Qu's Marsh - Wiretap Archives
Return | Read | Look | Listen | Play

Final Fantasy Gaiden: Selphie no Daibouken

       In this follow-up to FF VIII, the SeeDs are called on to prevent an evolved NORG from taking over Garden again. The game would take place shortly after FF VIII and pick up where the characters' lives left off, but it wouldn't try to make itself a direct continuation of FF VIII's plot. In other words, while everything that happened in FF VIII would be reflected in the game (e.g., Edea is no longer a sorceress), there wouldn't be any "Ultimecia is back!" or parallel universe / Time Crash / Dinopolis nonsense ... it's just a new mission for the SeeDs.

    Selphie would be the main character, with all the other heroes also returning. Edea and Seifer would also have bigger roles in your party (esp. Edea ^^) and unique Limit Break mechanics. Laguna's party would not be playable, though they certainly might be involved in the story.

    The plot would be a lighthearted romantic comedy / adventure ... pretty much the same atmosphere as FF VIII, in other words (e.g. no one dies). There would be more of an emphasis on an advancing plot (like the first half of FF IX) and not in revealing existing mysteries or detailing characters' pasts (since we already know about them =P).

    Everything would sort of center around Balamb Garden, as in the first half of FF VIII. You'd use Garden as your main transportation, but it would be faster this time. Also, you would be able to meet various people and bring them back to Garden to add new features to it, like in the Suikoden games or Breath of Fire II.

    The game would use ATB as well as refined version of the Junction / G.F. System. (h0h0h0, "refined", get it?) There are no experience levels or upgradable levels at all; you boost your stats only by Junctioning. However, your weapon's appearance changes depending on your Junctions; for example, junctioning a fire elemental attack would cause flames to come out of your weapon, while reaching certain strength milestones would cause your weapon to change shape into more powerful-looking forms. (Again, this is a purely cosmetic change.) Certain vitality and spirit levels would also change your character's outfit ... I don't really know how you'd implement elemental defenses, though.

    Also, summoning a G.F. now causes it to replace your party on the battlefield, like in FF X. Once summoned, a G.F. can use its trademark attack (Diamond Dust, Ruby Light, etc.) as a Limit Break, or attack with any of the commands it's learned (like Mug, Recover, etc.) Characters cannot be swapped in and out of battle, since it would be useless under the Junction System; however, you can change them at any time outside of battle. And while Selphie is the main character, you wouldn't always have to use her. Obviously, certain story sequences would still require you to have specific characters in your team (esp. Selphie)... and there would be some times where the narrative jumped back and forth between two or more teams, like in FF IX.

    Mini-games / sidequests include a Chocograph hunting game, an "Um Jammer Selphie" guitar rhythm game designed by Masaya Matsuura, a T-boarding sequence starring Zell, and Triple Triad. (I would suggest Balamb Garden starting a Blitzball team, but that would just be too much stuff to do.) There's now a building somewhere where you can present each new rare TT card you get in exchange for some items, but you would still keep the card. Of course, you could only do this once per card. (i.e., this would let you get the items from rare cards without ruining your card collection.) The non-unique cards would still be Card Modded as in FF VIII. Sidequests would generally yield blue magic items, GF ability items, or GFs themselves; however, unlike FF VIII, most of these abilities would be unique abilities that no GF could learn on its own, or (in the case of blue magic) that you couldn't normally steal / win. In other words, you would actually get useful stuff from doing the sidequests ;)

    The GF roster: Phoenix (fire), Shiva (ice), Ouroborous (earth), Siren (wind / silence), FF VI's Bismarck the Whale (water -- Leviathan sucks!), Ramuh (lightning), the Giant of Babel (holy, replacing Alexander), Cthulhu (darkness), Diablos (gravity), Carbuncle (reflect), Griever (non-elemental; enough with Bahamut already), Cait Sith (confusion and other status attacks), Culex from Mario RPG (he does a four-elemental attack with the Crystals, like Tritoch or Kjata), Asura (cure magic), and Tonberry (physical attacks, and all those store abilities). The ultimate GF, of course, is The Man himself, Gilgamesh, and his theme music plays whenever he's fighting. And instead of Odin or Gilgamesh randomly appearing to destroy all the enemies, Chupon would show up and sneeze them out of battle. The GFs would generally be acquired in more interesting ways than just drawing them from bosses.

    FF Gaiden is fully 3-D, like FF X, and includes full MGS-quality voice acting and FF VIII-quality FMV. All battles (not just boss battles) occur on the same screen in which you travel. There are no random battles; instead, battles occur at fixed points like in Parasite Eve. The entire three-character party is seen traveling on the field map, as in FF VIII. There is a world map; it's still the same map as FF VIII (duh), but it's more detailed (in terms of and has more 3-D features to it like FF IX's mpa. The game also has an FF IX-style two player mode, as well as an online battle mode where you can pit your party against other players' teams.

    Lots of Moogles, Moombas, Shumi, and Qus, but no Pikmin.

    Featuring a soundtrack by Yoko Shimomura, monster designs by Akira Toriyama, and translation by whoever translated Persona 2 Eternal Punishment.

    Best. Game. Ever.

Okay, I was thinking a bit more about my ideas for FF Gaiden, and realized I "needed" (:P) to clarify a few things about certain characters:

    Squall: Since Squall's limit break depends on him acquiring upgraded Gunblades, there would still be junk shops that you would visit to upgrade his weapon. This wouldn't affect the attack power at all, however; each Gunblade upgrade would just give him a new finishing move. The blade part of the Gunblade would still change appearance as his strength increases (see the previous post), but the hilt's look would change by remodeling.

    Selphie: There are no more experience levels, so Selphie would gain new Slot-exclusive spells some other way. I was thinking that she'd learn them from a special type of Draw Point. You'd get the spells in a specific order, but every successive spell in the sequence would require more Draw Points to learn. For example, you'd only have to find one special Draw Point to learn Full-cure, but Wall would require you find two more Draw Points, and so on. (The draw points would be tied to any specific spell -- they would just help you earn whichever spell you were currently working to collect.) Also, it'd be cool to have more than four exclusive Slot spells... maybe add the two extra spells (Catastrophe and something else I forget) that you can see with a GameShark :)

    Seifer: Seifer's Limit Break would still be called "Fire Cross"; it would work like a cross between Cyan's SwdTechs and FF VIII's G.F. summons. You would choose one of his attacks, and his ATB gauge would change into a blue bar that would start counting down... and when it was empty, he would use the attack. Of course, the stronger attacks would require more charging time. (The lower Seifer is on HP, the faster the attacks charge, of course.) New attacks would be gained by upgrading his Gunblade... his upgrades would require different sets of parts than Squall's, though.

    Edea: The best thing I can think of for Edea's "Sorcery" limit break would be something sort of like BOF III's Dragon Genes. You'd be given a certain number of "slots" and could fill them with different "Sorcery Powers" (except they would have a much less stupid name than that) each time you used the break. Each power would change the Sorcery spell in some way; for example, by making it to do lightning damage, causing it to hit all enemies, increasing the damage it does, causing it to infilct the "Stop" status, etc. It wouldn't be based on "combinations" (not like Rikku's overdrive); it's just that each thing you added would change a certain aspect of the spell. (I guess the game wouldn't let you choose conflicting things, like adding both fire and ice elements.) Depending on how low Edea was on HP, you might have from two to five slots available; some really powerful Sorcery Powers would also take up more than one slot. New Sorcery Powers would be Drawn from enemies, but only Edea could Draw them. Once you had a Sorcery Power, you could use it over and over... it's a one-time acquisition thing :).

    Also, Edea still wouldn't have a "weapon" per se; but she would shoot magic projectiles instead of just waving her hand and zapping people. And then as you junctioned upgrades to it, the projectile would get bigger or become firey, etc.

    Other new stuff I thought of:

    Items + Money: There would be no more healing items; however, you would still have money, which would you use to access pay-per-use draw points (like the Ultima one in Shumi Village in FF VIII).

    Chests: Some dungeons would have chests or other ways of acquiring items, unlike FF VIII. These would yield items that you can refine into magic, GF ability items, blue magic items, cards, or weapon parts. Also, the "!" and "?" context icons from FF IX would be included, and FF Gaiden's backgrounds would be more interactive and animated like FF IX's.

    Magic: I like FF VIII's spell roster, so this would be mostly the same, with all the cool spells like Meltdown and Pain :).

    Commands: FF VIII is kinda weak in the special commands department... FF Gaiden would have classic FF abilities like Coin Toss, Jump, Dragon Sword, Mimic, etc. (Throw is obviously out, though, ;P)