I love old arguments that haven't been discussed in years.

Here are some facts we can conclude from Final Fantasy 6.

A. Relm is not really Strago's granddaughter. There are two bits of evidence to support this,

1. Strago and Relm do not have the same last names (one possibility is that Strago is Relm's maternal grandfather).

2. After you go to Thamasa for the first time and meet Strago and Relm, if you talk to one of the villagers, she says something like "You know, Relm isn't really Strago's granddaughter. I heard she's his friends daughter."

B. Shadow was a train thief that escaped from Doma to Thamasa, Thamasa is not his hometown.

For evidence of this, we must look at Shadow's dreams. Everytime you sleep at an inn with Shadow in your party, there is a chance you will see a brief cut-scene of Shadow dreaming about his past.

1. The first one involves Shadow standing there, his old partner in crime Baram comes out of the darkness and says a few words to him.

2. The second one involves a man named Clyde and Baram leaving a train, where they celebrate on how they just stole a million GP. Baram suggests they take new names, and Clyde's should be Shadow.

3. The third one involves Shadow and Baram at the bottom of Baren Falls, Baram is seriously injured so Shadow intends to go on without him, Baram asks him to "use his knife" before he goes so they won't find him alive. Shadow can't do it, so he just runs off (this explains why Shadow leaves the party if he's still with you at Baren Falls when you're playing through Sabin's scenario).

4. The final one shows Shadow, exhausted and on the brink of death, stumbling into a town. He collapses, and a dog runs up to him (presumably interceptor) and barks, then a woman approaches him (presumably Relm's mother), telling him he's reached a small town called Thamasa, and that he needs to "Hang in there," the dream ends.

C. The last piece of evidence is how interceptor (Shadow's dog, if you've forgotten) takes an immediate liking to Relm, despite on how it usually doesn't like people except for Shadow.

The conclusion most people reach from this evidence is Shadow stayed in Thamasa for a while, and fathered a child with the woman who saved his life. The mother died during Relm's childbirth, Shadow ran off again, and Relm was left in Strago's care, Strago may or may not be her real grandfather.

The reason the Memento ring has the message "A departed mother's love protects against fatal attacks" is because of the programming limitations. You get the first Memento ring because Relm comes equipped with it. You can take Relm's ring off and equip it on Shadow right away without finding the other one if you want, but you're not supposed to know that Shadow can also equip the Memento ring at first. The text describing what each relic does is the same no matter who equips it. Heck, in Chrono Trigger, you can visit Guardia Castle in 600 AD with Magus at the head of your party and have the soldiers congratulate you on defeating Magus (lazy programmers).

Another thing to take into account is the age difference. Relm is 10 when we first meet her, Shadow's age is never revealed, but he's probably at least 2 decades older than her. Not that that can't happen, but it's extremely unlikely.

There... I think I've covered everything, let me know if I convinced you. Sincerely,

-Cal

Drew,

I was pretty disappointed to hear about the return of random battles and the return to three-member parties. This kind of makes me think that we may just get another reiteration of the formula that Square has found works for Final Fantasy on the Playstation. However, I was even more disappointed to learn that the creators had better intentions, and are apparently being pushed to get product on the shelves for some deadline. I guess it's kind of a crushing reality that the creators behind our beloved game series are just as slave to the mighty Gil as anyone else in the world. Maybe I'm just the most naive person on the planet, but until now I thought that just maybe Final Fantasy was the last bastion of the philosophy of "great games just because" as opposed to "good games, hopefully; but, more importantly, good revenues". Whatever, I'll buy it anyway, and no doubt enjoy it. The only thing is, the whole time I'll be thinking "damn, I could have not had to sit through the whole swirly screen thing and being jarred from one scene to another for countless unpredictably occurring battles if only this game had been in development for a few more weeks".

sucks to deadlines,

-magatsu

Drew,

I think Square pushing FFX out of the door before the designers do everything they want is more attributable to Square's desire to make a profit more than it is to preassure from Sony. Square is a very talented, very popular game designer who is being being courted by every major hardware company, and whose presence (or lack thereof) may very well determine whether a console suceeds or fails in Japan. I don't think Sony or anyone else is in a position to bully Square. While I think Sony asked Square to try to release FFX around the time of the Gamecube launch, I think Square agreed to do so only because the FF series is so critical to thier bottom line (Square expects to lose money in the first quarter of 2001 due to the delay of FFX). That being said, I am unhappy that FFX is going to continue the tradition of random encounters, where dragons the size of trucks somehow manage to ambush parties of adventurers in open fields every ten seconds.

- Mark

Dear Drew

I think square shouldn't of said anything about having to hold back on FFX. Now all the idiot gamers are gonna have one more thing to bitch about when the game is finally released.

And since in didn't get in on the Amano vs. Nomura discussion, I think square should dump both of them. I really liked C:SotN's art or Xenogears art (minus the long hair on the men).

Was Hoshigami:ruining blue earth released in Japan yet?

-Brad

I would rather wait a few extra months for a much better game then get it earlier and have it suck. I don't wanna another Xenogears or Leagecy of Kain: Soul Raver. Xenogears is my favorite game ever but think how much better it coulda been if it was allowed to be finished. Soul Reaver is such a good game too but its only....like half done. If Square needs FFX to succed they needa FINISH it so people won't get so damned angry like i no doubt will be.

-Whatever

Hey, Drew.

"Personally, I think it's pretty lame that they're letting some artificial deadline imposed upon them by Sony and its desire to have a counterattack to the GameCube interfere with their artistic vision."

I myself doubt that Square is doing this simply because of pressure from Sony. The way I see it, Sony needs Square, not the other way around, because the PlayStation 2 needs some exclusive titles quickly. I believe that Square rushing FFX is yet another sign of their financial instability. The now RPG-hungry North American market can net them a lot of cash, so it would only be logical to have a translated FFX ready for the christmas shopping season.

Anyways, yes, it is pretty lame of Square to do this. This only damages Square's image even more. Many people on the 'net are already disenchanted with the company these days. Which brings up another question: Would Square benefit from adopting a more personal, friendly, dedicated-to-please-you image like Working Designs?

-Steve Tran, who wonders where monsters keep their money(in between folds of skin perhaps?)