Board 8 > Save My Favorite Final Fantasy Characters XXII: Day 45 [smfffc]

(+) Yeah! (+)

Looking for H2 trade for Beatrix

GuessMyUserName posted...

we got 4 whole minutes of h3 d00dz

yeah and I was slow

oh well them's the breaks I guess

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th3l3fty posted...

interesting page 3 led to inevitable boring result

alas

Wasn't that interesting, really.
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The mighty Leblanc has surpassed her performance from last year! Next up, top 50!

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would've been more interesting than what we got imooo

thanks to everyone who helped out this year
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The very few "interesting" results from the last update were never going to happen is what I meant really. Basically this was always going to end in just a couple of ways.
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Every XII character except Penelo was vulnerable to elimination. Am I in the Upside-down?
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If only. Sadly the funny train has left the building with Penelo boarding it though.
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honestly it just genuinely means that the penelo wagon is probably starting to hitch

which is kinda weird because she's genuinely not even a joke character, or even that bad of a character really. Probably middle of the pack in that party?

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im here

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Penelo is your standard "perky young girl" party member, without being overly obnoxious about it. Her presence is just MUCH needed in the drab, brown, dull setting of FF12. I don't even hate anyone in the cast, but most of them (Balthier/Fran aside, who feel like they were injected from a completely different game) feel like stock fantasy characters. Ashe normally does well in these contests, and I'm like...what's so special about her compared to countless other female leads?

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Who even has feelings towards Penelo? She basically just exists.

Fran would be nothing special without bunny ears, sorry to break it to you Inviso.
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v_charon posted...

Fran would be nothing special without bunny ears, sorry to break it to you Inviso.

I agree with this - I think fran and penelo have very similar amounts of character. Fran has the design factor though, whereas penelo doesn't

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I personally don't think XII has any offensive cast member; it's one of the few games I feel that way about. They're super boring and bland, but Vaan and Penelo do just "exist" basically. The only really offensive thing about Vaan is that he's supposedly the "main character" but the story really revolves around other members of the party with actual plot significance (Basch and Ashe, specifically). He's not really offensive in his own right. Balthier is obviously a good character just based on his personality, but Fran's best feature is literally... Balthier. She's only usually thought of as better than Penelo because interactions with Balthier are a hell of a lot more interesting than interactions with Vaan. Fran's just some nobody like Amarant without Balthier there.
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Inviso posted...

Penelo is your standard "perky young girl" party member, without being overly obnoxious about it.

Which fan retranslation of FFXII did you play where Penelo got enough characterization to say she fits into this trope

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penelo is a likeable normie kid, made better by the contrast of how terrible a kid Vaan is
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v_charon posted...

Fran would be nothing special without bunny ears, sorry to break it to you Inviso.

I've said it before many times: the bunny ears are the WORST part of Fran's design for me. But again, she serves well to play off of Balthier, yes. There's a reason he's the better character. But even Balthier...how much of that is him being good, and how much is him looking good compared to the rest of the setting?

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Like I said I don't think XII's setting or cast is bad, so my opinion is just going to be that Balthier is good in what I consider to be an above average FF setting. The fact that two people who vote for Penelo have replied and one called her "perky" and the other referred to as "normie" sort of speaks to what I'm saying. She's just that bland that you can make her anything you want because she doesn't do a whole lot of anything. This little run would actually make sense if it were Vaan, because like I said at least he has the "extremely boring main character" thing going for him.

Then again, I don't really find most of the runs that happen in SMFFFC funny. Things I'd actually find funny typically never catch on.
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Having played Zodiac since the last contest

Excellent
Ashe - good personality, good design, good backstory, and its pretty good to see a female lead kick ass, the precursor to Lightning minus the over saturation of Lightning
Balthier - A knock off of Han Solo, but has enough depth to his character to work it out and has some of the better traits. Formerly a top five character of mine but I feel some of those lines... just didnt work as well as they did in the past

Good
Larsa - Im stunned that I liked Larsa as much as I did this time around but here I am, an interesting supporting character and even better guest party member
Gabranth- his character got kinda hurt by the reveal being too early, but the helmet is cool and I like his relationship with Larsa.

Decentish
Dr. Cid - A tad overrated, but his introduction and first fight is admittedly pretty good. Fringe good.
Basch - hes not... as interesting as I remembered. Like I think the twist coming so early hurts him and he doesnt have a whole lot else to his character except how he was framed by the public. Gabranth at least has a little more meat to him, and judges look great in this game.
Backgammon - Budget Boba, but not a whole lot of character. At least the mines fight felt intense early on.
Penelo - not a whole lot to her, the thing with Vaan/Penelo is they just seem to be just two people playing spectator to the Ashe/Balthier/Basch show. At least she has a good design
Vayne - I rag about him a lot but hes honestly not that terrible, just a behind the scenes villain when there were two better ones in this game. What can you do about that?

Bad
Vaan - Really the only difference between Vaan/Penelo is the design (Penelo is good and Vaan... not so much) and his integration as the lead felt awkward.
Fran - Nothing really good personality wise, a eh storyline with no clear resolution with her village and 80% of her cutscenes were her freaking out about mist. No thanks.

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if saving penelo could cause the contest to end sooner, i would start saving her daily

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Honestly if you want a great final flavor wise and one that will probably get a grand total of twenty votes we can do Penelo vs. Algus Argath Thadalfus Sadalfus

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56. Wiegraf Folles

CIV - 18/55
CV - 25/60
CVI - 11/65
CVII - 55/70
CVIII - 59/75
CIX - 25/75
CX - 24/75
CXI - 7/75
CXII - 36/75
CXIII - 68/75
CXIV - 26/102
CXV - 29/100
CXVI - 72/100
CXVII - 98/100 (Booted)
CXIX - 35/100
CXX - 56/100
CXXI - 50/100
CXXII - 56/100

overall STATS: 52.17% / down 0.42% - 43rd/123 (no movement)
newSTATS: 48.31% / down 0.47% - 53rd/103 (no movement)
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Ramza still has never finished as high as Wiegraf has he? You guys should get behind him one year.
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...

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yeah VI you should do that

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I gotta echo swordz's comment:

swordz9 posted...

Who even has feelings towards Penelo? She basically just exists.

Even just from a pure story perspective, we're never given a sidequest or subplot or anything focused on her. She's literally always just there. Balthier, Ashe and Basch are centre stage of course, Vaan as de facto (if not a bit awkward) lead, at least with Fran we have a trip to the Eruyt Village for some more background on her. Even if Fran mainly serves as the accompaniment and straight man to Balthier, there's none of that charm and wit in the Vaan/Penelo relationship.

Also, Evanescence is the worst quickening (through Resplendence is pretty sweet)

LiquidOshawott posted...

Dr. Cid - A tad overrated, but his introduction and first fight is admittedly pretty good. Fringe good.

I still say, if we had "pound for pound" rankings in FF like they do in UFC - just, like, factoring character quality for the amount of time they're in the game - he's among the tops. Doesn't he literally only have like 3 scenes in the game? 1 cutscene and the 2 boss fights? All great moments, great look, great voice actor.

(#2 pound-for-pound next to Cissnei of course)

That was meant more as "support Wiegraf more one year, he might could do better" but reading it again I can see how that might come across in a different, if unintentionally funny, way! >_>
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tbh I read it as "you should get behind ramza, he's never gotten as high"

but honestly I think I would rather support my favorite over someone who's in my top ten, but what can I say really

(Admittedly I haven't been saving Wiegraf as much this year but I think both times he went out the last couple years... I was on him both times? I'd double check)

Edit: I checked. I was.

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Penelo had the cute relationship with Larsa, where we see that the bad guys aren't all bad.

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v_charon posted...

Fran would be nothing special without bunny ears, sorry to break it to you Inviso.

I disagree with this sentiment. Fran has a unique personality in that she's "the stoic"- something not commonly seen in female RPG characters. Despite this you can still observe glimpses of her true personality here and there: in her concern for Mjrn or her subtle love for Balthier. Also her flippant attitude towards Vaan asking her how old she is amuses me. Would she be as interesting if she weren't eight feet tall and had rabbit ears? No, but she'd still be a different character as far as common archetypes go.

Trying to squeeze Penelo into that trope just doesn't work however because she's actually more the realist (aka buzz kill) to Vaan's overwhelming optimism and perkiness. Too bad Vaan got abs instead of bobs or he might be getting this run instead lawl.
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Algus vs Penelo that filthy street urchin would be an excellent final let's do it

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Did you always have that picture or did you just draw that gmun

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GMUN: pls show bobs and vaangene

i googled genderbent vaan and grabbed the first (and only valid) result

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I save Vaanessa.

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Well I have beaten FF7R

Good game would recommend etc

Feel like the whisper stuff was kinda forced but other than that pretty good all around, changed my opinions a little too, mostly for the better

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They become less forced when you realize it's a sequel, not a traditional remake, and thus they are literally the driving force of the plot.

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Ah I was thinking about your playthrough earlier and was going to ask for a (final) update. Very nice.

Now do the Hard Mode playthrough!!

Oh I agree that the reveal that they are to show up at specific parts to prevent deviation makes sense, but it just felt a little lazy explanation to me. But at the very least the last scene and the fact that they are gone now opens things up for changes in the next part gets me very interested in what they will do for part 2. Also oh hey chapter selects.

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Lopen posted...

Algus vs Penelo that filthy street urchin would be an excellent final let's do it

Dante get to it

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Btw hard mode sounds tempting but I think I want to continue punching through some backlog stuff

Yakuza 0 is next!

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i am playing danganronpa v3 because it was on sale for like 8 bucks

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GenesisSaga posted...

Trying to squeeze Penelo into that trope just doesn't work however because she's actually more the realist (aka buzz kill) to Vaan's overwhelming optimism and perkiness.

yeah, this is why I dislike Penelo. Vaan is the typical hotblooded wannabe hero "let's be SKY PIRATES and REBEL against the EVIL EMPIRE" and Penelo is just a boring buzzkill. she has about the same screentime as Vaan, but she's actively bad for all of it.

(she is cute though)

as for Fran, I literally cannot remember any personality from her. not an ounce. she's basically just a Balthier accessory
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FFDragon posted...

They become less forced

Can't become less forced when the entire concept is forced just to be different.

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Yeah, Vaan and Penelo just seem like they're around just to check archetype boxes. Which is admittedly better than Fran, who only seems like she's around to be eye candy.

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Mewtwo59 posted...

Which is admittedly better than Fran, who only seems like she's around to be eye candy.

And she honestly fails at even that.