What I Know Going In
-It’s the same genre as Final Fantasy Tactics.
-This is just a guess, but I’d heard great things about FFT. I’ve heard little about FFTA. Does that mean it’s bad, or just came out later? We’ll see.
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Snow Day
-The intro cinematic that starts (“It was a day like any other,”) but I skip past it for fear of spoilers. [Non-rhetorical question: should I watch this now or will it spoiler future characters, etc?]
-The music is super upbeat!
-Uh. Uhhhhhhhh. Kids are playing in the snow. There’s already more innocence than in all of FFT.
-One kid bullies another named Mewt about his teddy bear.
Mewt.
I wonder if Mewt will speak. A few other lil jerkbags in the group join in the bullying.
-They also start ribbing an unnamed new kid.
-A girl intervenes on the new kid’s behalf after they mock him for being like a girl, and I already love her. She’s Ritz.
”And I know some ‘little girls’ who can kick your butt!”
-The new kid is Marche. Like Marach?
-The teacher supervising the group is Mr. Leslaie. Not quite the city of Lesalia from FFT, but I’m already trying to watch like a hawk for how this 20th century school world will tie in. This is wild.
-OH MY GOD THE TUTORIAL FIGHT IS A SNOWBALL FIGHT LOLOLOL
FFT started with defending a princess in a cathedral from marauding knights. This is a snowball fight. A much more pleasant introduction.
-The town here is St. Ivalice. Marche is from somewhere warmer.
-The basics of combat seem very similar here to FFTA. Movement, waiting, speed, facing. How it’s easier to hit someone from the side or behind.
-Ok I can’t get over this, we’ve transported FFT’s combat to a playground. XD The snowballs do one damage.
-All these asshole kids are targeting Mewt.
-HOLY SHIT ONE KID CHUCKED A ROCK AT MEWT! These kids are the wooooorst.
-They mock Ritz too as “whitey-locks.” She has red hair, but they claim it’s white underneath.
-She’s about to beat the shit out of the kid mocking her until the feckless Mr. Leslaie blows his whistle. The teacher.
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New Friends
-After the snowball fight ends, Mewt, Ritz, and Marche gather up. If Stephen King’s It taught me anything, it’s that nothing brings new friends together than bullies chucking rocks.
-Marche looks a lot like a younger Ramza. Same blond hair, ahoge, and ponytail.
-AW FRIENDSHIP! Mewt invites Marche to go to the bookstore with him.
-Marche has to decline. He has a little brother who’s getting out of the hospital today.
RITZ: “Was he sick?”
MARCHE: “No, it’s something he was born with.” A chronic disability of some kind.
-Mewt was planning to get a fantasy book. Marche invites him to bring the book over to show him and his little brother, Doned. Ritz’ll come too.
I’m guessing this is my main starting party. But… they’re just kids. Ritz is feisty, but she’s not, like, a supersoldier or a knight in training. They’re just regular kids.
Current Almost Definitely Wrong Prediction: a hole will open in the sky. Demons will pour out. The world will become a post-apocalyptic hellscape, and we’ll flashforward like 10 years to when these kids are in their late-teens/early twenties and using magic and swords and stuff to fight the monsters.
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Town
-There’s a car in town. This is a full-on, modern day setting.
-Some adults are talking. One guy looks like a total bro, a replica of Kaito Momota from Danganronpa V3.
-The bro guy is Mr. Randall, being chewed out by his bosses.
Mr. Randall.
Kaito Momota.
-He’s Mewt’s dad. He seems like a really chill guy.
MEWT: “He used to work at a bigger company. When mom died, he stopped caring. He broke down big time.” Damn.
-Marche leaves the group and heads home, leaving Ritz and Mewt behind.
-Ritz heard that Marche doesn’t have a dad. These kids have it rough.
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Marche’s Home
-Their room looks super comfy. They got a TV, books, a cool desk, a skateboard.
-Doned is in a wheelchair. I think this is the first character I’ve seen in a wheelchair in the FF-verse. Bravo already, FFTA.
-Sounds like Marche gets picked on a lot.
-A voice calls from the other room that Marche’s guests are here. I’m assuming that’s Marche’s mom. There’s no portrait attached to the voice.
-Mewt and Ritz enter and introduce themselves to Doned. Maybe this group of four will be our core party.
-Mewt brings out the book he bought, but he says he can’t read the title. Even the used bookshop owner couldn’t read it.
Oh god. I’m adapting my “world will turn into a hellscape” theory. Now I think it’ll happen because Mewt opens this book which is really the Necronomicon or something.
-They huddle around the book and open it up…
-There’s definitely some shenanigans going on with this book. We get a graphic of some seals opening, and then illustrations with words I can’t make out.
-HEY THAT’s A BANGAA FROM FFXII!
More characters appear, including a moogle.
-The scene backs out from the book, to the kids reading it. Or trying. Marche can’t read the letters.
-Ritz sees the arcane circles. Marche thinks it’s a magic spell. Are they playing, or is this world of St. Ivalice a world with magic in it?
-NO MEWT DON’T! He starts reading the words: “Alta oron. Sondus kameela.”
-My best guess right now is that the St. Ivalice world is just a normal modern setting, without real magic.
MEWT: “Have you ever read a book and thought, ‘What if the world in this book was the real world?’”
-Ritz is a fan of games, games that let her fight monsters. I’m not surprised. She showed back in the playground that she’s good at fighting monsters herself.
-OK WHAT THE SWEET FUCK IS GOING ON HERE
Marche asked the group if they could make any game real, what would it be?
MEWT: “I’d pick ‘Final Fantasy.’ That’s my favorite.”
FHDJKLSFHDJKLSFHDJKLSFHDS IN THE WORLD OF FFTA, FINAL FANTASY IS A VIDEO GAME
WHEN IS THIS SET? IS IT JUST THE FIRST FINAL FANTASY THAT’S OUT? HOW MANY FF ENTRIES ARE RELEASED YET? What if they’re like, “Yeah, let’s play that new game, Final Fantasy 3!” and they turn on their Super Nintendos and then the rest of FFTA is just me playing them playing FF3/6?
-Time to leave. Marche walks Ritz and Mewt to the door, leaving Doned behind and wishing for magic.
-The camera pans out to the city at night, people going about their business. It then zooms back into a child’s room, the book on the bed. The book opens by itself.
-The scene changes to the snowy playground.
-Uh oh. Reality begins to warp. The snow playground gets wiped away and replaced with a brush. An Ahriman flies above.
-Back to the café, where Mewt’s dad works. It gets wiped away. The adults transform into seeqs and/or bangaas.
Before.
After.
-Finally, we see the two brothers asleep in their beds. Doned starts to flash and disappears. Marche begins to float above his bead.
-The bedroom scene fades away, replaced by a Persian-inspired outdoor so familiar in XII’s Rabanastre.
Before.
After.
Marche’s clothing changes too. He’s no longer wearing pajamas. Instead, he looks EXACTLY LIKE RAMZA. That blond hair and ponytail stays, but he’s got ramza’s blue top and brown bottom.
What. The. Fuck. Is. Going. On.
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Next time: another world.
