Fynn's Final Fantasy Fmarathon

[Fynn]

The funky guitars were also cool


See, I do think VIII's soundtrack is good. Just one of the weakest in the series. But that's still a very high bar.

[Wolf Kanno]

Of Nobuo's work, I would honestly say X and XI are his weakest works personally. Course he didn't do all of the pieces for either OST and in the case of FFX, I prefer his stuff over the other composers but they're still the weakest for me. VIII's OST is like Chrono Cross and FFXIII's OST for me. Great when you listen to them by themselves but they often suck as soundtracks because it's difficult to remember when any of them play beyond major themes that get overplayed or irritating tracks. It just doesn't work as a soundtrack to me but musically I find the album is not so bad.

[Fynn]

For me it's mostly a matter of really poor arrangements. And a lot of tracks that are just pointless filler.

Oh, and look at Blue Fields for example - the Symphonic version and piano version are really nice because they don't have that weird Jamaican drum thing playing the main melody. The Oath and Fisherman's Horizon - same thing. And every arrangement of Eyes on Me that isn't Eyes On Me is incredibly boring.

[maybee]

Guys, we need to start up a charity, for Fynn, he needs better ears.



50 cents a day, so Fynn can enjoy the FF VIII soundtrack

[Fynn]

My ears are fine, maybee. I am actually a trained musician! I know how painful it might be to accept that you're wrong


Srsly,though, it's still good. It's just that most other FF soundtracks are miles better

[Fynn]

Beat four tonberries!

16 more to go

[Fynn]

Beat the tonberry king!

[Fynn]

Got stuck behind the car in Balamb lol

[Fynn]

So im at the orphanage scene and... it's really not as bad as I remembered?

[maybee]

I've always loved the orphanage bit, because it makes it like everybody is within a non-blood related family. It's like saying that family doesn't equal to blood relation.

Just make it so not EVERYBODY expect Rinoa grew up in the orphanage and it would of been a fine and cute plot-twist. Remove Quistis and Seifer imo.

[Fynn]

Also, there's something curious about this game that I really haven't seen people comment on, which is weird.

But has anyone noticed how naked the espers are in this game?

I mean, Shiva is wearing nothing but body paint - which is still better than what Ifrit and Siren got, since apparently the only thing protecting their modesty are their pubes!

[Fox]

My issue with the orphanage is not that everyone grew up together, but rather that they forgot about it due to the GF. There's no good reason for the en mass amnesia apart from to hide the fact that Matron is Edea, but that could have been handled in a different way. Also I hate massive coincidences, so the fact that you join up with SeeDs from Trabia (Selphie) and Galbadia (Irvine) during your adventure and by an astonishing twist of fate they were both in your little orphanage group as well just stretches my suspension of disbelief beyond breaking point.

Honestly its a real shame they didn't just have everyone remember each other from the orphanage from the start, it could have made for some really interesting group dynamics

[Fynn]

Meh. I'm not too bothered, since there is an actual in-game explanation. Plus, the scene itself is really nice.

[Fynn]

Got the Ragnarok, so I'm basically done with disc 3. Time to farm some Malboros and get all those Espers and best weapons!

Here's some thoughts, since I made a lot of progress since my last update.
- I'm surprised with how cohesive and well put-together the story is. Honestly, VIII was one of those games I was least looking forward to, and it ended up being one of the coolest parts of this marathon, in part because of how well the plot is done.

- Though it has its quirks, I still think that overall it feels much more polished than VII which had really high highs, but incredibly low lows. I guess the fact that this is one of those entries where large parts of the fanbase consider it a "black sheep" makes me more lenient towards it.

- Disc 3 has a similar problem to VII's Disc 2, but not quite to the same extent. Like I said, the orphanage scene may have been heavy-handed, but it was subtly set up and I think it works fairly well. The stuff, here, however? Suddenly we're going to space? And then there's this big block? And apparently monsters come from the moon and they're about to fall but this hasn't been brought up by anyone until now even though it totally should have been because HOLY CRAP A MASSIVE CALAMITY IS ABOUT TO HAPPEN AND PEOPLE KNEW ABOUT IT!?

- No track embodies how I feel about the soundtrack better than the Esthar theme. It's a very nicely composed track, but the arrangement is just bafflingly terrible. Owl hoots and whistles? Seriously, Nobuo? That's how you want to introduce this marvelous high-tech society?

- That Ragnarok scene was unnecessarily padded. I like that there was a gimmick to beating the monsters, but it got incredibly irritating that only after beating half of them twice already that only then the game decided it should tell me how this thing works.

- I wish Edea could stay in the party for longer

- OK, seriously. What is up with Adel looking like a 12-foot-tall male bodybuilder? I'm mostly asking you here, Wolf Kanno, since you've probably read an Ultimania or something (it's kinda your thing). I don't even mean a story reason or anything, I just mean design-wise. What was Nomura's reasoning for this? I'm genuinely curious, since this was always one of those really interesting things about FFVIII that never get a proper explanation.

[Bubba]

I guess this means I'm due to disappear again soon as I haven't played FFIX!