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 Posted: Sun Aug 21, 2005 3:45 pm
The most important parts of any good RPG is story, and FFVI has not failed to surpass any RPG of its time (I don't feel like arguing with anyone) in neither plot nor game play. The first time the player is introduced to the fascinating backstory of the game is either in the intro to the game or... the second page of the instruction booklet.
The opening of the game is as follows:
Magitek has been reborn. And the end of the world is near.
Ages ago, evil beings created powerful creatures known as Espers, and unleashed them against each other. The resulting battles left their world a smoldering rubble. Legend has it, the Espers destroyed themselves and most of humanity. Magic disappeared forever.
Centuries have passed and a rational world now exists with Espers living only as myths, until one, frozen solid since the ancient wars, is unearthed. Suddenly, there are reports of magical attacks on civilians. Imperial Commandos launch raids using magic-powered Magitek weapons. Magic is obviously alive and the world is in danger again.
Who or what is behind the rediscovery and redeployment of this legendary power? What chaotic plans exist that will wreak havoc on this orderly world?
The opening of the instruction booklet is:
Beings of pure magic once ruled the world with power and command. But power rarely leads to contentment... A dispute amongst these beings turned into an all-out war. Beasts of doom, known as Espers, were created and unleashed to do the bidding of their masters. This "War of the Magi" reduced the world to smoldering rubble. When it ended, the Espers were gone, as were most of the citizens of the world.
Many centuries have passed since that war. Civilizations have been rebuilt with iron, machines, and technology. For years Espers have existed only in ancient legends. Now, an Esper has been discovered and the forces of magic are beginning to return. The risk of another, more devastating war is growing. The future
Unfortunately for me, my copy of the instruction booklet cuts off at "The future", not because it is too long for the page, but because it just... does. If you have a copy that finishes the sentence(s), could you please post it? Thank you. ^_^
Later, in the mountain of Crescent Island, the player gets deeper into the history of the Espers, the Goddesses, and magic itself.
I've copied the text from the game word for word in the order I think is best considering the context.
The birth of magic...
Three goddesses were banished here. In time they began quarreling, which led to all-out war.
Those unlucky humans who got in the way were transformed into Espers, and used as living war machines...
The goddesses finally realized that they were being laughed at by those who had banished them here.
In a rare moment of mutual clarity, they agreed to seal themselves away from the world.
With their last ounce of energy they gave the Espers back their own free will, and then transformed themselves...
...into stone.
Their only request was that the Espers keep them sealed away for all eternity.
The Espers created these statues as a symbol of their vow to let the goddesses sleep in peace.
The Espers have sworn to keep the goddesses' power from being abused.
I think this is the most vital piece of historical information the game has to offer (unless I've forgotten something, which is more than possible), but it hints at some very interesting things.
Three goddesses were banished here.
The goddesses were banished "here" which I am going to assume is Earth (the planet FFVI takes place in, or what some may call "Gaia") or perhaps Crescent Island itself, but there isn't any information to who banished them? Who has the power to banish goddesses? Especially goddesses so powerful and reckless as these?
The goddesses finally realized that they were being laughed at by those who had banished them here.
This tells me that even though they were banished they were still in some sort of contact with those who... did the banishing. Again, who could've banished them?
I guess that's what I'm trying to get at - it's pointed at that there's some other beings or even another world in this game that aren't (or possibly are and I've just never found it) revealed...
Crackpot theories are welcome.
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Posted: Tue Aug 23, 2005 12:41 am
It's possible that the word "banished" as used here is not meant in the normal sense. The beings of pure magic mentioned in the instruction booklet (my copy is long gone, BTW) could be related to the Goddesses somehow. Maybe "Goddess" is just a term for one of those superpowered beings. If all of their race had these abilities, the three Goddesses we know wouldn't be all that special. It's even possible that they were the weakest three, which allowed them to be banished. If it were up to me, here's how it would go...
The three Goddesses are kicked out of their kind and sent to Esper Realm.
They start to fight (this is the War of the Magi).
They create Espers to fight for them.
The rest of their kind (on Earth) goads them on and laughs (still the War of the Magi).
The Goddesses realize they're being laughed at (and manipulated).
They give the Espers free will, explain the situation, and turn to stone.
The Espers run amok and wreak all sorts of havok.
The Espers eventually "reduce the world to smoldering rubble."
During all this running amok, the Espers destroy/chase off the other God-types.
The Espers make the statues and wall themselves in their realm.
This leads up to FFVI as we know it. I assumed that the Goddesses were sent to the place behind the Sealed Gate. I also assumed that the Espers, in their wrath, destroyed/chased off the rest of whomever banished the Goddesses. And that's if they were banished. They might have just started fighting and everyone else left. Or they went there spelunking and got in a fight over who got to use the purple carabiner. Anything! My point is, if a team of four (mostly) humans can kick the utter snot out of all three Goddesses AND Kefka, a bunch of rampaging Espers would have no problem obliterating the rest of the Goddess-race.
[/theory]
PS. I did a little looking, and I think the booklet is supposed to end there, with "The future..." I've also seen the last line as "What will the future hold?"
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Posted: Tue Aug 23, 2005 8:42 pm
o.O... holy cow. I never really thought of it all like that.
However I have to say, I always thought the opening was a bit different when you started a new game >.> <.<... oh well, guess that's me for ya.
Well, all I can say really is good job o.O. Cause after all the only thing I could think of is that the humans probably banished them. Like through a joint effort since obviously if four super powered people could, ten thousand+ average people could.
but meh, i guess that's just me again.
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Posted: Tue Aug 23, 2005 9:05 pm
Tyr Hawk o.O... holy cow. I never really thought of it all like that. However I have to say, I always thought the opening was a bit different when you started a new game >.> <.<... oh well, guess that's me for ya. Well, all I can say really is good job o.O. Cause after all the only thing I could think of is that the humans probably banished them. Like through a joint effort since obviously if four super powered people could, ten thousand+ average people could. but meh, i guess that's just me again. Long ago, the War of the Magi
reduced the world to a
scorched wasteland, and magic
simply ceased to exist.
1000 years have passed... Iron,
gunpowder, and steam engines
have been rediscovered, and
high technology reigns...
But there are some who
would enslave the world by
reviving the dread destructive
force known as "magic."
Can it be that those
in power are on the verge of
repeating a senseless
and deadly mistake? Was this what you were thinking of, Tyr? And as for the humans banishing the Goddesses, I'm going to disagree with you there. Think about it--Terra's a half-Esper, and she eventually teaches herself Ultima. If the strongest natural magic user in the game, a mere half-Esper, can learn that, there's no telling what a full Goddess could do. And Ultima can wipe out one average person as easily as it can one hundred thousand. I think that whomever banished the Goddesses had to be at least as powerful, if not more so. I don't think there were that many of them, though, since (by my theory) the Espers trampled them into next week. PS. If it says "gunpowder" in the lil' intro there, why does Edgar have an auto-crossbow? Why not a semi-automatic or a machine gun? Hell with Illumina, I want an uzi and some white phosphorus! twisted
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Posted: Thu Aug 25, 2005 6:09 pm
gonk I posted the wrong one. The first one is on the back of the box xp So, there are three intros... oh, well. If the booklet is supposed to end with "the future..." mine is missing the "..." completely sweatdrop Quote: It's possible that the word "banished" as used here is not meant in the normal sense. The beings of pure magic mentioned in the instruction booklet (my copy is long gone, BTW) could be related to the Goddesses somehow. Maybe "Goddess" is just a term for one of those superpowered beings. If all of their race had these abilities, the three Goddesses we know wouldn't be all that special. It's even possible that they were the weakest three, which allowed them to be banished. If it were up to me, here's how it would go... The three Goddesses are kicked out of their kind and sent to Esper Realm. They start to fight (this is the War of the Magi). They create Espers to fight for them. The rest of their kind (on Earth) goads them on and laughs (still the War of the Magi). The Goddesses realize they're being laughed at (and manipulated). They give the Espers free will, explain the situation, and turn to stone. The Espers run amok and wreak all sorts of havok. The Espers eventually "reduce the world to smoldering rubble." During all this running amok, the Espers destroy/chase off the other God-types. The Espers make the statues and wall themselves in their realm. I'm pretty sure that the word "Banish" means what it says, "to be banished", "to be thrown out", "to be exiled", etc. It is possible that they were the weakest, and thier banishment was for entertainment purposes (which is sad and amusing to think about), I kind of like the idea, and it explains the laughter. Because the FF games are how they are, I think there's another purely magic based world in FFVI, and the Goddesses were somehow in control there and were banished (rather than assasinated or something) by a group there to Terra's world, presumably because it was without magic and they just wouldn't like it there xp Quote: This leads up to FFVI as we know it. I assumed that the Goddesses were sent to the place behind the Sealed Gate. I also assumed that the Espers, in their wrath, destroyed/chased off the rest of whomever banished the Goddesses. And that's if they were banished. They might have just started fighting and everyone else left. Or they went there spelunking and got in a fight over who got to use the purple carabiner. Anything! My point is, if a team of four (mostly) humans can kick the utter snot out of all three Goddesses AND Kefka, a bunch of rampaging Espers would have no problem obliterating the rest of the Goddess-race. What made you assume that the Espers destroyed anything else after they were given free thought? Everything I've read said that after the Espers were given free thought they were told to seal the Goddesses (In statue form) away from everything else forever, and that the world was reduced to rubble from the War of Magi, which was the Espers fighting each other mindlessly (literally) over the Goddesses' quarrels with each other, not anything else. I don't think that last point counts very much honestly... In any RPG you can build yourself up strong enough to kill Gods, no matter what race you are. Besides, if you don't have a powerful enough enemy in a game or a good enough reason for killing the main boss(es), or you uber up the enemies to God-point and you don't allow the player to get the playable characters up enough to beat them (as a team or otherwise) you've made a bad game. By the way, what is a "carabiner", how do you pronounce it, and why is it purple?
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Posted: Thu Aug 25, 2005 6:17 pm
NekoKatsun PS. If it says "gunpowder" in the lil' intro there, why does Edgar have an auto-crossbow? Why not a semi-automatic or a machine gun? Hell with Illumina, I want an uzi and some white phosphorus! twisted NOES!!one1!! No guns for FFVI!! Smoke bombs only *tear tear* Well, it said that gunpowder was making a comeback - I don't think the use of guns would be realized until quite a while after FFVI ends xp
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Posted: Fri Aug 26, 2005 7:13 pm
NekoKatsun Long ago, the War of the Magi
reduced the world to a
scorched wasteland, and magic
simply ceased to exist.
1000 years have passed... Iron,
gunpowder, and steam engines
have been rediscovered, and
high technology reigns...
But there are some who
would enslave the world by
reviving the dread destructive
force known as "magic."
Can it be that those
in power are on the verge of
repeating a senseless
and deadly mistake? and once again, thank you for knowing what i do not *bows humbly* and anywho... the only true way to answer this is to somehow contact the people responsible for the games storyline and force them to answer us. However since that porbably won't work anytime soon, I'm going with Terra on this one ^-^. After all, it sounds quite reasonable and there's really no other explanation I could think of within this... next twenty seconds or so. So ya... I vote Terra for... best background historian of FF6 that I know of. ...sorry. I'm rather random when i have nothing else to say -_-
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Posted: Sat Aug 27, 2005 8:28 pm
Well, it was just a theory. I assumed the Espers went nuts and destroyed everything because they did something similar in-game, when the Sealed Gate opens and they open a can of whoop-a** on Vector. Besides, it made sense (to me) that the rest of the Goddess-types weren't around because they got chased off.
As for the strength of your party, that wasn't really the point I was getting at... what I meant was, if your party is that powerful and all you've got is a half-Esper and some Magicite, just think how strong a group of real Espers would be.
A carabiner is pronounced just how it looks, "care-ah-BEE-ner," and is the little metal thing that clips a rope to a saftey harness. It's purple because I like purple. 3nodding
Moving on... guns would not be realized until a while after FFVI? Then what's TekMissile in the beginning? Bio Blaster is some type of artillery/gaseous warfare. If Cid's built these highly advanced tube-thingies for the espers and is pioneering Magitek transfusions, and if Setzer's got himself an airship, building a piddly little gun doesn't seem like it'd be a big challenge.
Sad as it is, I doubt that even the game's creators know the real backstory. I guess they assumed no one would care enough to find out. crying *huggles FFVI*
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Posted: Sat Aug 27, 2005 8:31 pm
While we''re on the subject of backstory, what''s with that pendant, Terra? I know it was originally Maduin''s and he said it helped protect the Esper world. But really, why is it even in the game?
Completely off-topic: I work at Blockbuster, and today one of my customers had the last name "Palazzo." eek
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Posted: Wed Aug 31, 2005 12:21 am
NekoKatsun While we''re on the subject of backstory, what''s with that pendant, Terra? I know it was originally Maduin''s and he said it helped protect the Esper world. But really, why is it even in the game? Completely off-topic: I work at Blockbuster, and today one of my customers had the last name "Palazzo." eek Ooo, really? That's odd... I didn't know it was a real name xp Er, I think the pendant's just there for semi-random symbolic reasons. It actually isn't needed for the plot or anything, but I suppose it did help Maduin get under Madonna's dress gonk xp *cough* anyway... *crowbars image out of head* Every FF game since III (Japanese III) has had an airship of some kind and no type of guns or anything, so it seems to be more of a staple than an indication of weapons advancement. Other than that, I kinda forgot about TekMissle and Bioblaster... So your right, guns are possible, but that doesn't mean I want them gonk As far as the creators knowing the backstory, there's a huge amount of text in the Japanese character guide on the History of FFVI, the problem is that I'm having a lot of trouble translating it AND finding the kanji TO translate... Sometimes JWPce just ticks me off (The Japanese word proccessor I use)... From what I have been able to translate, it seems that most of the history for the game in that text pertains more to the relations of Vector, Figaro, and Doma, rather than dealing with the Goddesses and Espers, so it's either mentioned further into the text or they decided not to include it since maybe they felt they had put enough of that into the game... It could of course be in another part of the book, there's even another with Setzer on the front that I don't have, so it could be in there. There are plenty of things from those books I need to translate and post... *sobs quietly* @Tyr - Oh! redface Thankyou Tyr.
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Posted: Thu Sep 01, 2005 10:50 pm
Another Palazzo--a guy--came in today. Rented a movie, bought some candy. I was all "OMG! Kefka's relatives rent from my Blockbuster!" I didn't know whether to feel honored or scared. gonk
Kefka: "This movie sucked! Light of judgement!"
Me: *burns to a crisp*
Kefka: "Uwe hee hee! Now I get free rentals!"
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Posted: Sat Sep 03, 2005 8:53 pm
NekoKatsun Another Palazzo--a guy--came in today. Rented a movie, bought some candy. I was all "OMG! Kefka's relatives rent from my Blockbuster!" I didn't know whether to feel honored or scared. gonk Kefka: "This movie sucked! Light of judgement!" Me: *burns to a crisp* Kefka: "Uwe hee hee! Now I get free rentals!" Oh, that's freaky...
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Posted: Sat Sep 03, 2005 9:35 pm
Terra~Branford NekoKatsun Another Palazzo--a guy--came in today. Rented a movie, bought some candy. I was all "OMG! Kefka's relatives rent from my Blockbuster!" I didn't know whether to feel honored or scared. gonk Kefka: "This movie sucked! Light of judgement!" Me: *burns to a crisp* Kefka: "Uwe hee hee! Now I get free rentals!" Oh, that's freaky... Now I'm scared to go back to work...
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Posted: Sat Sep 03, 2005 10:18 pm
Heh, anytime Terra ^_^
and as for the Kefka thing...
*equips his Opressor (that was the four attack thing right? *forgets too easily*) and Genji glove with double Atma Weapons* DIE!!!!
*Fight*
*destroys him easily* ^_^
*Item*-*Fenix Down*-*NekoKatsun*
*throws his hands in the air and revives Neko* ^_^ hoo-ray!
o.o... again. boredom+tyr=random
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Posted: Sat Sep 03, 2005 11:17 pm
Tyr Hawk Heh, anytime Terra ^_^ and as for the Kefka thing... *equips his Opressor (that was the four attack thing right? *forgets too easily*) and Genji glove with double Atma Weapons* DIE!!!! *Fight* *destroys him easily* ^_^ *Item*-*Fenix Down*-*NekoKatsun* *throws his hands in the air and revives Neko* ^_^ hoo-ray! o.o... again. boredom+tyr=random *giggle* It's Offering, btw, actually; and I'm bored too... >.>;;
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