alright if we are all quite finished scolding me I suggest we become all friendly and peaceful with each other again and forget about the rather unpleasant disturbances and see this through like it was intended.
One last thing though: No , its not "required" to check in within a certain amount of hours, however after things had gotten out of control here with some arguments and suddenly those of you who posted regularly before were not posting anymore I became confused as to who was still participating and who might have dropped out without a warning. I would not have been upset about it if until that point everything would have gone perfect and smoothly as its supposed to.
But if I was wrong and except Zack everybody is still very much with us then I apologize for any pressure or false accusations on my part and hope that we can just move on with the game and forget about the former unpleasantries. Again sorry for making you feel pressured. Feel free to take your time, I was simply afraid that the unprecedented silence in this thread all of a sudden meant something worse and unpleasant. Now that I know that you´re still with us, I´ll be more relaxed about it. So lets cease the hostilities please.
I just arrived at Dragons Gate. I had to do the Festival twice since Zidane accidentally killed Zaghnol (I hadnt anticipated that he was so strong) so I did the Festival again, attacked Zaghnol twice with Zidane, then stole Mythril Gloves and Needle Fork with him while I let Freya kill him. Quite the timing too. I finished Zaghnol when there was only 10 seconds left^^
Did everything else in Lindblum already before that and yeah that little bit with the actor escaping in a moogle suit is very funny and a nice little commentary on celebrity hype. Steiner always cracks me up too when he thinks he has been poisoned even though there was nothing in his food lol.
I love how FF IX despite the lighthearted and humorous style also takes on a very dark tone sometimes. For the first time when the burmecian soldier arrives with the news of Alexandrias invasion of Burmecia. In those moments the game becomes suddenly much more mature and dark, dealing with things like the terrors of war, foreign invasions and of course death. Its something we will see again in FF XV from the looks of it. technically this is a very serious subject in this otherwise rather humorous installment and I like how the setting is such a contrast to the where the story is going from here. Alexandria in this instance is basically not any different from the 3rd Reich, the roman empire or the persian empire in their time. Alexandria invading Burmecia always eerily reminds me as a german (who is very aware of our dark history) of the sudden invasion of germany in Poland in 1939, which effectively started World War II. And although the situation isnt entirely the same (Brahne certainly is no Adolf Hitler) it is something very similar. Alexandrias invasion like germanys invasion is only the beginning of a much greater war. Later FF IX even deals with such issues as genocide, which obviously was also a massive issue with what the 3rd Reich did to the jews. I like that despite being a lighthearted and fun fantasy game, Final Fantasy IX actually deals with far darker and terrible issues from real life history as any of the other FFs have really done. But because of the fantasy-design and the humurous tone of the game its not straight in the face and shocking and depressing all the time but presents a very interesting and multi-faceted story that goes much deeper than it would appear at first.
I am generally a fan of such stories with invading armies, kingdoms at war and such. I love Lord of the Rings, game of Thrones, Star wars and all that stuff so when the story of FF IX goes from a simple fairy tale story more into a darker war-story in which the characters get involved while still keeping the fun and relationships between the characters a key element, thats when Final Fantasy IX REALLY takes off in my opinion.
