ah, THAT’s why this game is generally well-regarded: it has a solid ending

we gave up on playing it because it was just getting absurdly difficult (and remember, each time you want to retry? several minutes of unskippable cutscenes!) but watched the last hour and a half of cutscenes instead

and, to its credit, it does broadly stick the landing, putting most of its emphasis on the Tidus/Jecht plot that’s easily the strongest material the game has (despite being effectively 15 minutes out of 60-whatever hours)

but the Yu Yevon deal feels extremely vague and underdeveloped. couldn’t have signposted that during all the religious scenes we had? couldn’t have set that up in at least the ruins of Zanarkand since he’s from the ancient past? not once? ehhhhh.

overall, this game is not great. decidedly better as a LP than as something you actually play, that’s for sure

there are a lot of “wait, why does that work like that” moments. why does Sin respond to the song? how exactly did they discover that? why bother summoning aeons for Yu Yevon to inhabit rather than just sending the dude?

we were able to piece together some reasons, but it doesn’t leave me feeling satisfied, it leaves me feeling frustrated like “why couldn’t they either communicate this more clearly or at least give me a payoff for understanding their metaphysics”

I’m still not sure I’m not just building on their work and patching plot holes, rather than stumbling across intended interpretations, lmfao

still, the visuals in that last hour are top-notch and it does thematically pay off on the biggest things. I’m so glad they didn’t redeem Jecht and that the big payoff is, you can’t kill Sin, you have to send it

the whole Yu Yevon bit just distracts from that pretty strong core

definitely wound up leaving me with a better taste in my mouth than I expected, but I can’t say I’d recommend playing it

@gardevoir yeah the ending is the main reason people like the game

there are bits that could be done better in the ending, like how Yuna doesn't really get closure regarding Braska to the same extent that the Tidus/Jecht storyline gets closure (some people dislike the Yu Yevon fight too but I like the symbolic purpose of it personally; it's by far the easiest boss in the game (you can literally instakill it with a phoenix down), symbolizing the fact that a lot of power is just puffery, bluffing and relying on duplicity) but it's definitely a really satisfying ending

the failings of the rest of the game kinda get forgotten in light of the ending, I think.
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@gardevoir i'd love to see a reimagining that fixes a lot of the problems. especially it'd be great to see the whole thing about racism handled better because yeah, that's at best clumsily done

Wakka had the potential to be a good comic relief character but when the bits where he's serious end up mostly being about how racist he is, kiiinda ruins the character
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