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Episode 254: The Emotional Impact of Final Fantasy Story Related Cards
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Hello, Podwalkers, and welcome back to another episode of the Goblin Lore Podcast! Taya and Alex find another excuse to talk about the upcoming Final Fantasy series while Hobbes takes a night off. They cover cards and story beats for several games, mostly the four from the commander decks (6, 7, 10, 14) focusing on cards covering emotional scenes and struggles for the characters involved. The potential mental health impacts of these scenes are explored as part of our commitment to May and Menta Health Awareness Month!
Warning that this episode does have spoilers for FF as we know that some people might be coming to these games (as old as some of them are) through Magic the Gathering!
Reminder that at the end of the month there will be a charity event for NAMI that the podcast is greatly committed to helping!
We also finally have a Linktree with all of our discounts/resources
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As promised, we keep Mental Health Links available every episode. But For general Mental Health the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) has great resources for people struggling with mental health concerns as well as their families. We also want to draw attention to this article on stigma from NAMI's site.
If you’re thinking about suicide or just need someone to talk to right now, you can get support from any of the resources below.
- National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 988
- Veteran's can Press 1 at anytime to be taken to the Veteran's Line
- Crisis Text Line: Text HOME to 741-741
- International suicide hotlines: A comprehensive resource list for people outside the US.
- IMAlive: Click Chat Now to access a live online network of volunteers through instant messaging.
- TrevorLifeline, TrevorChat, and TrevorText (LGBTQ+ crisis support): 1-866-488-7386, or text “Trevor” to 1-202-304-1200
- Trans Lifeline (US): (877) 565-8860
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Opening and closing music by Wintergatan (@wintergatan). Logo art by Steven Raffael (@SteveRaffle)
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Transcript
Introductions and Episode Overview
00:00:00
Speaker
are
00:00:29
Speaker
Hello, Podwalkers, and welcome to another episode of Goblin Lawyer Pod. It is one of your hosts, Taya. Pronouns are she, her, or they, them. Hey, we're actually doing introductions at the beginning of the podcast for once. What do you think about that, Alex?
00:00:43
Speaker
that's That's really novel. I think maybe maybe it'll catch on. yeah ah Yeah, that is Alex. Hobbs is not with us tonight, so we're going to take the opportunity to discuss some more Final Fantasy while he's not here, but why don't go ahead and introduce yourself first. Oh, sure. I'm Alex, as Taya said. Pronouns he, him.
00:01:04
Speaker
I am not found on social media, really, anymore. um Good for you. You know what? I wish I wasn't, honestly. It's been really depressing.
Favorite Final Fantasy Characters
00:01:15
Speaker
ah But anyways, our question for this week is, we're going to leave it really open-ended, is just what is your favorite Final Fantasy character? We only have, you know, 16 mainline games plus everything else to choose from. So I'm going to go with Yashulta. Catgirl obviously got my attention as soon as I started playing. But I mean, that's that's how I was sold on Final Fantasy XIV, was I was told I could play as a Catgirl, and that's what got me to try the game.
00:01:44
Speaker
There go. And then Yashulta quickly became my favorite character. i love her commander card. ah it The art on it is a gorgeous Magali piece. It really captures her Shadowbringers look.
00:02:02
Speaker
And yeah, I just i love a witchy cat girl, and she nails that aesthetic. Nice. Yeah, I'm going to go with also someone who has a card in the commander set, mostly from ah recency bias. I'm 100% going to claim recency bias on this, but I just finished Final Fantasy VI.
00:02:22
Speaker
And so rather than trying to think through all of the games, including a couple I haven't played for a little while, whose stories I can generally remember and characters generally, so I kind of skipped them in my ah attempt to catch up on all the games before the set came out and still barely made it.
00:02:38
Speaker
i'm going to go with Celise. um I guess that's how you pronounce that. C-E-L-E-S. Runenite is her card from Final Fantasy VI.
00:02:50
Speaker
Actually, I like a lot of the characters. There's a large crew in VI, and I like almost all of them. And dislike none of them, I think. which I mean, Kefka has enough dislike for everybody. i mean Yes.
00:03:04
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, hes he's all you need to dislike in 6. yeah Yeah. So everybody else can be pretty likable. Yeah. Yeah, it it felt a little bit. I have no idea if there's any inspiration there or or what. But Xenoblade Chronicles, the first game that I played through that series recently, I was reading some interview, like the creator was talking about when they made the first one.
00:03:30
Speaker
And they're like, yeah, we just decided like, I'm really, really, really paraphrasing him here. But it was basically along the lines where they're just like, what if we made all of the main characters likable?
00:03:40
Speaker
We're like, let's just give this a shot. And it worked. this There's a little more technical part of it was just like, yeah, we don't want anyone to betray anyone in the party. we And there was some more levels to it, but it's just kind of came down to what if we just tried to make them all kind of likable?
00:03:57
Speaker
And 6 kind of felt like that. let's say There's a few characters that I didn't like using in as much. There's too many characters for you to use all of them. Yeah, yeah but they were just none of them felt... I remember as a teenager, because I only had so many games and not enough money to buy new games, is like Final Fantasy 6 is one of those games where I i got everyone to level 99, including the people I never played, just grinding Dinosaur Island. And...
00:04:26
Speaker
Yeah. ah Which is pretty much what people did when they had nothing better to do. Yeah. But even like, just scrolling through this a little bit, you got like General Leo, who is one of the antagonists.
00:04:39
Speaker
Still kind of a cool character. Kind of like him. Because as you say, all the all the hatefulness is all wrapped up kind of in one person. Very masterfully. Like Kefta is a very well-crafted character to hate.
00:04:53
Speaker
Yes. He starts off as the comic relief. And we should talk, you know, Hobbs has said he's going to put a spoiler warning on this episode. These games, most of them are like 20 years old, but... Yes.
00:05:04
Speaker
You know, everything but 14 is at least 20 years old, I think. Yeah. The ones that we'll be talking about at least. Yeah. so i But yeah, spoiler alert, if you're just getting into Final Fantasy now, based on the Magic set, we will be talking about story points from the games.
00:05:23
Speaker
Yes, and and the ones that we talk about, i think well if if we keep the conversation fairly contained, that we can try to create some time codes too, if if you wanted to skip one game and not the other.
Standalone Nature of Final Fantasy Games
00:05:37
Speaker
Yeah. the discussion of one game. I don't think that's going to work on Alex. us talking of Yeah, I am worried about it. We'll, we'll see what we can do.
00:05:48
Speaker
There might be time codes. There may not be but we will. Yeah, we, we are going to spoil. i don't know. Does it make sense to say right now, at least which games we want to talk about for sure?
00:05:59
Speaker
Yeah, so I know that a lot of what we're going to talk about comes from the Commander decks. ah Those are the ones we have the full previews for right now. Yes. So 6, 7, 10, and 14 are going to be a lot of the discussion that we have today.
00:06:13
Speaker
Yes, and I think there's a topic for 9 as well that we might be talking about. Yeah, briefly, yeah, we'll talk about a little bit of 9 later. But yeah, so we're going to, you know, it's mental health awareness a month. And this, this set has some real bangers for cards dealing with like grief and other big emotions.
00:06:37
Speaker
Yes. Like which the final fantasy series is always, you know, address to some extent because you're always fighting against the darkness, uh,
00:06:49
Speaker
Yep, and there's there's been the big the big world stuff, but also they've been pretty good about individual character level struggles and things, and that's a lot of what we're going to talk about today.
00:07:01
Speaker
suppose I'll also also say at the top before we really dig into things. I assumed it was common knowledge, but of course, common knowledge is not common for everybody. These 16 games are not, they're all disconnected from each other.
00:07:14
Speaker
They're all independent stories. This was just conversations with hops because there's a character he really liked. So he's decided he's jumping into one of these games. He's so he started playing and he was just like, i don't, I don't need to play all of them to catch up to this one. Do know you can just play any of these 16 in any order that you want There's a few little nods, but it's mostly name things. Like the there's 15 versions of c Sid. Well, because there's a c Sid in every game who's a different character in every single game.
00:07:43
Speaker
Right. They usually are some kind of engineer. but They're always an engineer in some way, but yeah is a different person in each game. And so it's that sort of level of things where there's a few names that are like, oh that's a name from over here, but they're not the same person. They're not the same place.
00:08:01
Speaker
Within the 16 main lines. There's some sequels and some of that if you dig deeper. But Final Fantasy 1, 2, 3, anything that just has the the number is its own standalone game. Yeah.
00:08:12
Speaker
From each other. Yep. I think we briefly talked about that last week. That's right. Yeah. It's good to, um because people don't listen to every episode and last week was kind of a train wreck. So.
00:08:24
Speaker
Yes, it was.
Final Fantasy XIV and XI Highlights
00:08:26
Speaker
Yeah. and And if you're listening to this and have never played these and you're like, that sounds cool. I want to check that story out. Well, then, you know, you can just pick up any of these on their own and and play them without prior knowledge. Yeah. Yeah.
00:08:39
Speaker
Except if you plan on picking up 14, don't have any other plans. you can You can play the free version of that game and get like almost 200 hours in story just in the free version.
00:08:53
Speaker
Yes, 14 and also 11 are the two and MMO games. So those are very large and both are still running. Like 14 is hugely successful, but even 11, which is much older, still available and running for a small group of PC if you're interested in devoting a lot of time into a Final Fantasy online game that isn't the big popular current one. complete i can't recommend 14 enough. It is in my top five best games of all time.
00:09:22
Speaker
ah Yeah, i I have put some time to do, not a ton. I think I hit like level 30 or something with a character in the base game. No, not even 30, 20s, mid 20s.
00:09:33
Speaker
So it's like i've I played some, a couple different characters at a couple of different times. I've had some friends who play it, but like I put so much of my life into World of Warcraft. It's really hard to do that again, except with a different game.
00:09:46
Speaker
I have a few times in the last five or six years gone back to WoW for a little bit. But then I'm done. It's like I can't just devote my life to one of those games anymore. And starting a brand new one is too much for me.
00:09:59
Speaker
Yeah. And it's a lot, but the story is really fantastic. That's what I've that's what i've heard. it and yeah I have been so tempted a few times, but I just, at least right now, not for me.
00:10:14
Speaker
Yep. No, that totally makes sense. So yeah. So you ready to get depressed talking about some of these cards? Absolutely. do you have a place you want to start?
00:10:25
Speaker
Well, if we're going to try and keep this somewhat contained, why don't we just go through the games by number and talk about these? Did you have anything from six that you, especially since you said you just played it, is there something from six you want to talk about?
00:10:42
Speaker
We can talk a little bit. the one I didn't see anything so any cards specifically to call out, I guess, except for one that I mentioned. I don't know a lot.
00:10:53
Speaker
i just played it, but there's trying to trying to graft the cards to the story to specific mental health topics is is a little harder. But one of the one of the elements of six is and they even mention if you're if you're following the coverage of magic they just like straight up say this right away but like one of the big twists of the story of six is that you kind of lose like Yeah, you lose hard.
00:11:20
Speaker
You lose hard, like two thirds of the way through the game, halfway through the game, somewhere in that range. You confront the big bad and don't win, yeah which then creates the
Iconic Moments in Final Fantasy VII
00:11:31
Speaker
world of ruin.
00:11:32
Speaker
Yeah, the world gets destroyed because you screwed up, basically, you know. Yeah, and so like the the back half of the game, which even they mentioned the the commander deck for six is focused on the back half, is about bringing the party back together in the world of Ruin and confronting Kefka, the big bad again. I mean, and that's where Terra...
00:11:55
Speaker
who's the face commander, like her ability is about pulling things out of the graveyard and filling the graveyard and getting creatures back out of the graveyard to confront, you know. Yeah. And we even briefly mentioned the rise of the dark realms reprint in this one.
00:12:11
Speaker
It has a very different flavor of other rise from the dark realms that have ever been printed. Yes, and I really like that. i was I think I got myself distracted trying to get to that card. But yeah, thank you. said that It is a good representation of this because most of them, it's rise you know you have Liliana bringing zombies and all this stuff. But this this one has a different twist to it because now it's Terra.
00:12:34
Speaker
Bringing back to all the heroes. Bringing back all the heroes. to, you know, and one of her, like one of the the flavor texts, you can't destroy everything. People will always have dreams is one of the things she says to Kefka while he's talking about how he's going to destroy everything.
00:12:51
Speaker
but Like, and that's, that's part of their, their thing at the end. Kefka is very much a, uh, Nothing matters and nihilistic. i'm I have all the power. I'll just destroy everything because nothing actually matters. And then the fears are characters are like, even when things are bad, you can still have people who matter and things that matter.
00:13:13
Speaker
And every person in that in that final confrontation, which I literally played like three days ago, has like they mentioned something specific like and one of the guys even it's his wife and daughter who died but he's like i will live for them i have them in my heart and i'm fighting for their memory and you have other people mentioning their various people and things that are important to them so I guess maybe there is a little stuff to talk about for six there.
00:13:43
Speaker
Yeah. And related, if if you look at Stitch together too, again, that's usually one about like putting a zombie, getting a zombie or something. And this time again, you know, it's showing kind of like trying to put, put the pieces back together after the world's been destroyed.
00:13:59
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Again, you have the, the, yeah, them trying to pull, pull each other back together, pull the group back together.
00:14:11
Speaker
is that And that's Realm on there too, isn't it? With Interceptor. I love that. It's a name for a dog. Of course, a ninja whose name is Shadow would have a dog named Interceptor.
00:14:23
Speaker
yeah Yeah. ah seven Seven has a few but real moments to them. So the first one I wanted to talk about happens...
00:14:37
Speaker
you know, in like the first quarter of the game, and this is pictured on Decimate, uh, which basically the, the Shinra electric company, the ones who are the big evil corporation in charge of, Midgard, um, they, they sacrifice an eighth of the city to basically try to take out the, uh, anti-capitalist, uh,
00:15:07
Speaker
terrorist organization or the the good guys as the the game portrays them. ah And the the flavor text on this is progress requires sacrifice. Learn to live with it from President Shinra. And it just shows the complete wreckage of a District 7. I think it was District 7. If I can remember correctly, it's been a long time since I played that game.
00:15:29
Speaker
Yeah, and you can and you can still see the Shinra Tower illuminated above the collapsed district in the background too. Yeah. Very poignantly making making that connection there.
00:15:43
Speaker
Yeah. just such a good card and pre-cons too yes sucks when you're holding it you can't cast it because you're missing a target though that is the big drawback of decimate that is a big drawback and i do like that they have that reminder text in newer versions of it that's like it limits the card a little bit but getting to blow up four targets for four mana is a really good yeah really good thing for a commander deck Yeah, enchantment seems to be the one you're missing most often, especially with how many artifacts are around the board now in modern games. but there There's a lot of enchantments in these decks because of the summons and other yes things. so yeah I think it'll i think itll we play pretty good in these decks.
00:16:29
Speaker
Yeah, that's good I hadn't thought about that, but you're right.
00:16:33
Speaker
So the next part of seven that I want to talk about is one of the most famous scenes in video game history, i'd say. Yep. So I doubt we're spoiling anything on this, but if you look at the card Harmonized, which has another great art by Magali of just Aerith sitting there in prayer with a bit of sun coming over her shoulder.
00:16:57
Speaker
I know I talked about this card last week, but, you know, we want to bring it up here because
00:17:03
Speaker
This and moment is right before she gets run through by Sephiroth, who attacks her from behind and above. And you just see her impaled on his sword is like what during the cutscene.
00:17:18
Speaker
And it also, you know, kind of drives the main character, Cloud, mad with grief and despair. And he he wasn't really hanging on very well with his mental health to begin with, but And then you spend the next part of the game basically trying to save him from himself.
00:17:38
Speaker
Yeah. and And that's, you find out just how fragile of a place he was in. Yeah. As you're playing through that section. But yeah. And, and also like, that's a really shocking moment.
00:17:51
Speaker
Yeah, it is. like The first time you see that. Yeah. just like Wow. You know they, they just killed off a major character. if yeah And that, didn't happen in a lot of story-based games like this. and No, and even in the previous Final Fantasies, when they've killed a character, it's usually been like some side party member you might have had in your party for just a little while or something.
00:18:15
Speaker
Yep, yep. Or as I learned, there there was a person or two in Six who died because i didn't i made because of a choice I made. But that even that's a little different from like, this is a cut scene, this is a thing that's happening that you have no control controlol over, you have no power over.
00:18:32
Speaker
This character dies, and that is the story. You have to then, just like Cloud, learn how to move forward. Mm-hmm. Yeah. And...
00:18:46
Speaker
Yeah, it's a hell of a moment in the game. And like I said, it's just a very famous scene too. Even if you've never played a Final Fantasy, there's a good chance you have seen this scene before.
00:18:57
Speaker
yeah when I saw this card printed, I was just like, oh, they went there. I knew they would i knew they would illustrate the scene somehow. Yes. But they really went for the emotional look with Disharmonize because everybody that's ever played Final Fantasy knows what's coming about two seconds after this scene yep and that's Sephiroth's intervention yeah uh which is that in the main set or is that a that is the that is in the main set yeah which which works I it's better it's probably better handled than my my flip it thing that I wanted to see in probably a secret lair where it was just basically this exact piece of art from Sephiroth's intervention just in on a murder oh on a murder yeah yeah
00:19:46
Speaker
I expected that art to be on murder, to be honest. it i i or I totally expected that to be. Yeah, that's kind of. that's what I was kind of hoping for. that maybe is a little cheeky, maybe a little cheekier than, than respectful. Perhaps this might be better. I think, I think I mentioned that at one point and you meant, and you said like here was downfall would be a good option. And i was like, okay, maybe that's the more respectful. It's also a better, but, but that could also have been a good here. It would have been a good fit. Yeah.
00:20:19
Speaker
Um, yeah. And I, I, I totally forgot that I had mentioned that at one point we'd had this discussion and, uh, Yeah, that that art on Sephiroth's Intervention is really good, too.
00:20:30
Speaker
um Yeah, there is so much good art in this set. I mean, magic art isn't bad to begin with, but oh my god, they there's some really good art in this final process set.
00:20:41
Speaker
I know, it is such a bummer there won't be any artist proofs or playmats or anything. Yeah. I'm sure there will be a few playmats that are released by Ultrapro, but the artist won't be able to get any playmats made of their art.
00:20:55
Speaker
Yeah. so And we'll get like four wallpapers from the Wizards website and that's it for stuff like that. Like no playmats, no sleeves. We'll get like Yeah.
00:21:09
Speaker
Cool. But ah so yeah, so we have that we have that big moment which is probably the most famous from any Final Fantasy.
00:21:24
Speaker
And then we have a couple from 10 that were really and and i'm gonna rely on you a lot here because a lot of what i i remember almost nothing about 10 i haven't played it since it was brand new in like 1999 or 2000 or whenever it came out sometime around then but i'm seeing these scenes and i'm like oh yeah i kind of remember that yeah yeah there's there's a couple and like a couple I want to like mention to kind of set up the story. Cause this I think takes, and maybe this is just the one i remember the most story from, or and think it takes a little setup because one of these cards I want to actually talk about is actually an emotional scene that gets memed on or really hard because they were intentionally being like doing some bad fake laughing. But so like the, the story of 10 kind of starts, mean, inexorable tide is a good, it shows like sin and,
00:22:21
Speaker
the And and the the flavor text, when Sin Attacked Xanarkand on that day, I woke up in Spira from Tidus.
Plot and Themes of Final Fantasy X
00:22:29
Speaker
And this is a character who, like, it starts off with, and this game just blew me away when I played it, when I was watching my friend play it on the PS2, because those cut scenes were...
00:22:40
Speaker
gorgeous. It was the first Final Fantasy game that had voice acting in a yeah it. was and like first It was just huge. did this this really It was one of those titles that showed off the PlayStation 2.
00:22:55
Speaker
Huge console seller. Huge, like, we're in the next generation. yeah i think 7 really brought the franchise to the West in a way that it just wasn't before. It also was the big seller for the original PlayStation.
00:23:09
Speaker
Yep, and I think I really liked 8. I thought 9 was good, and it you said 9's one of your favorites, right? 9 is my favorite okay of the non-MMO games. I love the art style in 9. I love the... I love Vivi as a character...
00:23:26
Speaker
Yeah, it's also a great game that I played last year, and I actually had to send a text to a friend of mine because I was like, you tried to get me to play this back you know when we were teenagers, and I didn't, and I regret that. It's like, yeah this was really good.
00:23:41
Speaker
so That was one the only one I've ever... 100% it. I beat every optional boss. I never could beat the... I never beat the Emerald Weapon or Diamond Weapon in 7.
00:23:52
Speaker
And then my roommate threw a party and somebody stole my PlayStation Memory cards at the party. no! And I had dumped so much time into that game. I had the i had gotten a Golden Chocobo so I could get Knight to the Round. God. Damn, did they nail that spell. Holy cow. Yes. Yes.
00:24:12
Speaker
Oh, God. Yeah, I my my my shameful secret. So now we're back to seven, but this isn't spoiling anything was that I did a lot of making most of the side things I leveled the characters. I don't think I did got to ninety nines, but I put so much time. I maxed out almost all the materia.
00:24:29
Speaker
I never actually did the final dungeon. Oh, I saved outside the final dungeon and then never went back to the game for decades now. and So, yeah, I put a lot of time into that game, never actually finished it.
00:24:44
Speaker
Wow. But anyway, what i'm saying those were great games. But then 10, I think, after 7 really... brought the franchise to the West, I think X was kind of the next big, like, kicking up this these games. Yeah. Look incredible. they have There's a lot of people who love it, but VIII was largely considered a disappointment, and then IX had such a completely different artistic style and everything that a lot of people just it were like, well, this this isn't what we saw in Final Fantasy VII. Yep.
00:25:17
Speaker
ye And then X kind of took it back to the you know that same style of like sort of techie, sort of magic environment. that Yeah, and aiming for more cinematic. I think VIII and IX played that down a bit from what VII was doing, and X was like, no, we got new technology, we're making a movie that you can play, is what it felt like at the time. You look back at it now and it...
00:25:43
Speaker
it was awkward polygons, not as awkward as the first PlayStation, but still. No. yes seven Yeah. Seven has some weird models. Yeah. But so this all like, it kicks off with this really impactful like scene. And then you're, this main character ends up getting trapped by this big monster that attacks the city and ends up washed up somewhere that he has no idea. He's never been before. he thinks he's, he's in this new land. And as the game goes on, you start to understand like,
00:26:14
Speaker
what's going on What's going on is a little complex. But the the God, try to think how to even explain this. Well, let's let not explain that right away. I'm going to go to Inspiring Call. We'll talk about this.
00:26:29
Speaker
So Inspiring Call is a scene of Yuna, kind of the the main Titus, the main protagonist in Yuna, who's kind of to be honest, more the focal point of the story itself. from Yeah. She, she is the center of the story. Yeah, she is. Yeah. the So this sin, this big monster that attacked his city and caused him to be thrown into the ocean and wash up somewhere.
00:26:54
Speaker
It is this thing that goes around that he had never heard of, but in this world, it has been destroying cities for but millennia. And every, you know, people like Yuna trained to be summoners, to go on a journey, to fight and defeat Sin, and create calm.
00:27:13
Speaker
Well, that calm only lasts for about a decade. And then Sin is back. And it's this endless cycle. Her father was a summoner. Her father's calm has just ended. Sin has just kind of shown up recently. And now she's going on a journey to bring about a new calm.
00:27:31
Speaker
And so they find Tidus in their village before her and her group are going to leave. He joins them. Well, right before this scene that you can find all over the internet where these two are laughing, like really, really hilariously bad fake laughing.
00:27:49
Speaker
which was the point of the scene, they run into a character who they both know, which is weird because both of them come from wildly different worlds. And no one Titus has heard of no one and nothing that they know of.
00:28:02
Speaker
They have heard of no one and nothing that he knows of. And somehow they both know this guy, Orin. And turns out Orin was a companion, was one of the guardians for her father so was Tidus's father, Jekt. And so there's this whole connection. And so Oren has a conversation with him that tells him one of the first like big revelations of this game.
00:28:25
Speaker
And that is that Sin... is his father. His father is now sin. His father is now this monster that's destroying everything. And so he Titus was planning to leave at the city that they were in, try to figure out how to get home. Oren's like, nope, we're going on a journey. We're going with Yuna. You're coming with us.
00:28:44
Speaker
Kind of drags him along. And so she sees that he's in a really not a great mood. He's been a pretty, by and large, he's ah he's a more chipper, upbeat person, but he is very not that right now.
00:28:58
Speaker
And so this whole scene is her kind of being goofy and getting him to laugh by making by having the worst possible fake laughs that they can which then leads to them genuinely laughing, which then kind of helps bring the whole situation more upbeat. And then they go on this journey or continue on the journey.
00:29:19
Speaker
And one of the things about that, then i guess and we can kind of jump all the way to the end and then fill it in. But one of the cards that you brought up, Taya, to talk about too for this episode from Final Fantasy X is Farewell.
00:29:33
Speaker
This reprint, which is the very end of the story where these two are are embracing flavor text. Stay with me until the end. They got me with the Doctor Who printing a farewell, but then this one just really brought back some memories.
00:29:49
Speaker
Oh, yeah. Yeah. Because this is the moment where Tidus ceases to exist. Because in this story, which is weird and a little bit confusing, they learn that he was not real, in essence.
00:30:07
Speaker
his The whole Zanark and the whole city that he knew of was just was a memory Of an ancient city being kept alive by these people who were in, I don't know even how to describe the faith from that game, F-A-Y-T-H.
00:30:26
Speaker
But they're they're not in stasis, but it's kind of like in stasis. They're dead, but they're not exactly dead. It's like they haven't passed on, sort of. And the whole thing with the faith is like the the faith are the summons in this world. The summoners get summons like Bahamut and Shiva and Ifrit and all those by contracting with the faith throughout the world, faith who are in turn and resting in different places. And then they can use those summons to fight the monsters that spawn in part because of sin and in part just natural monsters. Yeah.
00:31:01
Speaker
so that they can go on the journey to then eventually defeat sin temporarily and bring out a calm. Well, there's this whole, you start to learn this whole thing about the the God that they worship is actually part of sin, and part of how the whole thing works is that you get to sin and you defeat sin, but then someone has to become a summoner,
00:31:25
Speaker
themselves and then Sin possesses that or Leska possesses that, becomes a new Sin eventually. This whole cycle that's been going on for a thousand years is kind of causing the question most of the things that they believe, but this group continues to fight through it and then decides to defy the cycle says we can do this at great cost. We could bring about a short piece or we can just say, let's break the system and try to end it permanently. Yeah. And I think before we get to that or keep going down that, drive I want to bring up the, the flavor text from three visits, which is shows Titas and, you know, and one of their other companions visiting one of these locations.
00:32:14
Speaker
And this is like a part of the quest, if I remember, is like she's like considering giving up on the pilgrimage and, you know, just to live a peaceful life instead of eventually sacrificing herself to, you know, put sin away for a little while.
00:32:33
Speaker
And the flavor text on this one is of if I give up now, I could do anything I wanted to. And yet, even if I was with you, I could never forget. So, and that, I think, I want to say the the art from Together Forever is from that scene too, where that night they have they have a ah night together and this and that kind of reaffirms their decision to move forward with this quest.
00:32:57
Speaker
Yeah, and and as you say too, as part of that quest, like from the beginning, Yuna, it was her understanding that she would not come home. So she goes on this quest to tour the world for the first time she's ever seen these places.
00:33:12
Speaker
knowing that she'll never see them again, but also knowing that the people she meets will have peace, at least for a little while. And so this is like her journey. And that's part of why, you know, the, the goofy card is so important to inspire and call that scene because she knows she's going to die, at least for her understanding of how this works, but she doesn't want this to be a funeral marcher
Breaking the Cycle in Final Fantasy X
00:33:38
Speaker
the whole time. She wants the group that she's journeying with to have fun and, and to have joy within each other's presence through this journey. Yeah.
00:33:49
Speaker
And then at the end, they like far the event in farewell is they've decided that they're going to try to break the system, and they do. They figure out how to break the system so Yuna doesn't have to sacrifice herself.
00:34:02
Speaker
But in order to break the system, they need to destroy, and I think all the faith die, including the ones who are keeping Zanarkand and Tidus around.
00:34:15
Speaker
And so at the end, she thought she would be leaving everyone else, but instead he is leaving her and she's still around. Which honestly is as goofy and fun as i actually really enjoyed the sequel of 10, 10, 2.
00:34:31
Speaker
A lot of the undercurrent of that game is experience. Kind of figuring out what to to do because she never planned to see the end. She never planned to survive the events.
00:34:42
Speaker
So, you know, people, yeah um you know, 15 is known as the guy's road trip. 10-2 is kind of the girl's road trip. they they hit it like They did it like 18 years before 15 came out.
00:34:57
Speaker
It's also got one of the most mechanically interesting job systems in the entire franchise. Yeah. but yeah Sadly, we didn't get any cards from ten two though. It was only the mainline games.
00:35:08
Speaker
yeah Yeah, I loved that. I genuinely really enjoyed ten too Yeah, I have fond memories of it as well. I think I enjoyed it more than I enjoyed X even.
00:35:21
Speaker
that's That's fair. actually went back and played X2 last year as part of... as I was playing all these other mainline games. was like, I just want to play this again. I'm going to play this again. and yeah it was It was a lot of fun.
00:35:34
Speaker
yeah like that's everything I have for Ted. Yeah, there's a couple of things I wanted to discuss from 14.
Shadowbringers Expansion in FFXIV
00:35:44
Speaker
And one of them is the art and flavor text on Cleansing Nova.
00:35:52
Speaker
And this comes from what's widely considered the best expansion of the set Shadowbringers, which kind of flips most game stories on their end. In this one, you go to one of the shards called The First, which is the one closest to the light, which has actually been wrecking the world just as one closest to the dark would wreck that world.
00:36:16
Speaker
Because the light is like the power of stasis and in a lot of ways, like... you know nothing ever changes, everything is the same, you know there's no no end, everything continues, and this world has been basically destroyed except for a small portion by the light.
00:36:38
Speaker
and you're And that's what kind of the whole title, Shadowbringers, is you're basically bringing back the dark, because the whole world is based in everlasting light. So as you go through the the world, you're you're defeating these basically like angelic creatures, the Sin Eaters, they're called, ah that and turn things into light and you're bringing back the night, essentially.
00:37:09
Speaker
ah Yeah, and... This kind of like the started with, and what the the story is talking about here is that we called it the calamity of the flood of light. Everything it touched was leeched to life and vigor, leaving not behind but a luminous wasteland.
00:37:25
Speaker
And that is like 99% of the world is nothing but light. yeah Nothing at all. is It's basically like everything has been scoured away and it's just empty wastelands of light.
00:37:39
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, and and that's interesting. There's some interesting analog to just with you talk about magic and the color pie and things. And that's, that's a lot of when you look at sort of the, the extreme sort of the negative end of white, like white typically, particularly in the early expansions was set up as the color of good. And then black was the color of evil. And there was this very, you know, binary set up there, but that has become they've a lot more nuanced than how they're representing things and white's color of stasis is a really good to describe like white to the to to the extreme to the to the excess to the cost of it where it's like if everything is truly at peace it's because there's nothing there yeah
00:38:22
Speaker
That's super interesting. I also just realized why I recognized into the story. That's a Final Fantasy XIV card, but that's like the very beginning of the game. you're talking to This crystal's talking to you, and I never got far enough to know what that is.
00:38:39
Speaker
yeah um but i you know thats That's the voice of Hydaelyn, which is essentially the it is the Avatar of Light.
00:38:51
Speaker
and you know, she's leading people to try to push back, uh, the Ascians, they're, they're the guys with the, the red masks and the black robes that show up in a lot of the art, are trying to bring the world back together and combine the 14 shards into a single world again, which will basically destroy all the worlds, but they're trying to bring it back to the world they knew.
00:39:18
Speaker
And, um, Tidalin is the one who kind of fighting back out against that. Uh, and then the, the the dark version of, you know, at the, at the other end of the shards is, i you know, you have Zodiac, which is the pure dark avatar. Uh, and the Ascians basically are throughout the thing are trying to bring him back so that they can recombine the worlds or the shards.
00:39:50
Speaker
Uh, so Some cosmetically interesting analogs to magic going on that I was not expecting. No, and... and
00:40:03
Speaker
You know, if you see it like... The the Commander Card Fandaniel, he's... that This is... He's one of the Ascians, but this was from the timeline before the worlds were shattered, when it was one. So they they were like...
00:40:17
Speaker
They were essentially godlike humans that could basically create anything by just thinking about it.
00:40:27
Speaker
And they ended up essentially sacrificing... And there's there's one of the cards that shows... I'm trying to remember which card... Let's see if I can find it real quick. The...
00:40:43
Speaker
talks about the sacrifice. I think it's in the main set.
00:40:51
Speaker
Well, you're looking. Oh, maybe it is. If you got it. Zodiac itself. No, I think it's what it. Okay. Yeah. So basically the world was coming to an end and they summoned Zodiac or Zodiac to try to save them from the end of the world.
00:41:08
Speaker
um Because with all the power they had, that's one thing they couldn't that they couldn't stop the world from ending. And Zodiac is a 5-5 for 5 black mana. It's an indestructible god.
00:41:23
Speaker
And when it enters, each player sacrifices half the non-god creatures they control of their choice rounded down. And whenever a player sacrifices another creature, put a plus one, plus one counter on Zodiac.
00:41:34
Speaker
sodiar So he comes in large. But basically, they choose they chose to sacrifice half their population to summon this god to try to save them from the end of the world.
00:41:46
Speaker
So this is, you know, this was a very flavorful card. when I saw this preview, I'm just like, yeah, that is, that is so perfect.
00:41:59
Speaker
Because that, that's exactly what they did to summon him was they sacrificed half of the entire population. and not to get us too distracted, but that's kind of what we do.
Reboot of Final Fantasy XIV as A Realm Reborn
00:42:09
Speaker
So out of curiosity, if, is that related to the whole realm reborn thing?
00:42:14
Speaker
No, the realm reborn, I can, I can cover this really quick because it's kind of a, it's an interesting, but shorty. Um, The original release of Final Fantasy XIV was not a good game. It was just bad.
00:42:28
Speaker
They made so many bad design choices with the MMO. It just was not fun to play. So ah in kind of like a chip typical Japanese fashion, they were Square was like, our bad, we're sorry, you know.
00:42:46
Speaker
um beg our forgive forgiveness, we're going to try this again. And so in-game, they destroyed the world. And then they relaunched as a Realm Reborn.
00:43:00
Speaker
Which is where the story starts now, which takes place, you know, it's a start of Final Fantasy XIV. You're playing five years after the end of the Sixth Astral Era, which was basically the end of the world.
00:43:15
Speaker
from the original launch. ah But they they completely, I mean, they destroyed everything. They shut down the servers for the old game. It was just completely gone it and started completely fresh.
00:43:27
Speaker
Okay. And so, yeah, that's, so that card is really showing, yeah, it's just showing the beginning of everything again, um, Oh, and the other thing, the other interesting note was like, as part of the apocalypse, essentially, all of the warriors of light, all of the heroes disappeared from the world.
00:43:50
Speaker
Oh, okay. Which is what happens. See, this is... I'm familiar with a little bit of that. Like, I knew the the whole... Like, it was called The Realm Reborn because they took it down and brought it back. But they made it ah an event of it being taken down. and They did, yeah. It was a huge event. I wasn't playing... I didn't play then, but I've i've watched videos about it.
00:44:12
Speaker
And the opening cinematic for Final Fantasy XIV is the end of the world from the original game. You you get to see... And I love that little story bit too with the heat the heroes disappear because the servers are turned off. They couldn't log in.
00:44:26
Speaker
Yeah. Yep. So the the card the of Realm Reborn, which is a really cool card for six mana, it's a six mana enchantment that lets you tap any permanent for any color mana, which is really cool. But it shows the leaders of the three main Alliance factions.
00:44:46
Speaker
And basically they were there at the final battle. And after the world is destroyed, they're the ones kind of in charge of picking up the pieces and trying to maintain society and put things back together because all the heroes are gone.
00:45:02
Speaker
Yep. Okay, cool. Thank you for for the distraction. Like I said, that's cool to get more background behind that. Yeah. And so, yeah, like the flavor text is a several Seventh Astral Era has come and that that's pretty much what And going back to what I was talking about with the shards, the shards of the world is every time one of the shards, can every time one of the astral errors ends, it's because one of the other shards has been destroyed and combined back to the ah the whole. So it kind of like ah it's like a ah universal cataclysm happens.
00:45:41
Speaker
So, and this is like, this is like the seventh time that it's happened.
00:45:47
Speaker
of some sort. Yeah. So, uh, yeah, it's, uh, there's, I, it's 14 is such a long story. you know, you could, you could talk about it forever, but I really wanted to to bring up that, you know, that, uh, cleansing Nova specifically because it's, uh,
00:46:12
Speaker
you know, it's a, it's a different presentation of white, you know, like the, like ah they kind of flipped the whole game on it, on its head where you've always been the warrior of light. And here you're actually trying to bring back the darkness.
00:46:26
Speaker
Yeah.
00:46:28
Speaker
You know, and it's, so that, that's kind of a, that's a very, um you know, kind of emotional scene as that world is being destroyed and consumed. Uh,
00:46:43
Speaker
And so, yeah, I mean, Final Fantasy is really good about dealing with emotions, and a lot of the main characters have some serious you know mental trauma to deal with in many of the games.
00:46:58
Speaker
yeah was You know, like Cloud basically has his identity shattered. ah you know, Terra has the world destroyed and has to rebuild it from scratch.
00:47:11
Speaker
Yeah, not to mention like some of her her own background, too. She has some trauma from what she was going through. like Yeah, just personally as well.
00:47:24
Speaker
And you know you talked a lot about Ten, and there' there's definitely a lot going on there with you know like the realization that he's not real and the whole idea throughout the entire thing that she's going to have to sacrifice herself.
00:47:39
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. And that goes to, this is a topic haven't talked about for a few years, but um talked about that sort of hero's journey thing. And I really like this examination of that idea. Like we we have so many, or the heroic sacrifice in particular is is a thing that,
00:47:56
Speaker
is is sort of just taken for granted. It's like, Oh, just the hero will just sacrifice themselves. Or often also the inverse, which is also frustrating the, you know, the very, very briefly redeemed villains sacrifices themselves. And my cynical part says, so that the writer doesn't have to contend with the consequences of this character.
00:48:17
Speaker
Now, doesn't have to work out this character contending with the consequences of their villainous actions up to this point. Makes it nice and easy for them to just die to try to do some amount of of redemption.
00:48:31
Speaker
And so you you, again, you have this character who the entire time and in Yuna is planning from the very beginning, I'm going to sacrifice myself. And like not even to save the world, it's just to create a decade or so of peace and then someone else is gonna have to do it again yeah i found well flipping through the cards and i would guess we're back to 10 again i found another card this is one of the uh new ones in this set called yuna's decision which is literally this decision to read the choose one continue the the pilgrimage sacrifice a creature
00:49:10
Speaker
if you do draw a card and then put a creature card or land under your, under the battlefield and then find another way or turn permanence from your graveyard. So it's like literally that point where they're trying to decide where, where, you know what, you know, needs to decide because the crew is like, we'll go with you.
00:49:29
Speaker
Yeah. You make the decision and we will fight fate or we will follow this pattern. What do you want to do? hmm. Since you mentioned the the heroic self-sacrifice thing, I want to bring this up because final the Final Fantasy website has been doing preview cards every day and they're focused on one game every day. And and then they also have they have a bit of backstory about the game and every one of them has had something from the magic designers talking about how they design the cards based on the game.
00:50:01
Speaker
So they're they've done a really good series of short articles on the Final Fantasy website. I linked the one for Final Fantasy IX today.
00:50:13
Speaker
yeah Because that was good. But I want to go back the ones for V. And i I don't remember anything about V. I played it on the 3DS. I don't remember that much about it ah But but but um both of the cards that were previewed for V have heroic self hold heroic sacrifices on them. the Self-Destruct and Golov's Final Act. And the article talks about both of them.
00:50:38
Speaker
Oh, nice. I'll pull that because I played five, well, last year, like most of these. I don't remember a ton from the story. Yeah, no, I like, yeah, it was, I wouldn't have known anything about these two cards if I hadn't read that article.
00:50:55
Speaker
Yeah. Oh yeah. Gilgamesh. ah Yeah. gil Okay. From what I remember of five Gilgamesh, it was kind of one of those heroic sacrifices sort of thing from a villain side where Gilgamesh is actually working against you the whole game. And I want to say at the end, he does that to hell. Yeah. That's what, yeah. That's what the article said. Yeah. He basically, he buys you some time to escape or something Yeah.
00:51:27
Speaker
Well, yeah, ye yeah. Yeah. When I was talking to the developer side, Dylan Devaney was saying, yeah, when you play this card, your creature makes the ultimate sacrifice to protect your team from the self-destruct, which is the Gilgamesh card.
00:51:41
Speaker
Oh, and Gilgamesh versus Exdeath. That's right. Yeah, and that's the thing. that it's It's just that story archetype has been around for a long time. and and Especially when you start to get into some older games like if these you know Final Fantasy V would have been Super Famicom, would have been mid-90s, I think, probably. Yeah, very early ninety s I think, for that one. Because if I'm remembering correctly, the Final Fantasy VI, which released here is Final Fantasy III, originally came out in like 92.
00:52:16
Speaker
Ooh, yeah, then then that would have been early then. Yeah, so it's like there's...
00:52:24
Speaker
so it's It's interesting to kind of go back to some of those old games where ah one of the things that I loved about going through all these these Final Fantasies was seeing where the franchise kind of started and how it evolved. But it was like some of those early ones, I'm glad I played through them in the...
00:52:42
Speaker
the recent pixel remaster because it has a lot of tools that lets you sort of accelerate the process because it was fun to visit them, but I would not have wanted to spend the amount of time to grind that I would have needed to get through them because that gameplay is just really basic. A lot of it's super basic. Yeah.
00:53:03
Speaker
by today's standards. Now, honestly, by two, the system was interesting, though apparently really kind of sucked to play in the original version. the The remake has some smoothing of does some smoothing of that, so two didn't feel nearly as bad to me.
00:53:18
Speaker
Three was interesting and fun, but again, it was like the very beginning of this job system where people can kind of switch their classes at will and you can do stuff. So there... It was fun to go back to them, but often when they're like the start of something, they they revolutionized the industry, they feel super basic a few decades later because everyone has just done that same thing and then iterated on it.
00:53:41
Speaker
And so it doesn't feel like there's a lot going on there. But it was really fun to go back to these. And even two, one, doesn't have a ton of story. It's no generic characters, heroes of light.
00:53:53
Speaker
Yeah, it was... Yeah, it really didn't have a whole lot of story. It was a relatively short game compared to other Final Fantasies.
00:54:06
Speaker
Yeah, and it's the only main line, i guess outside of the MMOs, where you make your own characters, sort of. Like, there isn't specific named characters that you are playing as.
00:54:20
Speaker
And so it it the story wasn't as deep because there was some story about there was this prophecy about these people showing up and doing stuff. And then but they couldn't like have your character's siblings or, you know, people who knew this character you were playing because the characters were all sort of didn't have that built in story behind them.
00:54:45
Speaker
Yeah,
Emotional Themes in Final Fantasy IX
00:54:46
Speaker
I did want to talk about one more card on the um kind of this, the mental health aspect, because we skipped over Final Fantasy IX. And this was this was actually the article that ah this was today's article. Well, it's dated today. I think it came out yesterday.
00:55:05
Speaker
but one of the cards previewed was You're Not Alone. Which. which happens at kind of a low point in the story where the protagonist Zidane is basically get some really bad news and it starts kind of separating himself from his friends that he's been traveling with and pushing him away. in And they all kind of rally around him and and they're like, no, you're not, we're not going to let you push us, push us away. And that's a tendency a lot of people have when,
00:55:41
Speaker
you know, something goes wrong is that their tendency is to push other people away and turn in on themselves. Yeah. Yeah. And, and like you say, just, and just the name of that too, like you're not alone is such a powerful day. I, it, yeah, it would, that, that was a really cool, a really cool moment and ah really cool moment for them to capture in the cards too to, make sure that they included.
00:56:09
Speaker
Yeah, and it's such a good combat trick, too. there's that, too. Yeah, which is just a target creature gets plus two, plus two for an end turn for one white, but if you control three more creatures, it gets plus four, plus four but instead.
00:56:25
Speaker
So, yeah, for one mana, it's... and I'd say most boards playing white, it's probably going to almost always be a plus four, plus four. Yeah, and that captures the nice flavor too of, he's got they've got you know at least two friends around, yeah so you get a bigger boost for that character.
00:56:45
Speaker
Yeah. ah I haven't updated Feather in forever, but this definitely goes on the list of things to put in there if I update it.
00:56:56
Speaker
yeah Yeah, I really i talk about feather a lot on this because we always talk about these commons on the show ah because people ignore commons and there's just so many cool stories and art in commons that get overlooked like this one is also a common.
00:57:13
Speaker
And so, yeah, we talk about a lot of combat tricks and stuff on this show. And and then I was, like, realizing, why don't I play Feather more? And I think it's just because the deck is really... It's a deck that plays the same every time you play it You just keep playing the same cards over and over and over again.
00:57:29
Speaker
So, it's basically... it Once you have a cantrip and a buff spell and a protection spell in your hand, those are gonna be like, the only three things you play for the rest of the game.
00:57:43
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. And that's, I haven't played Feather. I've thought about, cause I love Zada so much, but I, I like that Zada. It's, it's a kind of a combo deck in a similar way, but I'm, which pieces fill in which slots changes every single. Yeah. And you're not replaying the same spells every turn. Exactly.
00:58:01
Speaker
It was like, I'm just going to put these back in your hand and you can play them again on your opponent's turn. And then your next opponent's turn and your next opponent's turn, as long as you have mana. Yep. It's like,
00:58:13
Speaker
you know I'm going to keep cycling this card, which makes my creature unblockable and draws me a card for a red man. Yeah.
00:58:23
Speaker
And then I'm going to hold up God's Willing in case anybody tries to remove Feather. And then I'm going to replay that on the next person's turn. if i
00:58:34
Speaker
but Yeah, so... you know, I think that's...
00:58:39
Speaker
That's a good spot. You know, we've talked about a lot of the games there's final fantasy has always done a really good job of having these really emotional moments in their games.
00:58:50
Speaker
Uh, Play 14. I don't know. I'm not telling you two. I know why you don't, but I'm telling, I'm telling our audience, uh, uh, I'm not getting paid by square at all to say this, but, uh, you can play, it you can play the free version for something like 150 plus hours of gameplay because it includes the first several expansions, uh,
00:59:12
Speaker
in the free version so ah you don't even have to pay for it but if i don't know if shadow bringers is now part of the free version or not it used to end right before shadow bringers but if it's not it's worth paying for to play shadow bringers uh it's just such a good expansion like that story alone is in my top five of video games all time ah just a shadow bringers expansion and ah can't recommend that highly enough.
00:59:43
Speaker
all right. Well, think we'll leave it there. It's, May is Mental Health Awareness Month. So we're going to try to... Hobbs would be beating me there. He doesn't like the word try. That's a whole other thing that we'll have him explain some other time. do want to... Yeah, before you before you cut out, I want to remind you, not this weekend, but next weekend is the annual NAMI stream. So, ah you know, on the 31st and 1st, I'll be playing. Hobbs is playing and also facilitating a panel.
01:00:11
Speaker
It's going to be a really good Yeah, no absolutely. Tune in donate, just come watch us play some ridiculous games. Yeah, yeah. And just so and we've got that going on. we' We'll hopefully get some more recordings going and just trying to center mental health in it. it's It's a topic that's always kind of present in our content, but here and in May, we want to center it even more.
01:00:34
Speaker
very mindful about that. And just remember, if if you're struggling, you know you're you're important. There's resources. we have In our show notes, we have a lot of resources too. So try to reach out.
01:00:47
Speaker
Yeah, you're not alone. Play the card. Goblin Lore Podcast. Thank you for listening. We can be found both on Twitter and Blue Sky at GoblinLorePod. Check out our link tree for our Discord and our discounts.
01:01:01
Speaker
We appreciate you listening and welcome feedback via social media or Discord. Until next time, Podwalkers, remember that goblins, like snowflakes, are only dangerous in numbers.