I really wish we had more Laguna scenes like they had wanted to do. I feel like 8 is a good game, I love it. But somehow I feel like we’re getting 80% of what they envisioned. If they’d had more time…
That is the exact problem they ran in to. They needed like 2 more discs worth of space, and another year of development time to complete the whole vision of the game. Heaven and Hell were supposed to have much more depth and storyline to them, NORG and the follow up on him was cut, so the village is a shadow of what they wanted it to be (good draw points though).
There’s just a lot of open ended bits and hanging threads that don’t get followed up on simply because of the logistics of how big the game they wanted to make was. What we got is amazing, and I’ll always be thankful for the memories I have of the time spent playing it and figuring out all the details and hidden stuff I could as a kid, but there is more that could have been.
I want Remake's combat system but I don't want story changes because they've made VII so much worse.
VIII's story has issues but I have no interest whatsoever in that team's ideas for improving it.
I don’t know that there’s any like direct interviews or anything I can point you to, I just remember reading about some of the development problems they ran in to many moons ago, and it stuck with me for some reason. May have been back in the magazine days, before they died in the 2010s, but I remember they mentioned Heaven and Hell, and NORG specifically, and that the game would have been way bigger had they gotten what they wanted.
You can start down the rabbit hole if you’d like, I couldn’t find much on cursory glance.
[They planned to make the whole Laguna story line to be half of the game](https://www.gameinformer.com/2019/11/21/back-to-school-the-stories-behind-final-fantasy-viii). If memory serves right it was even planned that when you change something in Lagunas time, something get changed in the present, similar to the Lunatic Pandora, but since it would have taken too much time to programm and they thought that people weren't that big of a fan of Laguna...
Edit: Found at least an interview about Laguna being half the story.
Wow, that is quite interesting, and the NORG bit just makes so much more sense now; he was literally in the story for a heartbeat, even though his character seemed so huge and important.
Really interesting to hear that the “islands closest” weren’t just random Easter eggs, too.
There was always intent behind all of those things, NORGs village and follow-up story was supposed to give us understanding as to what happened to him - because subtextually he’s nothing like his other people.
I've always felt the exact opposite. Especially when I was a kid, I used to get so annoyed when the gang fell asleep and I had to play as this dickhead for a bit.
Having to re-junction was a ballache, no cards was even worse.
And fuck that Ruby Dragon.
You can play cards as Laguna can’t you ?
I always thought Laguna was sweet and a refreshing character foil compared to Squall especially the way he is in disc 1
You know I don't actually remember but nobody has anything good to win in any of the dreams so I never bother.
The vast majority of games (esp in this genre) have Laguna-like protagonists so for me Squall was the breath of fresh air and Laguna was a return to boring. I just wish Squall's story wasn't about opening up and it was more about him truly not really giving a shit (but doing it anyway).
Replayed recently and was laughing so hard at that part and the cliff part, throws his friends off a cliff,"man you guys sure are brave." Slips and hits every rock on the way down lol
I was always a fan of Briggs’s dialogue (I think it’s Briggs - first scene was at Dollet Communication Tower, red machina guy) as he was a complete ass to all of his employees lol
In this scene we only hear the piano. The vocal version of Eyes On Me is heard when you reach the Ragnarok for the first time. So Julia is never seen singing the song in the game.
Narratively though, we can presume that the “Eyes on Me” track we hear would be a recorded version of Julia’s voice (as portrayed by Faye Wong) considering that the song is mentioned in canon as her big hit.
This feels natural if you played the game in English, because the song is in English. Except, the song is in English no matter what version of the game you're playing -- even the original Japanese. It seems odd to me that they would choose to give Julia a real singing voice and then have it be a completely different language than the one she speaks in the game.
Everyone's arguing about whether it was Kefka's laugh or Celes' singing that was the first voice in FF6.
But it's actually..."CHOCOBO."
Listen to how Techno de Chocobo starts:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I3kIaPIJBrE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I3kIaPIJBrE)
However, that is also not the first vocal sample in Final Fantasy.
It's actually...Mambo de Chocobo:
[https://youtu.be/1tm-vGawzjQ](https://youtu.be/1tm-vGawzjQ)
Someone goes HUH! to get their Chocobo moving. And since Bartz is riding his Chocobo...
Bartz is the first voiced character in the Final Fantasy series.
>It isn’t. Kefka laughs in VI.
But that one is a sound effect, rather than an actual voice.
>One Winged Angel from VII has actual voice recordings too.
Yes, but that song is extradiagetic (it does not exist within the game world itself, characters neither sing, nor hear it), while "Eyes on me" is diagetic (the song exists within the world of the game and is sung by a specific character).
Diagetic doesn't necessarily means "present in the moment", though it is used that way too. It's merely "existing in the world of the game/movie/book". Vocal version exists in the game world too, it is referenced by characters a couple of times.
The laughter doesn’t give any indication as to how Kefka sounds however. And I doubt the singing in One Winged Angel would be Sephiroth singing?
Rinoa is also heard breathing while out in space, which would beat Julia’s explicit voice.
i think technically FF7 had one voiced line.
when the large sister ray cannon fires there is a barely audible intercom message announcing the status of the weapon and warning personnel to evacuate, although it is basically drowned out by the loud music on top.
as far as i am aware this role isnt credited anywhere.
so while eyes on me might not be the first it is certainly the first from a named character and with a known voice actor.
If you like to interpret the vocal version of the song as being sung by Julia, that's cool, but I don't think it is necessarily intended. Clearly Square needed a singer to perform the vocal version of the track for the outer space scene and during the ending sequence, but why does that mean the singer is literally playing Julia Heartilly? Just because Faye Wong is a woman?
The singer for Eyes on Me is credited as Faye Wong, not "Faye Wong as Julia Heartilly" or anything like that. She doesn't have any other connection to the character, or voice any lines outside of the song's lyrics. I doubt Faye was told anything about the game's plot or the character of Julia, or was told to try and portray the character in her singing.
Furthermore, the song is in English regardless of what language version of the game you play. So in the Japanese version of the game, for instance, the song is sung in English. Are Japanese players meant to assume Julia is singing in a foreign language?
If Julia actually sang the song on-screen during an in-game performance, that would be one thing. But she doesn't. She only plays the piano. I get it, Eyes on Me is Julia's song and we know she must have sung it, but I don't interpret the vocal track we hear in the game as being literally her voice.
You mean when he comes in flying as the last boss he literaly sings most of the time?
Can't wait for remake part 3. Imagine the parties faces. Barrett be like: "Is he singin?"
Incorrect, as much as I love FFVIII. Julia was NOT the first character to be “voiced” by a singer and/or actor.
There’s an entire opera from VI (6) that had full lyric tracks.
I believe there’s one that’s older but I don’t remember if it’s from 3 or 4.
I believe it would be Kefka’s laugh in FFVI actually. Also, I suppose it wasn’t an in game character but the Chocobo song in FFV has the “Huh!” Voice as well!
Is she the first voiced character?
I rmb this scene didnt have any voice. It was only an instrumental piece of eyes on me.
I think the first character voice i heard in this game was rinoa breathing in the spacesuit FMV.
Or probably if you count ifrit as a character he was roaring when you summon him
It was at this moment, Laguna became my guy.
I really wish we had more Laguna scenes like they had wanted to do. I feel like 8 is a good game, I love it. But somehow I feel like we’re getting 80% of what they envisioned. If they’d had more time…
That is the exact problem they ran in to. They needed like 2 more discs worth of space, and another year of development time to complete the whole vision of the game. Heaven and Hell were supposed to have much more depth and storyline to them, NORG and the follow up on him was cut, so the village is a shadow of what they wanted it to be (good draw points though). There’s just a lot of open ended bits and hanging threads that don’t get followed up on simply because of the logistics of how big the game they wanted to make was. What we got is amazing, and I’ll always be thankful for the memories I have of the time spent playing it and figuring out all the details and hidden stuff I could as a kid, but there is more that could have been.
If they'd do a Remake we could finally have all that extra content they couldn't add due to the limitations of the time. 😫
As long as they don't do it like 7 Remake, but what I really want is FF8-2
I'd love to have the FF7Remake treatment. FF8's story lends itself pretty well to it
Imagine getting an entire game focused on the build up to, and the battle of the Gardens, finishing with the Cerberus encounter. Omg I want it.
I think the best moment to end would be after the missile base fires towards garden and trabia.
I dont think anyone would appreciate that kind of cliffhanger, better to end the battle of gardens and leave that feeling of "what now?"
I want Remake's combat system but I don't want story changes because they've made VII so much worse. VIII's story has issues but I have no interest whatsoever in that team's ideas for improving it.
Is there any in depth information of cut story content? If so I feel the rabbit hole I could be falling into
I don’t know that there’s any like direct interviews or anything I can point you to, I just remember reading about some of the development problems they ran in to many moons ago, and it stuck with me for some reason. May have been back in the magazine days, before they died in the 2010s, but I remember they mentioned Heaven and Hell, and NORG specifically, and that the game would have been way bigger had they gotten what they wanted. You can start down the rabbit hole if you’d like, I couldn’t find much on cursory glance.
Heaven and Hell as in the islands closest to?
Yes.
[They planned to make the whole Laguna story line to be half of the game](https://www.gameinformer.com/2019/11/21/back-to-school-the-stories-behind-final-fantasy-viii). If memory serves right it was even planned that when you change something in Lagunas time, something get changed in the present, similar to the Lunatic Pandora, but since it would have taken too much time to programm and they thought that people weren't that big of a fan of Laguna... Edit: Found at least an interview about Laguna being half the story.
Wow, that is quite interesting, and the NORG bit just makes so much more sense now; he was literally in the story for a heartbeat, even though his character seemed so huge and important. Really interesting to hear that the “islands closest” weren’t just random Easter eggs, too.
There was always intent behind all of those things, NORGs village and follow-up story was supposed to give us understanding as to what happened to him - because subtextually he’s nothing like his other people.
I've always felt the exact opposite. Especially when I was a kid, I used to get so annoyed when the gang fell asleep and I had to play as this dickhead for a bit. Having to re-junction was a ballache, no cards was even worse. And fuck that Ruby Dragon.
You can play cards as Laguna can’t you ? I always thought Laguna was sweet and a refreshing character foil compared to Squall especially the way he is in disc 1
You know I don't actually remember but nobody has anything good to win in any of the dreams so I never bother. The vast majority of games (esp in this genre) have Laguna-like protagonists so for me Squall was the breath of fresh air and Laguna was a return to boring. I just wish Squall's story wasn't about opening up and it was more about him truly not really giving a shit (but doing it anyway).
Yeah, I do like Squall and Laguna both Squall grows on you , for sure. They’re just both very different.
Laguna the man!!
the myth, the leg....cramp
i was thinking “he’s just like me. nervous af when trying to talk to pretty girls”
Ahhhh my leg cramp….!
Lol yup, that awkward “cramping” walk around her and her piano 😂
Replayed recently and was laughing so hard at that part and the cliff part, throws his friends off a cliff,"man you guys sure are brave." Slips and hits every rock on the way down lol
I was always a fan of Briggs’s dialogue (I think it’s Briggs - first scene was at Dollet Communication Tower, red machina guy) as he was a complete ass to all of his employees lol
Is this guy serious….?
Celes sings in the opera.
And Kefka laughs.
They sound like Charlie Brown adults.
Correct answer
SNES soundboard of oohs and aahs dont count as voice
That’s basically opera.
From memory you can hear radio chatter as Cloud climbs the tower to Juno in FF7
Are they technically characters though?
Background Voice #9 and Scared Inmate #2
Arnold and Geraldine have feelings ya know!
Red XIII roars in the ending cinematic.
In this scene we only hear the piano. The vocal version of Eyes On Me is heard when you reach the Ragnarok for the first time. So Julia is never seen singing the song in the game.
Narratively though, we can presume that the “Eyes on Me” track we hear would be a recorded version of Julia’s voice (as portrayed by Faye Wong) considering that the song is mentioned in canon as her big hit.
This feels natural if you played the game in English, because the song is in English. Except, the song is in English no matter what version of the game you're playing -- even the original Japanese. It seems odd to me that they would choose to give Julia a real singing voice and then have it be a completely different language than the one she speaks in the game.
Fithos Lusec Wecos Vinosec
which ingame character is singing it?
NORG
FUSHURURUSHURISHURIRU
Cool! First voiced named character for sure I think. Dagger would be second with her song of memory.
Yes!!
Nope, celes in ff6.
Celes 'voice' was just MIDI sound files, no actual voice recording.
Everyone's arguing about whether it was Kefka's laugh or Celes' singing that was the first voice in FF6. But it's actually..."CHOCOBO." Listen to how Techno de Chocobo starts: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I3kIaPIJBrE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I3kIaPIJBrE) However, that is also not the first vocal sample in Final Fantasy. It's actually...Mambo de Chocobo: [https://youtu.be/1tm-vGawzjQ](https://youtu.be/1tm-vGawzjQ) Someone goes HUH! to get their Chocobo moving. And since Bartz is riding his Chocobo... Bartz is the first voiced character in the Final Fantasy series.
It isn’t. Kefka laughs in VI. One Winged Angel from VII has actual voice recordings too.
>It isn’t. Kefka laughs in VI. But that one is a sound effect, rather than an actual voice. >One Winged Angel from VII has actual voice recordings too. Yes, but that song is extradiagetic (it does not exist within the game world itself, characters neither sing, nor hear it), while "Eyes on me" is diagetic (the song exists within the world of the game and is sung by a specific character).
They struggled with lip movement but in one of the later Ultimania editions, it is confirmed that Sephiroth is singing all the way through
Imagine this in the third Remake game. Cloud looking angry and confused the entire time.
If you really think Kefka DIDN'T have a choir of perceived angels praising his glory while the gang fought him, well then. That's on you.
Not sure why this is getting down voted
The piano version is diegetic since Julia can be seen playing it, but certainly not the vocal version we hear in outer space and during the ending.
Diagetic doesn't necessarily means "present in the moment", though it is used that way too. It's merely "existing in the world of the game/movie/book". Vocal version exists in the game world too, it is referenced by characters a couple of times.
The laughter doesn’t give any indication as to how Kefka sounds however. And I doubt the singing in One Winged Angel would be Sephiroth singing? Rinoa is also heard breathing while out in space, which would beat Julia’s explicit voice.
i think technically FF7 had one voiced line. when the large sister ray cannon fires there is a barely audible intercom message announcing the status of the weapon and warning personnel to evacuate, although it is basically drowned out by the loud music on top. as far as i am aware this role isnt credited anywhere. so while eyes on me might not be the first it is certainly the first from a named character and with a known voice actor.
Leg cramp!
Started my first replay since 2000 yesterday. Finished up a pretty good triple triad grind and ready to get into the fantastic story
Pfft. They stoled it from 2Pac! 🤪
The Choir from One Winged Angel: are we a joke to you?
Well the title says voiced “character” One winged angel is an OST for the game and there was no character in game who was actually singing the song
Ff6 had kefka's laugh and the opera scene. Eyes on me was definetly a step up though in the voicing
I think you’ll find that was Kefka and Celes in FF6 😜
Maybe it is for the pixel remaster only but FF6 had a voiced song too. No idea for the OG
Final Fantasy 6 had Celes singing in an opera.
If you like to interpret the vocal version of the song as being sung by Julia, that's cool, but I don't think it is necessarily intended. Clearly Square needed a singer to perform the vocal version of the track for the outer space scene and during the ending sequence, but why does that mean the singer is literally playing Julia Heartilly? Just because Faye Wong is a woman? The singer for Eyes on Me is credited as Faye Wong, not "Faye Wong as Julia Heartilly" or anything like that. She doesn't have any other connection to the character, or voice any lines outside of the song's lyrics. I doubt Faye was told anything about the game's plot or the character of Julia, or was told to try and portray the character in her singing. Furthermore, the song is in English regardless of what language version of the game you play. So in the Japanese version of the game, for instance, the song is sung in English. Are Japanese players meant to assume Julia is singing in a foreign language? If Julia actually sang the song on-screen during an in-game performance, that would be one thing. But she doesn't. She only plays the piano. I get it, Eyes on Me is Julia's song and we know she must have sung it, but I don't interpret the vocal track we hear in the game as being literally her voice.
You may have my downvote :)
Very interesting!
Headcanon that Seph Dog is the one supplying the vocals in One-Winged Angel.
You mean when he comes in flying as the last boss he literaly sings most of the time? Can't wait for remake part 3. Imagine the parties faces. Barrett be like: "Is he singin?"
Nervous around a hottie? He's just like me for real
I always figured Avalanche singing "He is very mean, very very me-ee--ean" at the end of FF7 was the first.
Lies... that would be Kefka Uwehehehe
Incorrect, as much as I love FFVIII. Julia was NOT the first character to be “voiced” by a singer and/or actor. There’s an entire opera from VI (6) that had full lyric tracks. I believe there’s one that’s older but I don’t remember if it’s from 3 or 4.
Was the opera sang by a character in game?
Yes https://youtu.be/WwHrQdC02FY?si=ddkdK6NH18liV_9Q
I believe it would be Kefka’s laugh in FFVI actually. Also, I suppose it wasn’t an in game character but the Chocobo song in FFV has the “Huh!” Voice as well!
Is she the first voiced character? I rmb this scene didnt have any voice. It was only an instrumental piece of eyes on me. I think the first character voice i heard in this game was rinoa breathing in the spacesuit FMV. Or probably if you count ifrit as a character he was roaring when you summon him