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So I just went through Final Fantasy Tactics (not that watered down Advance version) for the 2nd time, this time on emulator. 35 Played hours within the past 5 days, I completely shut out my real life and internet life to play this game =[.
I don't remember what I thought of the ending the first time I played since I was probably like 10 at the time, but now that I've seen it again I have some questions. I was completely immersed in the storyline (which, sans the spelling inconsistencies, and the initial phase of "what..the fuck..is going on?", is an AMAZING storyline), but sort of confused at the ending.
Ending: (not in spoilers since the game is 10 years old) After credits rolled, theres some dialogue between Delita and Ovelia. Ovelia stabs Delita because of her frustration at how she, along with Ramza, and tons of other characters, were used at Delita's hands in order for him to become King. Delita takes her dagger and stabs her with it, killing her in the process. He staggers away, and goes "Ramza, what did you get? I....", and then it fades to black.
So basically, what did he mean by that last line? Also is there no explanation for the rest of the characters' fates (as we know somehow Ramza and Alma were able to make it out alive)?
Thanks in advance
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Osaka27149 Posts
The greatest Final Fantasy game of all time.
I too, was puzzled by the ending line. While I have nothing to add to the thread, I just felt a close kindred feeling with you after reading your post.
I wish I could play the game again.
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+ Show Spoiler +Ramza saved the world for no gain of his own, he just want to save his sister. Delita took all the credit and gain all the power
In the ending Delita was asking why Ramza did what he did
Ramza and Alma can be either alive or just an illusion, it can interpreted either way
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Osaka27149 Posts
I thought they were they dead personally.
Ramza saved the world for no gain of his own, Delita took all the credit and gain all the power
In the ending Delita was asking why Ramza did what he did
makes perfect sense thanks.
Panorama did you get Cloud?
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Delita and Ramza used to be childhood friends and probably very similar. After the prologue chapter and the explosion (IIRC Algus, the nobleman boy who despises commoners like Delita--not Ramza, as Ramza's a noble--kills Delita's sister there) the two part ways for essentially the first time. They both begin on two very different courses of action, with different motivation. Delita is out to gain power and work his way up in the world because he's lost so much with his sister dying etc., being powerless to stop it from happening, being a powerless commoner, etc. Ramza is just out to fight for justice and his beliefs, going through the many troubles he goes through during the course of the game, out of his own developing sense of what is right and wrong despite what others, including his brothers, think...all in the age-old coming-of-age story. Note that Delita becomes Ramza's foil.
So in the end, Ramza gets no official recognition for his good deeds (especially not in the history books), yet he survives the final fight to presumably live out a happy life. He's accomplished his goal, and has a meager but fulfilling reward in the end. Note the similarity to other Matsuno games like Vagrant Story where the protagonist is unrecognized for his good deeds as such. Delita, on the other hand, also accomplished his goal, but it lead him only to be despised by Ovelia and to get stabbed. His manipulating finally caught up with him, and as he dies, he wonders what Ramza's gotten out of life, and by implication, what he didn't get following his lust for power.
edit: My take on video games is that if they show something explicitly and there's no hard evidence later to suggest otherwise, what you saw actually happened. Video games just don't use that kind of subtlety, so if what's-his-face-Orlando's-son saw Ramza and his sister riding chocobos, they were truly alive.
edit2: I like Vagrant Story's story better. The whole Zodiac Stone -> turn into random demon monster boss fight thing was kind of silly in FFT. There was no reason for the switch into fairy tale black-and-white morality near the end with all of those people becoming transformed as such. It's not only wtf, but it weakens the coming-of-age thread going on. >_<
edit3: Ramza and Alma's fate is kind of a cop-out. There's no way they should be alive, so they get Deus Ex Machina'd so that they can have their happy end. Presumably the other characters with Ramza got out alive too, but there was no real place or motivation to show them in the ending. Certainly, the typical Fire Emblem or even Ogre Battle/Tactics Ogre-like "character X went on to be blah blah blah, character Y went on to blah blah blah, and character Z and A went together to blah blah blah" ending wouldn't fit.
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Mani: Yeah I got Cloud, but didn't use him. Only got him just for the sake of completeness, even geared him up just so I can have the peace of mind that all my characters were ready for battle. For the PSX emulator, you can download this crack online that allows you to mod your FFT. For instance, having Elmdor on your team, having Cloud on your team from the very start, etc. I might check it out if one day I plan to go through the game again.
Poor Newb: "In the ending Delita was asking why Ramza did what he did" This makes sense. I didn't catch it because I was too caught up in trying to finish his last sentence "I...", etc. Thanks 
Myrmidon:
So in the end, Ramza gets no official recognition for his good deeds (especially not in the history books), yet he survives the final fight to presumably live out a happy life.
It was actually this that made me so enamored with the plot. It was so poetically tragic that Ramza, having started from being a simple cadet with some run ins with some loser Death Corps, ended up essentially saving the world and getting absolutely no recognition for it and no proper burial because of the religious-political control at the time decided his story was humiliating to the church. Even today, we block out certain things from history because it would shed some unsightly light on certain people.
His manipulating finally caught up with him, and as he dies
Is it for certain he dies? I always assumed he just kind of got hurt, since he's always portrayed as some heroic legendary king (anyone catch that he was nicknamed the Savior King? ), which I think kind of implies that his reign carried on for a while.
On the topic of them being alive, I feel complacent about it either way to be honest. The ending cinematics (as text appears, you see Ramza and Alma riding chocobo through random areas), but I figure if they were alive, they wouldn't have ridden off without a word, or at least could've stopped Olan (Orlan?)'s death (church burned him at the stake after he released the truth about the Ramza story in the Durai Papers). I guess this is all superfluous though, and not really meant for such close examination.
Thanks for the input, guys.
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I got the impression Delita died because he deserved to die and that'd be consistent with Ramza living and what I've posted earlier, but I guess there's no hard hard evidence. I always explained it away that either there was a continuity/script inconsistency regarding ideas about his length of reign, or the stabbings were supposed to happen some unspecified time later, where the people in question are still depicted with the same sprites. 
But both those explanations are weak, so I'll pass on that.
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Osaka27149 Posts
Im so ruining my life and playing this again.
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How do I not recall delita getting stabbed in the LEAST
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It was after a 5 minute credit roll after the first ending sequence, if you turned off the game after that you probably missed it .
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Panorama, iirc think Ovelia tried to just hit delita, but Delita definetely stabs her afterwards. But I haven't played the game in a while so I might be wrong.
What I love about this story is that Delita changes so realistically--he finds out that real power is the only way to make a change in the world and protect what he loves. But in order to do this, he needs to be ruthless and so lose the capability to love, thus taking away the entire purpose of gaining power in the first place.
I guess Delita's character is realistic to me because a lot of leaders in history are just like him. Take Alexander, for example. Was he just a megalomaniac bent on world domination or actually trying to create a permanent world empire without ethnic barriers? Delita's situation is parallel to those figures.
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On April 17 2007 20:00 KOFgokuon wrote: How do I not recall delita getting stabbed in the LEAST
Damn, I don't ever recall seeing that either. I've completed the game way too many times but never bothered to watch the credits till the very end.
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Wait, I remember. Assassinations and suicides always work in Tactics Ogre and FFT. One dagger stab = death. It's like all characters start cutscenes with 1 HP.
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That's true, everyone died in 1 stab in those scenes. I didn't think it was true simply because in two accounts on the ending of FFT on Wikipedia (lol), no mention of his death is listed. But it makes sense with how he was all on the floor and stopping in the middle of his sentence. I guess your earlier explanations for this are pretty plausible.
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And yea, Delita is alive. He was said to have ruled for many years in the manual? Ovelia could still have stabbed him, but his armor kept him alive. I also agree that Delita believed that only power could save the ones he loved, hence why he was so ruthless in gaining it. He realized this when he lost his sister; he even says a line to Ramza, when they meet again at the docks, that his sister changed him that day. In the end he could not save Ovelia, one of the people he cared about even when he had power, hence his question to Ramza of what he gained. Ramza chose to throw away everything, while Delita tried to take everything.
FFT was one of my favourite games, played it through several times. Agrias Oaks was my favourite character, frankly I liked Dark Knight and Holy Knight attack designs, fabulous. : | The game is very challenging if you ever play those single class challenges, never did get around to finish mine. My favorite team consisted of 4 female characters and Ramza. I gave Ramza a Secret Clothes so he's always cloaked at the start of battle while giving the females a Ribbon and Chantage, basically meaning they were invincible.
Ogre Battle Tactics has quite a few similarities to FFT but was never out in english, until later on when PS came. Go to underdogs site to find a copy of it. I didn't like it as much because of the class change system, but the game had many endings, and you can choose 3 different paths (Lawful, Neutral, Chaotic). Never did play all through paths, the level system was atrociously boring.
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Wow how much I love this game, it is probably my favorite final fantasy game. I played it two times and I really feel like playing once more. I really loved the Dark Knight, whenever you got Orlando it really got easy tho, he was really powerfull. I once used some kind of save game editor to finally added those 2 assassin to my team and I would always win because they were too powerfull.
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The special characters are awesome indeed, looked cool and had cool animations and sayings for their attacks.
During my 2nd time through the game though, I used mostly generic characters. The only special character I used was Agrias, but yeah she's pretty imba (100% chance to hit w/ all her spell attacks w/ range and splash and status effect..). The other generic characters used made the game much more fun to play, because you get to play around with different job combos and whatnot. It wasn't much of a handicap perse though, since heavily JPed out Generics are pretty much just as good as special characters (sans mr. imba orlandu).
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I started replaying FFT when my friend told me that I could get it on my computer through a PS emulator. I have the game, and I go the emulator. This is the only game where I could simply play it more than 5 times in my life(FFVII three times). I'm playing it for the sixth time.
Things that I missed the last time I played was the actual secret summon you could get at the end of the game. I forgot to steal the masamune from that dude(which is really fucking hard). But, I got everything else in the process. Cloud, Beowulf, his wife. Etc. I think this time, when I play it, I'll try to get everything.
Also, just to let you guys know. I took TG Cid's sword, and kicked him out of my party in the 5th time I played. He makes the game too easy. So, I thought... I'll take the sword, and just keep playing.
I'm at the end of Chapter 1. I almost got one of my units to ninja. :-D
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Haha
I wanted to steal all of Elmdor's gear but he started manhandling my entire party so I was like meh forget it.
I got lucky and got masamune (which is an AWESOME draw out btw, gives you regen and haste. Only problem is that there's only one in the game and you can't make more legitimately so there's always the risk of you breaking it during a draw out). I had a thief and a mime at the time, and the steal % was like 6% and so each time I stole I had two attempts because of the mime (who eventually got it).
For some reason I could never get Chirijiraden (ultimate katana) in the "E N D" level of the deep dungeon, I checked various guides to see if i was item-finding the right spot and I was, but I never got anything at all .
p.s. Anyone ever get completely stuck on Wiegraf/Velius during their first go through the game? The part where you have to solo Wiegraf and then take on Velius/minions. I've heard of people getting to that part then having to start all over because they were unknowingly put into an impossible-to-win situation against Wiegraf with an underpowered Ramza. Both times I played, I was lucky to make 2 save slots and so if I couldn't take on Wiegraf, I'd go to my other save slot and level up before I took him on again.
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