by Besyanteo » Sat Feb 20, 2010 10:28 pm
I gave up reading part way through. I've already heard a better explanation, in reference to FF7 at that time:
Square intentionally makes plots that do not make sense.
Some of the blame for these kind of things can be placed on bad translation, but even if you account for that the plot elements of these two games never really fully mesh with themselves. I believe it's intentional because, well, just look at all of the sensation and speculation surrounding them. It is 2010 and people are still talking about them. I'm not sure if my conjectured tradition continued in 9, 10, 11 and 12 or not. I haven't played 9, never got far in 11 or 12, and the plot of 10 will forever be a grab bag of chaotic nonsense in my mind, because I saw it played through three times by three different people, in several sittings out of order, while suffering from the flu. I'm too sick of it to play through it on my own and the events are just too garbled from what I've already seen. ANYWAY, DIGRESSING. It seems like if this is the case, it has worked out well for Square. There are too many angsty anime boys on the market and coming into the market for me to believe that Cloud and Squall have the following they do without having gotten it through trickery. They're fascinating because not only are they pretty and broody, they're also in-fucking-comprehensible. They're ten kinds of fanfic fodder and Square is still making money off of their personas because of it.