Does Yoshi P Hate FF9?

[Cilia]

7.2 continues piling it on:

-The Underkeep is essentially a combination of Alexandria Castle, which was already seen in the Alexandria dungeon, and the Desert Palace, continuing the trend set up in 7.0. Numerous architectural features, such as the main hall and half-spiral staircase, are ripped right from IX itself. The final boss of the dungeon, Valia Pira, is (visually) identical to the same boss from IX.
-While her name is changed to suit XIV Alexandrian theming, Zelenia (presumibly from "Selenium") is a dead ringer for Beatrix - even as a giant killer robot, her appearance, personality (as remembered by Sphene), rose motif, and battle theme song all make it blindingly obvious.
-Sugar Riot will summon both the Gimme Cat and infamous Yans from IX in her Savage fight as adds.
-Howling Blade's Fenrir-granted abilities being both Wind and Earth based (as opposed to the usual Ice) references how in IX Fenrir used either Earth (in conjunction with Titan) or Wind if you had the right equipment. The face of IX Titan shows up on the pillars he tries to crush you with, and one of his attacks is "Terrestrial Rage," like Fenrir normally uses when summoned in IX. Fenrir's "solo" summon which activates if Eiko is equipped with the Maiden's Prayer, "Millennial Decay," has him split into multiple copies to attack a target - referenced in Howling Blade's overwhelming speed letting him do the same thing. Howling Blade's face while transformed resembles Fenrir's from IX, his Fenrir bits (like the tail) have the white / yellow / blue palette of IX Fenrir, and even ring name pays homage to Fenrir's epithet of "Howling Beast."
-Tomestones of Mathematics gear resembles or is identical to characters and / or NPCs from IX (such as the Tank gear looking suspiciously similar to Steiner's armor, helmet excluded).

So, ah... yeah, I don't think Yoshi-P hates IX if he greenlit all that.

[Cleretic]

7.2 continues piling it on:


So, ah... yeah, I don't think Yoshi-P hates IX if he greenlit all that.

The OP made this thread after 7.2 was released, and part of his 'evidence' was that Zelenia wasn't called Beatrix. So he was aware of all this, and just decided it was evidence of a hatred of IX, because the game wasn't going 'look at this shallow fanservice' and was mostly spending its time doing more thoughtful and elaborate things.

They never posted in this thread again after that, so I don't think there's any point in acting like they're still here to argue with; it was just a drive-by, trying to start an argument with an incendiary comment rather than have a conversation.

[Veritas-Ancora]

The OP made this thread after 7.2 was released, and part of his 'evidence' was that Zelenia wasn't called Beatrix. So he was aware of all this, and just decided it was evidence of a hatred of IX, because the game wasn't going 'look at this shallow fanservice' and was mostly spending its time doing more thoughtful and elaborate things.

They never posted in this thread again after that, so I don't think there's any point in acting like they're still here to argue with; it was just a drive-by, trying to start an argument with an incendiary comment rather than have a conversation.

Nope, still paying attention. I don't troll threads by posting every five minutes. Play the game and have a life and whatnot.

Still rings true that other games receive carbon-copy exact replicas and IX does not.

[Veritas-Ancora]

So, ah... yeah, I don't think Yoshi-P hates IX if he greenlit all that.

And Ozma, don't forget Ozma.

I upvoted your post, and several others in these threads, because I agree that there have been references. I won't deny that. But unlike Cleretic's horribly misconstrued points I made in the original post, I am not saying there's zero FF9 references. I never said that. I'm inquiring whether Yoshi P is giving the EQUAL amount of love that the other games have received.

The core of what I'm getting at is that FF1, FF3, FF4, FF5, FF6, FF7, etc., they've all had replica bosses to maintain the "Final Fantasy Disneyland" (Sakaguchi quote) -- but the same amount of love doesn't appear to be given to FF9 references. Things are being renamed, women turning to robots, some really half-arsed Steiner references, no Kuja...

Remember where we ended with Endwalker. FF4 got so much love that everything was an exact replica of the video game. Not only did we get the Four Elemental Archfiends, but we got two of the final bosses of FFIV. You can't possibly say that FF9 received equal treatment.

I look forward to that discussion.

[MikkoAkure]

The core of what I'm getting at is that FF1, FF3, FF4, FF5, FF6, FF7, etc., they've all had replica bosses to maintain the "Final Fantasy Disneyland" (Sakaguchi quote) -- but the same amount of love doesn't appear to be given to FF9 references. Things are being renamed, women turning to robots, some really half-arsed Steiner references, no Kuja...

Remember where we ended with Endwalker. FF4 got so much love that everything was an exact replica of the video game. Not only did we get the Four Elemental Archfiends, but we got two of the final bosses of FFIV. You can't possibly say that FF9 received equal treatment.

I look forward to that discussion.

If you want "exact bosses" and want to ignore blatant references like Zelenia because it's somehow not "pure" enough, we got Lindblum Zaghnal in the Yuyewawta dungeon with the model ripped straight out of FFIX. Same with Apollyon boss from Ihuykatumu using Abadon, Feather Circle as Feather Ray in Skydeep Cenote, and the Gargant and Valia Pira bosses from Underkeep.

You also reference FF2 as an example of an FF that "received love" yet the only reference I can think of from that whole game that's in FFXIV is the Wild Rose thing.

You also mentioned Trance in your OP, which made it to the Zidane job Viper as "Reawaken" and we've had Zidane's clothes for years in-game.

[Cleretic]

You also reference FF2 as an example of an FF that "received love" yet the only reference I can think of from that whole game that's in FFXIV is the Wild Rose thing.

Theoretically it has Pandaemonium, but I'd call Pandaemonium considerably more transformative than, say, Zelenia; in 2 Pandaemonium was the castle for the ruler of Hell, and... well, stayed a castle. In XIV Pandaemonium's a weird zoo/prison that also becomes a golem and has no real connection to anything you'd call Hell outside of 'being in the aetherial sea for a little bit of time', and also doesn't really resemble 2's aesthetically. There's also a single fish that mentions Mysidia, which debuted in 2. And if we're counting outfit references we have the Wild Rose outfit, but we're apparently not counting the Tantalus outfit, so evidently that doesn't.

2's definitely the least referenced of all the mainline FF games, but it's also a little hard to reference, to be honest; it has very few unique features of its own, with most of its stuff being either stock fantasy for the time or adopted as a series mainstay. There's definitely stuff they could touch and haven't, though; the Emperor himself could easily be adapted, and I'd be in love with a proper Minwu glam.

EDIT: In retrospect it's very weird that I shorthand most of the FF games with their numbers in roman numerals, but 1 and 2 get '1 and 2'. No idea why I do that.

[Cilia]

Theoretically it has Pandaemonium, but I'd call Pandaemonium considerably more transformative...

2's definitely the least referenced of all the mainline FF games, but it's also a little hard to reference, to be honest; it has very few unique features of its own, with most of its stuff being either stock fantasy for the time or adopted as a series mainstay. There's definitely stuff they could touch and haven't, though; the Emperor himself could easily be adapted, and I'd be in love with a proper Minwu glam.

Pandaemonium is a very layered and indirect thing.

While the Emperor isn't named in II itself, supplementary material typically names him Mateus. Mateus is the Scion of Darkness named in opposition to the Esper of Light Lahabrea in Ivalician lore, hence Lahabrea's heavy involvement in the Pandaemonium raids. It's architecture isn't a 1:1, but it does feature that sort of "organic" look in various places (e.g. the arena where you fight Hephaistos). More meaningfully, you descend to the depths to fight Hephaistos (the "Hell Emperor") before ascending to the "heavens" to face the "Light Emperor" (Athena) who tries to portray herself as a goodly person but is just as bad as (if not worse than) the "evil" half, which is what happens in the "Soul of Rebirth" scenario introduced in II's remake(s) (for bonus points you play as the characters who died in the main game during Soul of Rebirth, not unlike how Athena reconstructs Lahabrea, Erichthonios, and Themis from soul fragments just to show off). No, it's not a "Look at this thing from II! Everybody clap like a seal!" thing but it's there. Of course they couldn't resist shoehorning in an Ivalice reference or two on top of it, but you know.

On top of what's already been mentioned (Apollyon, Feather Ray, "Lindblum" Zaghnal, the Gargant, Valia Pira, and VPR in general) there've been some big IX references in the game for quite a while. Vivi shows up as a mammet during the Heavensward Hildibrand questline, and the same expansion features Ipsen's Castle (as the Antitower). Additionally, while it's just a (literal) vehicle for a glut of blatant Ivalice fanservice, Tantalus' airship the Prima Vista is used by the Majestic Imperial Theater Company as their mobile theater and base of operations. They feature some electrope enhancements, but Alexandria (the city) and Alexandria Castle both feature identical architecture to their IX incarnations.

Somewhat more loosely, the Cruise Chaser (Designation: Blassty) fought in A11 is a reference to the Ark, which was itself a reference to the very early Squaresoft game Cruise Chaser Blassty. Many of its moves are taken from the Ark fight in IX's Oeilvert, and you have to destroy the Lapis Lazuli adds to stop its "Eternal Darkness" from being an instant kill - more Lapis Lazuli in your inventory powered up the Ark's damage in IX, and the Cruise Chaser's rendition of the move uses the same crest that appears when you summon Ark. And while Alexander's time-space abilities are a unique addition to XIV, after using Holy Judgment and deploying his chronofoil Alexander Prime is a dead ringer for IX's incarnation.

... and the last 1/3 of Dawntrail contains more references than you can shake a stick at, replete with cut and pastes in all but name. No, there's not a lot of cut and paste designs or characters; but even the Elemental Archfiends aren't 1:1 to their IV incarnations (Barbariccia is much more rough-and-tumble, with powers and abilities the original never possessed) and recontextualized to fit the setting. Which is how it should be in my opinion; I was less "Why aren't they referencing my favorite?" and more like "Why so blatant with the references!" during 6.1 - 6.5.

[Cleretic]

Pandaemonium is a very layered and indirect thing.

While the Emperor isn't named in II itself, supplementary material typically names him Mateus. Mateus is the Scion of Darkness named in opposition to the Esper of Light Lahabrea in Ivalician lore, hence Lahabrea's heavy involvement in the Pandaemonium raids. It's architecture isn't a 1:1, but it does feature that sort of "organic" look in various places (e.g. the arena where you fight Hephaistos). More meaningfully, you descend to the depths to fight Hephaistos (the "Hell Emperor") before ascending to the "heavens" to face the "Light Emperor" (Athena) who tries to portray herself as a goodly person but is just as bad as (if not worse than) the "evil" half, which is what happens in the "Soul of Rebirth" scenario introduced in II's remake(s) (for bonus points you play as the characters who died in the main game during Soul of Rebirth, not unlike how Athena reconstructs Lahabrea, Erichthonios, and Themis from soul fragments just to show off). No, it's not a "Look at this thing from II! Everybody clap like a seal!" thing but it's there. Of course they couldn't resist shoehorning in an Ivalice reference or two on top of it, but you know.

All of this is mostly a solid read (although I'd probably argue that if we're saying anyone is the split Emperor it's Lahabrea/Hephaistos), but again, that's a lot more transformative than what the OP's bar seems to be, which is 'you can only show love through a hollow direct depiction of Thing From Game'. By his logic, the FF2 fans should be in an uproar that Pandaemonium wasn't very specifically a castle from Hell that has a few monster-in-a-box bosses and then ends in a fight against someone specifically named 'The Emperor'! (And then possibly doing it all again but mirrored this time.)

Of course, that hypothetical proposes that there are FF2 fans, and across the over twenty years I've been following the series, I haven't seen any evidence of that.

[Cilia]

All of this is mostly a solid read (although I'd probably argue that if we're saying anyone is the split Emperor it's Lahabrea/Hephaistos), but again, that's a lot more transformative than what the OP's bar seems to be, which is 'you can only show love through a hollow direct depiction of Thing From Game'. By his logic, the FF2 fans should be in an uproar that Pandaemonium wasn't very specifically a castle from Hell that has a few monster-in-a-box bosses and then ends in a fight against someone specifically named 'The Emperor'! (And then possibly doing it all again but mirrored this time.)

While this is a bit of a wild take, the actual way it's supposed to be is that Athena is just straight up "the Emperor [Mateus]." Sure, she's got a quasi-scientific bent to her, but they're both sociopathic megalomaniacs who desire absolute dominion, see everyone else as nothing more than pawns for them to exploit, account for (if not plan) their death and come back from the afterworld in an effort to finish their designs, and have a dubious connection to a malevolent otherworldly figure (Satan for Mateus, Ultima for Athena) that probably exacerbated their worst qualities (though they still would have been nasty pieces of work). Hephaistos = Hell Emperor and Athena = Light Emperor still, given outside of the non-canon Savage fight Athena keeps her eyes closed like the Light Emperor and the heavenly pocket dimension you fight her in is obviously meant to reference that, but anyway.

If you want a carbon copy cut and paste from II, there actually is one but it's small and easy to miss - no thanks to II not being very popular as you mentioned. The giant beavers first encountered in Il Mheg that somehow found their way back to the Source are lifted straight from II; our inability to speak with them even with the Echo is a reference to how only Guy speak beaver.