[pathwriter]

If you say so. I've been far more interested in the plight of the Young Griffons than I was for Prishe.

[Griss]

i like the san d'oria story for what it is. its a goofy saturday morning kids show. complete with a over acting and bumbling villain. the thing is we know how things are going to turn out with the nation quests. were just "enjoying" the ride along with the story.

in order of preference i like the windy line followed by bastok and rounded closely by the sandy line. it sandy has slightly fallen behind bastok for me in preference post fire in the hole. the only and i repeat only bad thing i have to say about the story and progression with wotg is the over all slowness of the updates.

they could suprise us and we will be done and cruizing around walk of echos soon, i dont count on it though. it would be a totaly dick move to drag out the story untill 14 comes out or worse past that point. and if thats the case i will probably never see where the story is going to wind up as i am planing to be an early adopter of the game.

[Symbios]

I suppose the whole purpose is to show how these events shape the adult lives of the Young Griffons, but the problem is that we know almost nothing about their adult lives so this information is mostly meaningless- and it means even less to people who haven't done DRG AF quests and such. Other than that, these children, as themselves, arn't very interesting. If you had to describe both Rahal and Excenmille, they can both be summed up as young, naive, and incredibly stubborn- there's no real indication here that Rahal and Excenmille have learned anything from the actions they've taken.

But that "Saturday Morning Cartoon" viewpoint...I can see what you're saying, though. I guess it was my personal problem, because if we're going back to a time of strife and conflict, why are we focusing something that is supposed to tie into the main storyline on something so small in scale, especially considering all the other interesting things we could be learning about San d'Oria, the most important of which is the fact that the king had to make the difficult decision to doom Tavnazia through false information about the Lightbringer?

[pathwriter]

The thing about San d'Oria is that its history in the Crystal War is huge. Bastok, being a democracy, was reluctant to get involved and Windurst, being full of Tarutaru, is cowardly. If they focused on the exploits of the greatest heroes of the war, as they've been doing in Windurst (all Mithra except Shantotto and Mummy-taru), it would frankly overshadow the plot of the entire expansion. So San d'Oria's story gets told through the story missions and the national quests focus on the children. I'll agree that the integration of Rahal and Excenmille into modern day San d'Oria is so weak that it can be easy to forget that they're major heroes in the present (of course, by the same token, one of the Serpent Generals and one of Naja Salaheem's officers are heroes of the Crystal War but you could easily forget that), but I've been captivated by the San d'Oria quest series. It's not the deepest story ever told, but no Final Fantasy story is deep. The notion that "kids in a war zone" is some played-out trope is a highly dubious. If I meander over to TV Tropes and look it up, I doubt I'll find more than a handful of instances and almost all of them will be Japanese.

Oh, is that the problem? You watch lots of anime and read lots of manga, so you're used to that trope because it has been ingrained into Japanese culture for 70 years? Since I stick mainly to American and British products, it doesn't crop up that much.

[Symbios]

If they focused on the exploits of the greatest heroes of the war, as they've been doing in Windurst (all Mithra except Shantotto and Mummy-taru), it would frankly overshadow the plot of the entire expansion.

That's my exact point- this expansion (Specifically Cait Sith/Lilisette stuff) has no plot to speak of, which is why I'd rather be focusing on things that are actually interesting. =P

Actually this whole thing makes you wonder why

Spoiler! --Click here to view--

Zogbog doesn't just tell the Orcish army that the whole Lightbringer thing is just a last-ditch thing to save Sandy, since I'm pretty sure this stuff is common knowledge in the present. Then again, he appears to want this whole Tavnazia incident to occur so I want to see what he's up to, but it'd be nice to get some minimum clues as to what exactly he's trying to do here.

So San d'Oria's story gets told through the story missions and the national quests focus on the children.

I've actually never done the Sandy nation missions, so I'm not too sure what they involve. But the Windurst quests talks about Karuha-Baruha, and there's plenty of time to be talking about him in the Windurst past quests, so I doubt they have some sort of shortage of interesting things to talk about.

A look at the lives of more common people can be an interesting idea, but that's only really the case, for me at least, if I cared about any of the characters involved.

of course, by the same token, one of the Serpent Generals and one of Naja Salaheem's officers are heroes of the Crystal War but you could easily forget that

The difference with those two guys though, is that I'd argue that those were only added into the story of the Crystal War after the fact (A wink-nudge to people who have completed other storylines). I don't recall if Rahal has ever made any recollections of the Crystal War in dialogue, but he's clearly a San d'Orian native so it was something that was always assumed. I guess I just wanted to see the pasts of people who are a bit more interesting- why else would you introduce this whole time-travel aspect? Maybe seeing how Trion and Pieuje were when they were younger? Hm.

Oh, is that the problem? You watch lots of anime and read lots of manga, so you're used to that trope because it has been ingrained into Japanese culture for 70 years? Since I stick mainly to American and British products, it doesn't crop up that much.

Eh, I watch all kinds of stuff, but I will admit that this theme has been used a lot more often in Japanese fiction, from sticking kids in giant robots to get tweens to watch it to putting them in a movie like Grave of the Fireflies, where it actually feels relevant. The reason we don't see this as often in Western stuff is because people generally consider it to be a desperation move, like hanging a kid in Pirates of the Caribbean 3 or waving a gun in front of a little girl in Saw.

Spoiler! --Click here to view--

Actually, thinking about it, I think what would've been more interesting is if they were just kept as a bunch of children playing war games, and when they actually ran into any orcs at all, they would get their asses handed to them. The way it is, these kids are not much different than the adults, killing trained Orcish soldiers one after the other. They're not as skilled as any of the named-Elvaan knights, but they're certainly doing better than random redshirt Elvaan knights we see. =P

I think it might've been more interesting, if they get to the whole fish out of water part, and then you see the kids completely overwhelmed by even a single Orcish soldier. That'd put things in perspective a lot more.

[pathwriter]

I suspect Trion and Pieuje are little during the Crystal War. SE is a little sketchy when it comes to the timeline of its stories (currency going completely out of circulation in a pre-modern society in just 20 years? yeah, right, and yet here we are collecting it slowly from Dynamis), but I suspect that Trion and Pieuje are really young at this point. Their ages are never really given, but they're Japanese heroes, so they have a choice between being barely 21 or pushing into decrepit old age at around 37.

I dunno, I'm a student of literature and the literature of generations has forever been about the big names on the front lines. There's been a movement in the past century, starting in the US but flowing outwards, to focus more on other people. I don't know how you haven't gotten attached to the Young Griffons because I like them (I feel irrational pride in San d'Oria despite it being totally fictional, so I'll admit my bias). It's a little weird how shallow their adult lives are compared to the complexity of their youth, but so be it. Windurst's story feels like a flimsy excuse to once more examine the Sin Hunters and toss in a random male Mithra for the first time ever (and after completing CoP and the Ranger AF quests, I'm beyond sick of the Shikaree Sin Hunters). Bastok has been even less engaging, more of the Galka having the rage-fits. At least the pubescent drama of the Young Griffons fits with the necessarily adolescent nature of Final Fantasy stories (being both video games and Japanese, both of which favor stories sophisticated enough for a 16-year-old and no more).

[Symbios]

I suspect Trion and Pieuje are little during the Crystal War.

I dunno how old they are, but I think even seeing them as children would be a bit interesting, so maybe we can see how this whole rivalry began. Sandy seems to like their rivalry stories, from fishing to the royal siblings, and I guess there's supposed to be one of sorts between Rahal and Excenmille. Pieuje does seem a great deal younger than Trion though, it's completely possible that he was just a wee toddler during the Crystal War- but if someone like Excenmille is so willing to jump into the fight I can't imagine what Trion could be thinking, heh.

currency going completely out of circulation in a pre-modern society in just 20 years? yeah, right, and yet here we are collecting it slowly from Dynamis

I've actually have had many hilarious discussions about this in my LSs before- one can assume that the Jeuno currency is coming into popularity for San d'Oria and Windurst decently because Whiteshells date back to 294 and Bronzepieces date back to 491. But the only one that is completely moronic is the Bastok byne bills- all three were created in 857, just 6 years before the Crystal War. This means that in 6 years after circulating a new kind of currency, it was already falling into disuse compared to Jeunoan currency, and then 20 years later it's so rare that you barely see any more. How could Bastok have evolved into this supposed economic and technological giant when the people running it are so damn stupid?

Hell, a currency system with only 1, 100, 10000 units is pretty damn senseless too- imagine carrying around 100 fucking quarters so you could exchange it for one single 100xquarter. Let's not get into how annoying it'd be to carry around shells, of all things.

There's been a movement in the past century, starting in the US but flowing outwards, to focus more on other people.

Ehh, I certainly don't have a problem with having this "underdog" story of sorts, focusing on people "less important", I guess I was thinking since we're in the past, you might as well take advantage of it by exploring into characters we all already know. This is actually something that's true for both Bastok and Windurst as well, but the difference is that there, we do see these characters and we hope to see how these events will shape their future (Zeid, Karst, Volker, Karuha-Baruha, Shantotto, Star Sybil, etc), or at least learn something new about them.

For example, we know Zeid was once an M.M., and that he quit, but why did he do it? This quest line gives us a chance to learn something about that. We know Karuha-Baruha was a important part of Windurst's survival, but what kind of person was he?

With Sandy it's more that these characters are completely new because of their minor role in the present, so it feels a bit irrelevant. What I'm wondering is why they didn't just make this a completely separate questline as a "oh, by the way" kind of information, because the way the nation quests are structured, they might as well be missions anyway (Not to mention they release the nation quests and missions interchangeably so these are supposed to count as "missions" of sorts). To be fair though, I can't think of much that's more recognizable to many people other than the Royal siblings except maybe...Tavnazia, and it feels like SE doesn't want to touch Tavnazia again with a 60-foot-pole.

Windurst's story feels like a flimsy excuse to once more examine the Sin Hunters and toss in a random male Mithra for the first time ever (and after completing CoP and the Ranger AF quests, I'm beyond sick of the Shikaree Sin Hunters)

My RNG's like, level 10, so I dunno about the AF quests, but the CoP missions barely talked about the Sin Hunters, as I recall. The sin hunters hunt...sin, and that's all we really learn about them. =P

It was probably just a way for them to have some Mithra characters in the mix, I guess. The Sin Hunters arn't really getting center stage here, either. Actually, if I'm not mistaken, there was only one appearance

Spoiler! --Click here to view--

when she was talking to Lehko and questioning his motives

As far as Lehko Habhoka goes...at least I'm kinda interested in finding out his motives and who the hell he is, heh. I think it's about time they actually revealed a bit of information, though. One thing I do find odd is that

Spoiler! --Click here to view--

he mentions that travelling through time is something only you, the player, can do, as far as he knows. I think Lilisette has that ability too, but Lehko doesn't know her, so...

Bastok has been even less engaging, more of the Galka having the rage-fits

Yeah, tell me about it, until the most recent quest the Bastok quests constantly put me to fucking sleep. =P

[pathwriter]

I'm still on that idiot "Protect the useless Scholar" BCNM for Bastok. I've been working on San d'Oria 'cause that's what my friends have done. I'm one quest off for Windurst and really need to find some people to kill the Karugo-Narugo NMs. Maybe Bastok has stopped sucking recently, but the recent twists in San d'Oria have really had me interested. A friend and I were discussing Tavnazia and whether we'd ever get access to it as we were watching the one cutscene and, yeah, that kinda shocked us and ruined our conversation.