Chrysalis

I'm almost through the FF1 portion of the book and had to come lighten the load a little. All that wasted potential… :(
So far it's been almost exclusively a brief storytelling of the exact events in the game, minus a good many (almost all) of the lesser bosses. Just with some semi-official names for the warriors and basic personalities tagged on them…not even any reference to all the lore that's been added to the world since the release of FF1, no Warrior from Dissidia, no interesting story about the Lufenian past and their war, nothing. It even goes so far as to contradict Dissidia's version of the past events (Cid brought in the airship to the desert after evacuating the flying fortress) and even some of the original game's events (origin of the boat, they skipped fairy-in-a-bottle completely and nameless mermaid-turned-human-girl had the oxyale)… *sigh*

In fact, the only thing aside from the names for the warriors the novel's added so far has been them watching an ancient recording at the mirage tower of Cid evacuating the Fortress and instructing the robots to wait in the tower until someone'd come along and defeat Tiamat. High point of the almost-hundred pages I've read. That should be saying something.

I'm hoping that the other two won't be so uninspired, but realistically….I'm pretty sure it won't happen. The wasted potential, all that wasted potential……

I'll be adding summaries of all the stories (including FF1) once I'm done with the book, but I doubt I'll be rereading it any time soon. :(

Right past the Mysidian Tower in the FF2 story now. Came to update my thoughts on the book.

As expected, the FF2 side has been almost a straight retelling (with some left-out bits) just like the FF1 part was. They even left out Leila. And Josef was just a tag-along on a quest to retrieve the Sunfire (…) from the Ice Cave (…) with Gordon (…). And poor Richard, he got left behind as soon as they got out of Leviathan! And they never visited Deist either.
In fact, the only thing that keeps me going through the story is the vague indication in the interlude that the FF2 story is the beginning of the story of the Warriors from FF1. Keep looking for hints, and keep finding none. Other than that strange bit about the BLM in FF1 being able to speak with animals, like Guy. Looking at it closely, you can see a vague resemblance between the FF2 main charas and the Warriors in FF1 in this story. Hmm….

Thank you so much for summarizing the first part of the novel! I'm a big fan of the original Final Fantasies, so I really appreciate you going out of your way to provide information that would have otherwise been left ignored (I doubt many people even know about the novel).

To be honest, I'm not that surprised the novel neglected to add anything new to the FF1 universe, but I'm glad that it at least didn't contradict too much from Dissidia. It is interesting that the author kept Cid, a character that only existed in the remakes and not the original NES game. That's why I wanted to ask: when you say he "evacuated" the Flying Fortress, does that mean he helped to evacuated the Lufenians during Tiamat's attack or did he evacuate the Fortress itself?

Also if you're already deep into the FF2 portion of the novel, I was wondering if the Emperor's name was kept as Mateus and if the author happened to flesh out his backstory like in the old novel. Thanks!

Hi hi!
I'm up to the Desch portion of FF3 right now, been too busy to read much this month…and for that matter, seem to have forgotten to add the FF2 summary right after finishing reading it. Oops. I'll try make time for it today or tomorrow.

By evacuating I meant that Cid seems to have led the entire evacuation of the Flying Fortress in the book. He was leading people away and seems to have been the last person in there before they sealed it up.
As for FF2, the Emperor was only referred to as such, no name mentioned. There was no extra background information on anything that I could find and no extra scenes, only some that were changed a bit or entirely skipped when compared to the original game.

Also, welcome to Chrysalis. :)

Oh don't worry! Take your time with the summaries.

Ah I see, so that's the only mention of the Lufenian Cid we get. Oh well, I'm surprised we even got a mention of him. Other than the fact that the warrior's personality is similar to that of WoL, are there any hints or allusions to Dissidia or is the novel basically trying to rewrite what Dissidia established?

And it's a shame FF2's story also got butchered. I guess it's safe to assume that the "Soul of Rebirth" storyline was completely ignored as well as any mention of the Arcane Labyrinth? What happened to your hunch that the heroes of FF1 were the same heroes of FF2?

Once again, take your time with this novel! I understand we all live busy lives so make do with whatever time you have!

I think that when it comes to the Dissidia references in the story of I, it's just there as a small assurance to fans that the author didn't forget that later development has been made in the game's world, even though it doesn't follow those developments very closely. Same thing with calling the Warriors in III with the names Luneth, Arc, Refia and Ingus really, it's just there for decor, possibly also a way to let the author get away with the least amount of inventing new stuff…

Yeah, Soul of Rebirth is not there, the story ends with Leon leaving Fynn after the Emperor has been defeated in Pandemonium. No mention of the extra dungeons either.

As for the heroes thing…I'm still not decided on that. There is what the interlude said, and then there are the similarities between the heroes in all the three stories. The interlude between II and III also alluded that the same story is about to begin again after several cycles of light and darkness. After meeting the crystals, it even goes so far as to designate Ingus as a thief job. The rest are all very surprised that he'd call on that particular job first since he's been all knightly before that, and Ingus responds that it just felt natural for him, so this is likely another reference to the continuity of the heroes between the stories, making him Thaubar from I and Leon from II.
Then again, all these references are small (aside possibly from the Ingus/thief connection) and easily glossed over.

Ah I see. I wonder if the epilogue to the novel provides any details about your theory.

Oh well thanks again!

Took a while for me to get back to this (mainly 'cause I was without a net connection for two weeks :X) but here I am! Finished with the book and all!
I'm reasonably certain that those hints were meant to point at exactly what they hinted at (if that makes any sense), and that at least some part of the souls of the four Warriors of Light are shared between the worlds, if not the entire thing. That or there's some archetype that the crystals are drawn to or create or connect or whatever when choosing a Warrior. The book never comes right out and says it, but I think there's enough hints especially towards the end that I can be reasonably certain it's true.
(I'll be adding the remaining summaries soon I hope, lots to catch up on right now)

Well, how canon that book is depends on the person I guess. I think what it's added to the FF continuity, little thought it may have been, has been mostly positive. I think I'll be using the FF1 Warrior names as (semi-)canon at least until/unless SE contradicts it. :)