the Excalibur here had the FFT Excalibur buffs, though. 

Fun fact! The burst mode uses one of FFT’s battle themes, and each battle Ramza goes burst in ends with FFT’s fanfare theme. Yeah, all the Burst modes do the same with their respective character, but I just really love FFT, y’all.

[ajora]

Ultimate wife finally gets her EX+ weapon :3. I purpled her immediately. Still trying to get Faris’ EX+.

Also, I’m really tempted to get her alt sprite because it’s Lenna.

[ajora]

Oh no. Oh no, two sprite-based Lennas. I am too gay to handle this. 

[ajora]

Misc dffoo screencaps, comments in the captions.

I’ve been taking as much advantage as I can of the Cosmos-level co-op events and while I have some great arts for Lenna and Faris (and the others boosted for the event, but Lenna and Faris are the only ones I have maxed out), they’re still not perfect.

[ajora]

Finally got Faris’ EX+! And also purpled her immediately. 

A detail I really appreciate is that her EX+ weapon is the Air Knife. It’s not super powerful on its own, but it has the special effect of boosting wind element attacks. Ergo, combining it with summoning Syldra and he’s easily as powerful as Bahamut for half of the MP cost. So this game making the Syldra summon a skill gifted by the EX+ weapon is perfect. 

Also: that is a tiny Syldra. He’s supposed to be longer than a blue whale. But, given the game limitations, I understand. 

Another nice detail is the whirlpool counter attack passive Faris has, as a nod to her jumping into a dragon-generated whirlpool at 15 because why the hell not.

Also also, I think Lenna’s passive comes with her being immune to status effects now? Or something like that. It’s a nice touch given how prone she is to getting poisoned. 

[ajora]

Oh hey, I sorta completely forgot I had these in draft, so here are more DFFOO screencaps. Commentary in captions.

Kinda wished I played FFXI now because I kinda want to ship Lion and Arciela, but wow is my luck terrible and they’re probably secretly long lost sisters because that always happens to me, ugh.

[ajora]

Misc DFFOO screenshots. Yeah I’m not uber/meta/whatever the newest slang is, but I’ve been having my fun.

Also, Shantotto’s size difference to almost everyone else is always comical to me, because she’s often also more powerful in co-op. 

[ajora]

Misc screencaps as I wait for webinar to finish. Lenna’s enhancement boards just came out so I, uh, took all the points I was saving for Ramza’s and just dumped them into hers without a second thought.

Commentary in captions.

[ajora]

I forgot that I never uploaded these!

From the Agrias Lost Chapter in Dissidia Final Fantasy Opera Omnia. Prishe clearly ships it and I’m here for it.

[ajora]

Continuation of screenshot spam because I love Lenna, etc etc.

Notes I probably can’t fit into captions:

The dragon mentioned, the hiryuu/sky dragon/wind drake/flying dragon/ however-you-want-to-translate-飛竜, was never actually given a name. It’s just always called by its species name because Alexander’s (and later Lenna’s once Alexander dies) sky dragon was the only one left in their world

From the books, it’s said that the hiryuusou/dragonweed/etc/however-you-want-to-translate-飛竜草 was growing more and more toxic before the game, leading to a decline in populations* because their species was so dependent on the dragonweed. I just wonder now if it was always toxic to humans, or if the dragonweed population on North Mountain was somehow the one variant that hadn’t gone toxic.

Someone please point me to a fic where Lightning and Faris commiserate over impulsive younger sisters, while Serah and Lenna commiserate over overprotective older sisters

I really need to watch FFXIII videos because it’s one of the few FFs I haven’t played and wanted to play but couldn’t on account of not having the console it’s on

* The hiryuu of Final Fantasy V are the koalas of dragons. They’re so dependent on one main** food source that it’s driven them to extinction on two worlds. 

** Apparently they also eat bugs, but they need to eat dragongrass. To be fair, bugs can get big in FF worlds, but also? it’s a miracle the hiryuu take in enough calories to fly.

[ajora]

Something I wish was, er, better examined is that while there is an element of a trans narrative in Faris’ background, it’s not the one that Western fandom runs with. Points:

She was born one way and assigned another way when she was found by pirates

She did not get a choice in this. She was 5 years old. May I point out another character who did not get a choice in this? Oscar from Rose of Versailles, who I suspect is at least a contributing factor to Faris’ development as a character (not to mention generations of East Asian stories about women assuming male identities to access male privilege)

It would have been dangerous to come out as a woman in a society that’s implied to be pretty sexist (cf: her lines expressing concerns over the pirates treating her like a fool for being a woman; this is more apparent in Japanese and I’ve never seen it really translated well*)

Most importantly: I have never seen a Japanese fan say they see her as a trans man. There’s some implication that she might be nonbinary in a secondary publishing, as pointed out by a Japanese fan I shadow-stalk, but I do not have that book and can’t say for sure. 

* My translations, and please forgive the roughness as I should be in bed by now: “Around the time when I was small, I was found by pirates and grew up as one.“ “So then you pretended to be a man?” “The pirates would make a fool of me because I’m a woman.“ [the line where Galuf says she’s too pretty to be a man is here] “But hey! Don’t treat me like a fool because I’m a woman!“ (thanks to this page for providing the dialogue in Japanese)

She is very, very explicit about identifying as a woman and says she is one twice.

[ajora]

Uploading オペオム screenshots while I wait for teleconference to start. Commentary in captions.

Notes:

The Dissidias bank on nostalgia and wow do I not mind. It’s good to see old faves and remember why I didn’t like others.

The older I get, the less I like the ladykiller-type characters. Petition to throw Edgar, Edge, and Zidane off a floating continent

The older I get, the less I like Laguna, too. He’s too old to be acting like he has no responsibilities. I also seem to remember that he’s a president of... whicheverstan. I wasn’t a huge fan of FF8

tbh it all feels like the crossover fanfics of old and I am not complaining.

Once you level Maria and Yuna nicely, they’re fantastically powerful. 

You get the FF5 girls through lost chapters, rather than the main story, and I’m side-eyeing that decision.

Bonus:

Seifer is a mess. I do like that they’re expanding on his knight complex though.

[ajora]

Holy shit, is that actual characterization for Ultimecia? She had practically none in her original game. Which, honestly, is a shame because I love her design.