Ultimecia *Dissidia spoilers*

Her Ex-Form consists of a very well known fragment, which is Griever. No matter what the opponent she faces, she always use Griever. I mean, it would make more sense if whenever Ultimecia faces a different enemy (other than Squall), she would read his/her mind and create the fearest/strongest thing from them and fight away because that's obviously one of her strongest abilities. I rate her Manifesting ability higher than her Freezing Time ability, and yet her FT ability is shown in the game.

Any reason why? I only have five explanations:

#1 It would take SquareEnix a lot of more effort to create 18 different Ultimecia Ex-Forms for the other 18 characters. This shouldn't overbuffer the capacity of a DL UMD, as Dissidia is stored at around 1.6gb and a dual-layer UMD is worth 1.8 GB. Enough 200mb for 18 different Ex-Forms? I think so.

#2 Griever is the most utterly powerful creature ever, not only from Squall's mind, but also from all existences. Rendering the strongest/fearest things from the other characters absolutely useless. Hence, she sticks with using Griever in every single battle. The real question here is what made her think that Griever is just ... the goddiest thing ever? I think it's either the symbolism between Squall and Rinoa, or herself alone has contributed to that. If it's the latter, then Ultimecia must have had found Rinoa to be the most dramatic sorceress ever and begun envying her. I'm 100% confident that Ultimecia has learnt about Griever from Rinoa in FF8.

#3 R=U (+ the Artemisia theory). Rinoa has never truly disbelieved, distrusted or betrayed Squall due to thier amazing symbolism. Both of them absolutely loved each other unlike any other couple. When Squall shared about his Griever story to Rinoa, she totally have bought that attention (the ring). So, in the future (after the FF8 ending): Squall dies. Rinoa just couldn't face what happened, her true love has totally lost. In reality, men usually die yonger than women. Anyway, since she's a powerful sorceress, it's LIKELY that she has done something bad due to her desperation. As a result, the high-tech soldiers from Esthar have finally caught and imprisioned her at Sorceress Memorial for many years, just like what they did to Adel. Causing Rinoa to be completely out of control, destroying herself. She's begun forgetting her fond memories about Squall and others. However, the soldiers have forgetten to remove the necklace from Rinoa. While imprisioned, Griever is the only physical thing existing in her own eyes (similar to the incident in space). Which made her think that Griever is actually on her side, and that everything else is “bad and wrong”.

When her imprisonment is ended, she's changed. Probably didn't even know her own name. Someone must have gave her a name (Ultimecia), and well you know what happened next. She has made a mistake passing her own powers to Matron, d-oh! Not her fault, really because it's known that within a few seconds away before you die, you instantly become into an unknown state (due to the defeated status) and you HAVE to pass your powers to someone. You just cannot have the enough strength to think which person should you pass your own powers onto.

#4 Perhaps Dissida is 100% uncanonical, that the Dissida plot has absolutely nothing to do with any Final Fantasy game. Including the gameplay and the designs/features of all Final Fantasy characters after all. But then again, I think it's quite normal to feel like questioning the applied mechanisms from a specific Final Fantasy game into a fighting game. Every character in Dissidia has been re-shaped, re-modified a bit (e.g. Squall now have a Griever face on his belt.) However, thier overalls are still the same.

Which explanation should I go for? I'm tied between #2 and #3. Reasons why I didn't choose #1 and #4

#1 Not just Ultimecia, but the other characters also have thier specific abilities not shown in the game as well. So, it wouldn't be fair if SquareEnix did all 18 different Ex-Forms for Ultimecia and not doing anything to the other characters. Even if SquareEnix did everything (adding more and more abilities for each character, making sure that nothing is missing) then they would require a UMD design that can store more than 2gb ... Actually, I'm not sure because Dissida has the ability to store its files into your memory card so that your PSP can load data quicker. If SquareEnix uses this method to add more abilities and more stuff to Dissida via MC in the future, then I'm sure that would be possible.

#4 It appears that the game is not 100% canonical, as Cosmos has talked with specific characters about thier histories in thier own Final Fantasy games ... However, there's something strange about Cosmos. I don't think Cosmos is real. How could she acknowledge every history of every character? She's like Dream Fayth in FFX ... motivating each character to reach thier goals. I've tried looking for a statement made by SquareEnix regarding Dissida being 100% canonical or not. There's really none. Actually, there's one but it didn't really answer the question:

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-The "FF" series' characters which appear in this game already have their own stories but how will they be introduced?

TA: " Dissidia: Final Fantasy"'s story is not directly linked to the "FF" stories these characters come from. However, we have designed it so that, as you get closer to the game's ending, there will be some kind of link you can see relating to each one of them. Also, although this is a different world and story, the characters will keep their recognisable personalities so fans can rest assured. (Laughs)

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Small Griever:

http://img3.imageshack.us/img3/1923/...ciagriever.gif

Bigger Griever:

http://www.finalfantasytr.com/ff8/ultimecia-2-1.jpg

Hmm, I guess a bigger griever in Dissida wouldn't work. So, this has to be unrelated. But... Ultimecia merging with Griever... Rinoa has the Griever necklace kind-of-merged as well (itself on her upper chest.) In the first picture, her arms appear to be crossed. I'm not sure if crossing your own arms is supposed to mean anything, any clue?

In Dissidia, Ultimecia was seen touching Squall before attempting to kill him in a time-freeze manner:

http://img7.imageshack.us/img7/6498/...hingsquall.gif

Interesting.
Her time-freeze ability contains two dimensions: one dimension is froze in time (everything in existence), the other dimension is only herself... BTW, this was shown in the Dissida storyline, not gameplay.
Therefore, it's possible that Ultimecia has had dimensioned unseen timelines (no, it's not TC) in FF8 for her own needs ...

http://img3.imageshack.us/img3/2651/...cia2ndform.gif

Why does she have blue stripes on her lower legs? Shows the same in both of her forms... I'm guessing it's cause of the re-modification but I can't help it... blue stripes ?? looks like some sort of a symbol.

http://img3.imageshack.us/img3/9043/...fingernail.gif

Her long finger nails!

Edea`s finger nails

http://img4.imageshack.us/img4/3845/edeafingernail.gif

They both look quite the same! Matron doesn't have these long fingernails (before she was first given powers or possessed by Ultimecia.) Dr. Odine is hiding something here! He claimed that Ultimecia from the future sends her consciousness into here. That is not entirely accurate because when she is inside Edea, she can physically change her look! The long fingernails, eyes colours, and so on. When Ultimecia leaves Edea's body, Edea still have the long fingernails and the look!!
Does Dr Odine have a fetish for long fingernails? Is that why he's not telling the truth? Anyway, Future Esthar is correct, there's something dodgy about Dr Odine, no doubt about it. The reason why I'm posting this bit is because of Rinoa. When Rinoa was possessed (do you know how many times had she been possessed?), Ultimecia never bothered changing her look! Very suspicious :eek: :p

I think it's that Dissidia is not part of any of the games cannon. A parallel example of this is Super Smash Brothers. Zeldas B, Nayru's love does damage and reflects projectiles. In OoT where it originates, it's nullifies damage. Interesting interpritation though.

I'm going with non-canon.

The production team, I heard, chose the Griever form cause they wanted Ultemacia's EX form to stand out and yet be instantly identifiable for the fans. Its modified cause they probably couldn't get her real version to work in the game specs, both EX-Death and Sephiroth were also modified cause their true ultimate forms couldn't work with the games specs. Thus they were toned down or completely modified. Though I hear Nomura enjoyed making Ultemacia's new EX form. :D

I searched Dissidia in Wikipedia & it seems its another parallel universe deal

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Originally Posted by qwertysaur

I think it's that Dissidia is not part of any of the games cannon. A parallel example of this is Super Smash Brothers. Zeldas B, Nayru's love does damage and reflects projectiles. In OoT where it originates, it's nullifies damage. Interesting interpritation though.

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That's without throwing in the non-cannonness of Zelda kicking the crap out of a giant floating hand.

was the 'in squalls mind the strongest gf' bit supposed to mean it only existed in squalls mind or that in his opinion it was the strongest gf

i always thought it was the latter
has anything ever been confirmed on this?

First, Dissidia is non-canon. None of Dissidia's characters or subplots are canon for their original games.

Second, Square chose Griever for some very solid reasons:

a) Square has been building the corresponding hero/villain relationships in every Dissidia pairing. Jecht was chosen as X's villain for his tie to Tidus. It was designed for better character development and more in-depth story. Choosing Griever gives Ultimecia a stronger tie to Squall, emphasizing their pairing in the game.

b) Square wanted EX forms to be recognizable to fans. Ultimecia doesn't have a huge set of abilities in FFVIII, but one of the ones we did see was her junctioning herself to Griever. Choosing Griever has a lot more instant recognition to fans than a separate monster for each character. It's something every fan of FFVIII recognizes and connects to Ultimecia, it makes sense to use as her EX form.

c) Creating new EX forms for each opponent Ulti fought would be time consuming and unfair to the other characters. Ulti-Griever was an already designed character. They had to adapt it a little, but that's much easier than starting character creation from scratch for 21 different forms.

d)Getting that many forms would also be unfair to the other characters, who don't get to totally change their appearance due to whomever they're fighting.

I can see your point regarding Dissidia being not canon, but the problem is that Square-Enix hasn't yet confirmed it to be non-canon. Until then, they basically hint that it's up to the player to decide.

In my opinion, I think that the storyline of Dissida is no way connected with the main Final Fantasy storylines. However, I really think that the features, looks and personalities of characters in Dissidia were supposed to originate from thier main storylines. I think it's fair to say that Dissidia is not 100% canon.

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Square wanted EX forms to be recognizable to fans

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Yeah, but I hardly felt that Griever was easily recognisable for the most fans in general. Griever wasn't exactly a big thing in VIII. I'd say that Griever is more recognisable to R=U fans.

No, Griever is instantly recognizable to any fan who played through FFVIII. It is one of the few things in the game that shares a direct connection to Ultimecia. Nearly everything else we see is Ulti acting through other characters. Griever is one of the few things in the game that she does in person, and it is a physical transformation, both of which sort of make it a shoo-in for her EX form.

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Originally Posted by Serapy

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Square wanted EX forms to be recognizable to fans

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Yeah, but I hardly felt that Griever was easily recognisable for the most fans in general. Griever wasn't exactly a big thing in VIII. I'd say that Griever is more recognisable to R=U fans.

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Oh shenanigans! If you beat the game you know who Griever is. I hate the game and I know who Griever is. You see Griever just as much as you actually get to see Ultimecia, he is recognizable to FFVIII fans, so don't take that uppity tone.

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Originally Posted by Goldenboko

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Originally Posted by qwertysaur

I think it's that Dissidia is not part of any of the games cannon. A parallel example of this is Super Smash Brothers. Zeldas B, Nayru's love does damage and reflects projectiles. In OoT where it originates, it's nullifies damage. Interesting interpritation though.

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That's without throwing in the non-cannonness of Zelda kicking the crap out of a giant floating hand.

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Or rest causing an explosion. :spin:

I'm talking about players who overlooked the hardcoreity of VIII (even from other fans by any means of communication.) They are not going to notice Griever instantly. Goldenboko, it's obvious that you know what Griever was because that word has been mentioned on this forum quite a lot of time. Actually, it really depends because there are different types to define “VIII fans”.

When I bought VIII and played it till the end, I did not know much about Griever because it wasn't exactly big. This has happened to some of my friends too. But when I've started using the Internet for the first time, I've learnt more information about Griever.

It's quite ironic. Dissidia has mentioned something what R=U fans were eager to find out, such as Rinoa weapons' on Ultimecia, some of her dialogues (e.g. "Shall we dance?" and "I'll be waiting until the time comes".) and of course Griever. How wondeful of Square-Enix to add a nice Griever symbol on Squall's belt.

Since Griever is a part of the R=U theory, it's obvious that the fans would recognise Griever much deeper than the other types of fans.

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Originally Posted by Serapy

I'm talking about players who overlooked the hardcoreity of VIII (even from other fans by any means of communication.) They are not going to notice Griever instantly. Goldenboko, it's obvious that you know what Griever was because that word has been mentioned on this forum quite a lot of time. Actually, it really depends because there are different types to define “VIII fans”.

Since Griever is a part of the R=U theory, it's obvious that the fans would recognise Griever much deeper than the other types of fans.

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Funny. You're an R=U fan, yet you didn't notice Griever until you got onto forums talking about it. Yet other people, who hate the R=U theory or have never heard of it, recognized Griever instantly from the game.

And from that you get the idea that Griever is more recognizable to R=U fans than it is to other fans? I think your reasoning is backwards (not that there is anything new to that).

About the fingernails. That is probably Ultimecia likes long fingernails, and since she controls Edeas body, allows them to grow and takes good care of them.

All of the Villains EX forms take from the final battles with them, barring Garland and Golbez. Ultimecia is not special because she has her fusion with Greiver.

A lot of players have heard of R=U before, including you, which means that Griever was mentioned again. If that's the case, then Griever has became a big thing. If R=U never happened, there would be less mention of Griever, which also means less people knowing what the Griever truly was.

I wonder, though, that if SquareSoft has never intended R=U to happen, would they still change some parts of Ultimecia in Dissida? Who knows.

Actually, I'm not just a fan of R=U, but also a fan of S=R.

Back to topic, I don't like the Ultimania. See, Ultimania is the perfect excuse for Square to admit thier mistakes; indirectly telling us additional information about the Final Fantasy games. For example, if Square has caused a plot error in VIII. No problem there, they can add thier additional information to the Ultimania, hoping to cure that plot error. They do not want to explicitly admit mistakes, so they write the Ultimanias instead. And, that's why I don't believe Ultimania to be perfectly canon. It has been proven that the VII Ultimania has some contradictions to the main VII game.

While its true the Ultimania have some glaring contradictions and omissions in them and I agree with you that they exist for the sole sake of changing information that conflict with what is established in the games; it doesn't change the fact they are retcons and thus are considered canon.