Let's Play the BEST GAME EVER!!! (FFIX)

[Pumpkin]

We are back and getting to the end of the game, can you believe it? A few sections left and they're pretty story heavy so bare with me. Afterwards I will be hopping right in to Final Fantasy VIII if that interests you!
(SPOILER)
First thing's first, Zidane finds a spot for Garnet to rest, but he starts not feeling so hot himself

Eiko meanwhile is asking the locals for some medicine without much success

>Eiko travels to a whole new place with a different culture
>Calls them all weirdos

Anyways, cute pink Zidane from before shows up and asks where Zidane is, which Eiko misconstrues as flirting

Her response doesn't do much to clarify things, let's be honest

Eiko, as you can see, is having none of it. Ain't nobody allowed to flirt with the man her bestie is in love with that she has a crush on

Back with the others, Garnet is resting and Freya notices that Zidane has been a bit gloomy

Garnet wakes up and explains why she fainted when she saw The Invincible

It's because she realized what we realized a whole disc ago

So Zidane glooms about and heads to the Underground Laboratory after Eiko begrudgingly gives him the message and upon seeing the people in the weird test tube like things, he realizes what's been going on

Pink Zidane explains a bit more to fill in some of the blanks

And Regular Zidane is pretty bummed about the whole thing

After wondering why he's not a zombie like the other Genomes

STOP FLIRTING OMG

She basically explains how the Genomes are basically without souls and that Garland made them

See the Genomes aren't the Terran people. They're basically soulless vessels. If you remember the Oeilvert section, Terra fell on some hard times etc

Well that doesn't sound concerning!

Oh, okay!

When Zidane asks why now, Pink Zidane explains that they had to wait until the right time

Garnet gets worried about Zidane and sends Eiko out to look for him. But he is first found by Quina who tries to find the food in every situation

After awkwardly licking the stone to taste it, he sees Zidane who is moping about.

Elsewhere in town, Vivi is trying to converse with the Genomes, who aren't being very responsive. When Zidane comes along, Vivi says they remind him of how the Black Mages were when the first saw them way back on the cargo ship

Can't tell if insulting or not

After Zidane mops away some more and talks to Amarant about how mopey they both are, he meets back up with Pink Zidane so that he can go and meet with Garland

People with castles are so pretentious

Eiko saunters up after Zidane leaves and wonders why he went alone, not fully believing Mr. Teamwork WOULD go alone

Sensing that something is off, Eiko rushes to get the others

Zidane, meanwhile, magical tree harp teleports to Garland's castle

And immediately insults it

We meet up with Garland who is basically all business and not at all concerned about us showing up in his soul castle unannounced.

Zidane is pretty upset about the whole Terra taking over Gaia thing that Pink Zidane mentioned

"I don't want to destroy Gaia, I just want to essentially destroy it"


So anyways more plot dump about the genome sent to disrupt the flow of souls on Gaia through war

Omg Zidane, you can't just ask people why they don't have tails

So he's basically a teenager

Garland continues to walk very slowly through his castle while monologuing

But you see, eventually Kuja would die, so he made a new Genome, Zidane, to essentially replace him

It's not uncommon for an older sibling to feel rejected when a newborn arrives in to the family

That is usually less common though

So he creates wars because wars mean more deaths which means more soul stuff

And yes, we did do that Zombie Tree battle on disc 2, but Garland assures us that we didn't stop anything

He also shows us his nifty glowing soul globe

I wish I had one.

So after all of that, Zidane is pretty bummed that it turns out he was created to destroy Gaia

And so he reacts in the most reasonable way possible

Uh, sure

And he decides to do it solo because it's a family matter or whatever, but with everything going on, he kind of has a breakdown

And thus did FFIX sum up depression

He is woken up by Vivi and Eiko

But Zidane is not really feeling it

After the two press him further, he snaps

He leaves them behind and ends up in a fight against a beastie, when Freya and Amarant arrive to rescue him

After leaving them behind, he runs in to Quina and Steiner who are also concerned about him

Aww, he cares about him

But Zidane leaves them behind too

We end up in another fight and Garnet has to show up to heal our sorry behinds

And fuss at us a little bit too

Okay, a lot

Garnet gets upset at him again because the whole game he was Mr. Friendship and always there telling them to rely on him, but he won't do the same

A few others arrive to show that she's right and they care about our hero

You tell 'em Quina

They're besties now :3

And with that, Zidane's character comes full circle. He apologizes for being a jackass and the group decides they're going to go kill Garland TOGETHER

BECAUSE FRIENDSHIP IS POWER or something to that effect

Next time we go face off against Garland and probably get to the last disc. Stay tuned~