#slow reaction time doesn't mean I don't wanna try with training wheels on :P

[liketheinferno2]

few disconnected things about xvi:

The big eikon fights are all LONG like bare minimum ten minutes I think I was on titan for thirty. To make this bearable they're in checkpoint phases like xiv raids. I like it. Unfortunately I have a habit of pausing to talk to people and then completely forgetting what I was doing so left Clive in the knife edge of Zantetsuken for 2 hours.

These summons are as classic as you get for like... narrative function. I'm a huge fan of old ff summoners where they're just kind of born this way and the visual on it is the form of this god creature overtaking their entire body. Less classic when most characters only get one eikon but very effective. Jumping out of my seat about some of this stuff I love gamma ray level megaflare. Titan the size of an mountain dwarfing summons as tall as buildings. Odin's SCARY in this one man maybe it's just me... but when the guy on the other end can sever anything he perceives as capable of being severed that's the sort of thing I love to see with reality bending fantasy powers.

I'm about 90% of the way done I think... at this point it is coming back again and again to this thesis of choice and autonomy as essential to human life and worth fighting for, for yourself and others. This story has an interesting presentation where characters can be very groundedly human having literal conversations at some points and theatrical actors posed for effect at others. Not a bad thing, feels very Utena-like to me. The eikon pulling scenes too, I have to compare it to sword pulls? Like this isn't sex but it can be intimate/caring/painful/violating in a very personal way... I'm just counting on my fingers here but you see it used like 1. By accident, painful and stressful for both parties, 2. on purpose, pushing Clive fearfully into a new life like he becomes a Bigger Adult, 3. to assert dominance, bad for everybody, 4. out of caring to gain understanding of another person, 5. out of love and trust willfully given, 6. forced and violent in that weird theatrical way I was talkin about earlier.. looking back on these as a whole I feel gears turning.

Kinda shoujo kinda berserk kinda thing you have to embrace the chuuni to get into. Other thing that keeps crossing my mind is how much this feels like ff's take on a Guts and Casca. OTHER other thing is how much this feels like this team's take on ff7's Avalanche, ff15's mistakes, ff4's drama with ff14's design ethos. REMINDS ME OF A LOT OF THINGS I LOVE BUT IS ALSO DISTINCTLY IT'S OWN THING both in and outside the bounds of the rest of the series. Not really getting the GoT comparison but that was low hanging fruit for lazy critics in the first place lol.

Also really really really good at portraying gentle touches and the sense that these characters feel safe in each other's arms and I love that shit. I'll hold off for now with the pictures but almost my entire photo library for ff16 is characters holding each other or saying some gay shit or both at once. Stopping myself here but there's your thinking out loud gamer post for the week o/