This is the WORLD where I write my musing about manga/anime/video games and make comments on certain aspects. It's just a little something to stir up a conversation so please don't take me TOO seriously on the things I write here. I'd love to hear your opinion so feel free to comment.
- Created By red:leaf
Genre Time Freeze
Has anyone played Legend of Dragoon? It's a pretty decent game and highly underrated. The voice acting is real terrible though. Like in this scene. I die every time. WARNING: Minor spoiler.
My friend has this theory about LoD, that time has stopped some thousands of years prior to the events you actually play in. The plot of Legend of Dragoon is super involved with THE PAST. And when I say THE PAST, I mean like 5,000 years ago or some ridiculous number like that. (I'm obviously not fact checking these things....) So my friend's theory is that time stopped in THE PAST because how the heck can 5,000 years past and civilization hasn't advanced past medieval structure?
He has a good point.
I mean, think of how far we've advanced in the last 30 years alone.
And then I was having a Lord of the Rings marathon (to celebrate the release of the Desolation of Smaug) and they mention how there hasn't been a King of Gondor for 1,000 years. They're still fighting with swords and spears too. Maybe Middle Earth is also in a time freeze...?
And thinking over it, this seems to be problem is fantasy genres that are set in the past--time stagnation. All forward societal and technological evolution comes to a stand still. J.R.R. Tolkein semi-addressed this in terms of language. The language evolved over time and space but apparently nothing else did.
I noticed this in steampunk genre too. Coal was a relatively short energy time period and was quickly passed over for petrol.
Sci-fi genre seems to be quite the opposite of this stagnation. It leaps and bounds forward in societal and technological evolution (although where it lands in debatable). What it does well is reference its past. Mostly I figure this has to do with making a reference point for readers. Couldn't fantasy do much a similar thing?
Correlation
After playing the ending of Final Fantasy X-2 for the third time, I feel that there are some really strange correlations between this game and Final Fantasy VII....
WARNING: The following content may or may not contain spoilers for the videogames Final Fantasy X-2 and Final Fantasy VII. Read at your own disgression.
First off, there's this scene in ch. 5 of FFX-2 where you talk to Shinra and he says he's analyzing the energy of the Farplane. He describes it being limitless and a source of life for all of Spira. Wow, Lifestream, anyone? Shinra goes on to say that the energy from the Farplane could power a city just like Zanarkand. Actually, when I watched this scene I thought immediately of that theory that the Ivalice in the FF games is all the same Ivalice and a good chunk of the FF games are connected to each other. I seriously doubt that Spira and whatever the planet is called in FFVII are the same thing though.
Secondly, at the final battle of FFX-2, when Lenne's spirit is finally able to talk to Shuyin, Shuyin says, "But I wasn't able to save you." Lenne replies, "That doesn't matter." Granted, this game was released before Advent Children so whoever wrote AC definitely could have drawn on this scene for inspiration. The correlation just seems a bit creepy, especially since almost those exact lines are said by Cloud and Aerith. Cloud, if you had died after Aerith's death, would you have ended up like Shuyin? I sort of doubt it but it's always a possibility, I guess.
I've also decided that Vegnagun looks like a giant moth. Sort of a weird design for a final boss. Maybe a Godzilla homage? Still weird.
Review: Distant Worlds
There is something completely unique to listening to music played live. Although one might have heard the songs hundreds of times, hearing and watching people play in person makes the experience fresh once again, as if never heard before. ...End
