And, you know, they're also great to handle, like, byproducts, because if you take, like, for instance, the aluminum solution, you know, you get the byproduct of silica, and you can use that to, like, make fine concrete, for instance, which is an old recipe, where you can produce more of

them.

Yeah, there's no, like, best thing, right?

It's kind of like saying Final Fantasy VIII is better than Final Fantasy VII.

It's like, that's not really the case.

I mean, I would say it's the other way around, but, like, you know, it's divisive.

You know, they're different people.

Sure.

Uh...

then again you know people you know it is the better final fantasy so people can have that opinion and i think it's perfectly fine are you in final fantasy eight is better than seven you know i'm all about fancy

eight okay okay all right this is this is the crazy uncle on facebook right now yeah now i

think

coming out

with his final fantasy eight take it really is like the people that that prefer like the people that think five fancy eight is like the favorite fancy like

We're a strong little community.

We're tight.

You really are crazy uncle status on Facebook.

I mean, it was a good game, but I just don't understand how you would say it's better than 7.

I wouldn't even say it's better than 10.

I think it's mostly because of nostalgia, honestly.

I don't think it necessarily is the better game overall, because I think the magic system in Final Fantasy 8 is kind of broken.

And even people that like Final Fantasy VIII don't want to admit that, but it is fucking broken.

There's no doubt about it.

Yeah, I've heard two things about the draw system in Final Fantasy VIII.

One, either you hate it, or two, you don't understand how the draw system works, and then for those people, it's broken powerfully for

them.

Exactly.

There's nothing in between because there's waste because like you can play the whole game without drawing a single time in like the combat section like you can create magic from from items and from like Tools and stuff in the game You just need to know that in order to do that you have to like learn that ability with your guardian force and stuff like that like it's it's

It's overly complicated in that sense.

The one thing I like about it is the fact that you can puzzle around.

So if you want to have this magic thing and I want 100 of that, then in order to get that, I can either do this thing or I can do that thing.

And if I use this item, I can do this thing.

But then if I save it for later, I can use it for a weapon.

It's a little bit interesting, like puzzle making.

But you can really only do that if you have a guide and know about that system.

Oh yeah, but it's obviously a better game than VII, right?

A game that requires a guide so that

you can actually make use of the system.

I mean, the Materia system in VII is fine and intuitive.

Because here's the thing for me.

I played...

Final Fantasy VIII was the game that got me into Final Fantasy at all.

Because I had Final Fantasy VII and I played it.

And I played up to the Midgar section.

And then I kind of lost interest.

And then I picked up Final Fantasy VIII.

And I got more interested in that because I was an angsty teenager and that fit with the main character of Final Fantasy VIII, right?

You were the hottest guy in the school or whatever it is.

Weren't you, Snoop?

But no one understood.

Oh god, so funny.

I love that beat so much.

um so yeah for me it's it's all nostalgia like i didn't get it and then once i finished eight i was like maybe i'll go back to seven and then i loved seven and then i played nine and then i played ten um so that's

so like one thing that's interesting about from seven to twelve is how

crazy different the battle system is so we're talking about like draw systems in a you know that was wild and different materia i feel like was pretty different as well compared to i don't know i didn't really see that kind of system anywhere else no um i guess nine felt a little more straightforward but there were four people in your party yeah

nine was more like going back to roots with like the sort of the job system but not really the job system

And then X had that crazy sphere.

The

sphere grid for leveling up.

Which I really liked.

I really loved it as well.

And not only was it just good in first play, they had the two different kinds of sphere grids, the basic one and the advanced one.

Advanced will give you more options of how you want to specialize as you play, but then at higher level play where you can go and clear nodes and then replace them, like farm plus four strength or whatever, as opposed to the weaker plus one strength or whatever,

You know and then you could just max out your characters Like that whole like all of that was really fun and interesting and it ties in well with the whole monster hunting as well Yeah intent so like

I also like that you could like revisit the same nodes of other characters So like if you wanted to make you know a strength build you could do that if you wanted

to

Yeah, but you needed to grind more essentially because you needed to get around the sphere system to get to that point or whatever

exactly

But I thought it was very interesting the the then like in 12 They kind of took that system and just made it like even more Open I guess

yeah

Yeah, it was really good.

I replayed 12 recently because Stefan, our CEO, right?

He's a huge Final Fantasy nerd as well.

And he told me like he replayed 12 and that it was actually really good.

And I should check it out.

You know, they've got it on Steam or something.

And I played it again.

Yeah, yeah.

I played it again.

And it was it was really good.

And the battle system is great.

So, yeah, anyway, for those of you who are here to learn about Final Fantasy battle systems.

In a way, it's almost like you programmed all your AIs using these things called gambits.

And if you are low health or a teammate is low health, then heal them using this spell or whatever, whatever.

So it was really, really cool.

you know, programming your party members and then like tweaking that as you go.

And then as you unlock more gambits and more conditions and actions, you can sort of build upon that and and create like really good battle styles.

Yeah, super, super good, actually.

And the world in Final Fantasy 12 was kind of good, but that was the beginning that marked the beginning of the shift of how the Final Fantasies have kind of the direction that it's gone in.

into a world that I don't like as much.

Because I fell in love with Final Fantasy in Final Fantasy VII, where the entire world is in danger, and you have to go to all these different places with all these different cultures, and you travel literally the world.

And in Final Fantasy VIII, you travel the world.

In IX, you travel the world.

In X, you travel the world, basically.

You go to all these really, really unique different places.

But in XII, you kind of just live in one country, and everything kind of feels the same.

And it also has that kind of like more Western fantasy feel to it rather than like an entirely new world crafted from scratch from someone's imagination.

And I feel like with 15 and it appears to be 16, it kind of goes more into that direction as well, which doesn't appeal to me as much thematically, personally.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Like, what appeals to me the most of all of them was probably Final Fantasy X.

Really colorful world.

I loved that, you know, you could see the different cultures out in the world just by the way that people dress.

You could probably point out this person probably comes from this city by their clothes, by the way they talk, the way that people interact.

The world is really colorful.

I love that you played as Tidus, who is essentially a camera lens.

You know, he comes from a time where he doesn't understand how this world works.

With you as the player.

So you don't know how the world works either.

So you and the main character are learning together.

And in fact, the main character is not even him.

It's Yuna.

So I found that to be really interesting as well.

And that has not...

I've not been inspired in that way by a game since Final Fantasy X, quite honestly.

I remember how anti-Final Fantasy X

I was when it came out.

And I can't remember exactly why that was.

I guess...

I don't know.

I think it was the voice acting that just felt off.

It's because it was,

I

guess.

Yeah.

I also feel like, because I also replayed it recently, and I don't know why I didn't like it so much.

Because, like, it is a very interesting game.

And, like, the way they handled racism and, like, that kind of stuff, which they've pretty much never...

They've kind of done it before with, like, in Final Fantasy...

Wait, is it 6, I think?

Where, like, there's two different races of people.

There's like the monster people and like the regular people or whatever.

And they do kind of that, but that one race is like dead off and they're like legendary.

Whereas here it's like actually like real life kind of like situation.

There's

a racist in your party.

Yeah, that too.

And

then the

person from the race that he hates joins your party.

And then they figure that out.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's a cool setup with it as well.

The main antagonist in that game is also an interesting antagonist.

I'm not talking about Seymour, I'm talking about Sin.

yeah it it is interesting seeing like the world uh so sin being this big thing that destroys the world basically every so often or destroys sections of the world every so often and so the the world that they live in is one that can't really be built up

yeah

and all they do is just damage control all the time which is

and and they and they think it's like a religious thing the reason why sin does it it's like because of machines but in actuality it's like

Wait, what is the reason again?

It's like...

It's an alien or something like that, right?

Spoilers.

You know what?

I don't remember.

I've played this so many times.

Because it's explained very, very late in the game.

And it's like...

I think it's like an alien that takes over people's bodies or something like that.

If I remember correctly.

Because the last boss is... Yeah, people

have to sacrifice themselves to it.

And then they become the sin.

Yeah.

Because the very, very last boss in that game is like a tiny little thing.

just like oh yeah yeah i can't remember um so yeah also spoilers to a what when that game came out 2000 2000 2003

yeah maybe 2000 or 2002 or something 2001 2002.

uh 2001 yeah wow

yeah

okay jesus christ

that game is

oh my god yeah you ever see those those those gif where it's like what uh what you think games look like 20 years ago and it looks like space invaders and it's like what games actually look like 20 years ago it's final fantasy 10 yeah final fantasy 10 is a

retro game

like that's also wild or like even places in three games is a retro game

i kind of want to touch on because you mentioned that final fantasy 12's world kind of shifted the the

the way, because that game was made by a studio that made Vagrant Story, which is, you can tell that it's the same devs, because the art style is very similar, and it's very,

It's a very interesting take on the fantasy genre, I think.

But it definitely, like, when you put it in the Final Fantasy world, it definitely feels like typical classic Final Fantasy, you know, style

era.

I mean, it definitely, I think, is more in line with the earlier Final Fantasy.

Yeah, exactly.

That kind

of style, right?

And I'm a, you know, I jumped on board from Final Fantasy VII where things got very different.

Yeah.

But I think I'm more on brand with the Final Fantasy 7 to 10 kind of approach to things.

Which I think, in a way, maybe XIII tried to do, honestly, but just didn't do it as well.

Yeah, XIII was trying to

be Final

Fantasy 7, you know?

Yeah, maybe.

Because the main character was modeled after Cloud.

Really?

Yeah, yeah.

That was the main inspiration, was that it was supposed to be a female Cloud, or something like that.

Okay.

and That story was just all over the place and it felt like a huge tutorial like half the game Yeah, it was

like 20 20 hours of tutorial or something like that more and

it's just one long corridor and

Which is strange because I know a lot of people had that issue with Final Fantasy XIII saying that, oh, it's just this one big corridor, you know, you just run down the hallway.

But, you know, when you think about like Final Fantasy X, that kind of was too, but it didn't feel like it.

There was no open world.

It was just go forward.

But it didn't feel like a corridor.

It

didn't...

I think the main reason why it didn't feel like a corridor is I think the beats in Final Fantasy X were a lot stronger than the ones in XIII because you remember like the...

The moments that take you from place to place.

London Beach would happen at each city, right?

Yeah, exactly.

And you

spend time in the city, things happen.

Yeah.

Whereas with XIII, you were like, we're being hunted.

We got to run.

Same deal everywhere.

It's like, oh no, they caught us.

We got to keep going.

Because if I remember correctly, there really wasn't a lot of civilization and stuff in Final Fantasy XIII either.

think there were but there was some like hidden behind the fact that they were constantly like moving away from them because like there are i remember set pieces i remember like the the casino planet or whatever it was like the casino city i remember the the big like arena city where there were there's some kind of like storyline that i can't even remember what it was or like it's revealed that forgettable yeah and they looked cool like

Yeah, so I remember having the feeling at the time that, like, didn't see a lot of cities, but there were some.

And in them, there wasn't really a lot of people.

This is the memory I have of the memory I have.

You know, and so, like, one of the key things about Final Fantasy that was missing was the culture of the world.

You know, like, all the people spread out in cities.

Like, each city adds to the world-building story, right?

The lore of the entire bigger picture.

And then, like...

each person in that city adds to it a little bit as well, you know, in a very sort of subtle way.

And that, I remember when I played it a long time ago, and I don't remember the game that much anymore, but I remember feeling like that was lost completely, and that was the most important part of Final Fantasy

for me.

For sure.

That's so true, because when I think back on, like, all the other games, I definitely remember, like, the culture and, like, the different type of people you run into, and yeah.

Yeah.

And in XIII, you're just running past everything.

I kind of felt the same in Final Fantasy XV too.

A little bit.

yeah i mean i think there were quite a few cities and there was a lot of people so i mean but i would kind of say that's kind of why i feel like 15 is was heading in the right direction and maybe like with the technological advances final fantasy just needed to go through puberty a little bit and maybe that's just what's happening and so but i think 15 is was a sign of it coming out the other side because like they did bring culture back there was cities there were people you did quests with people and stuff like that um so like

But everything just still felt a little bit more bland.

It didn't feel mystical or anything like that.

It was just kind of...

The storyline

also felt a bit rushed in its delivery.

I didn't finish 15, but it felt like...

Too many things happen too fast in that game, and I just...

Well, apparently you were supposed to watch a movie before you played the game.

Well, I did.

I did actually watch that movie.

It was pretty...

I didn't watch the...

I didn't do my homework.

I feel like you didn't really need to watch that movie, though, because the movie is mostly about, like, the original city that's being taken over, which you learn about at the start of the game.

So you're only really like learning about that battle, which is like, it's not really,

you get to see it from like the original King's perspective when it goes

down.

But other than that, like, it's just, it's a cool movie though.

It's really well animated.

And the one thing I really love from 15 is like the whole, like how they're throwing swords around and then like teleporting to them.

Yes, it's cool.

Yeah, cuz only the the Prince has that in the in the game But in the movie like the King like distributes that power to many like all his soldiers So like all the soldiers are doing it everywhere and like he has got like a little eat squad Which is the movies like based around and they're like really good at doing it So like there's a lot of that in that movie and it's just super a feast for the eyes.

Yeah.

Yeah, but I need to check that out Yeah, what's a cold again?

It's like King something

Good question Kings Kings glaive

Think yeah, cuz I think the squad is called the glaive or something like that Yeah, Kingsley.

That's yeah Pretty pretty fun movie.

It's not it's got like I think Sean Bean was like the king and Yes, and Aaron Paul

plays some way he did Aaron Paul.

Oh my god.

Oh my god swords, bitch

That's amazing.

I kind of need to re-watch that, actually.

Linehedi's in there as well.

Jeez, this is weird.

Yeah.

Nice.