FFX 3 ? (A FFX sequel after FFX 2)

[Renmiri]

How would you do one ?
What would you like to see in it ?
Who would you like to see
- As a playable character
- As a talking character


For me the answer is :
New places and more underwater stuff
More blitz
Tidus as main character. I like Yuna narrating but Tidus is better.
Auron as playable or at least talking in some scenes (and talking more than flashbacks to FFX)
I have some crazy ideas for a sequel story but I will wait to see the answers to post them. They are really crazy!

[raskerino]

The problem with bringing in Auron is it does not make sense to the storyline and hurts it. The problem with bringing in Tidus is it also weakens the storyline (because yes he did come back in X-2 but it wasn't a strong ending as it didn't follow well). Another problem is what would the enemy be, there isn't an enemy that makes sense and it would feel tacked on to make more money. Throwing out an entirely new enemy doesn't work as shown by some of the problems in the story of X-2 (btw I did enjoy X-2 but the storyline line was quite weak). It makes no sense to make another game unless you have a really worked out storyline idea. And if your plan is to bring back Auron I'm going to assume you don't. This idea comes up a lot, but it doesn't make sense and does not fit previous storylines unless you want to throw those out.

In a word, NO

[TurkSlayer]

A sequal is a terrible idea, but a prequal wouldn't be bad. There could be a prequal about the journey of Braska, Jecht and Auron of course, which would actually be fairly interesting. However, I'd like to see something based on the early Crusaders, and those first battles with Sin.

[Christmas]

There are several groups of sphere hunters in Spira.
You create one character and play for one group.
The quests that each groups do varies.
Your character do a massive amounts of sidequests and such to obtain spheres and interact with NPC like Yuna, Rikku, Tidus....etc to become powerful, famous...etc.
You are to assemble a set of spheres together as the main quest which unreveal the main story of the game.
In the end, you can fight the villian after you manage to assemble the set of spheres.

BTW, why is it in the writer's corner?

[Tabris]

A prequel would be great! It could start with the war between Bevelle and Zanarkand, as was mentioned. And then the story could be of the first summoners and their pilgrimage. Maybe with a bit more ancient and primitive versions of the fiends.

[raskerino]

Tabris: imo way too repetitive.

Turkslayer: Again too repetitive imo.

I think the best idea would be the Zanarkand Bevelle wars but II'd so hguely prefer something new that I wouldn't want that.

[Renmiri]

BTW, why is it in the writer's corner?

Ahhh! It is because I have some ideas about a sequel...

A prequel would rock:
- Zanarkand / Bevelle Wars
- The First Crusaders (Lord Mi'hen's story ?)
- Tidus years in his Zanarkand being raised by Auron

[Renmiri]

The problem with bringing in Auron is it does not make sense to the storyline and hurts it. The problem with bringing in Tidus is it also weakens the storyline (because yes he did come back in X-2 but it wasn't a strong ending as it didn't follow well). Another problem is what would the enemy be, there isn't an enemy that makes sense and it would feel tacked on to make more money. Throwing out an entirely new enemy doesn't work as shown by some of the problems in the story of X-2 (btw I did enjoy X-2 but the storyline line was quite weak). It makes no sense to make another game unless you have a really worked out storyline idea. And if your plan is to bring back Auron I'm going to assume you don't. This idea comes up a lot, but it doesn't make sense and does not fit previous storylines unless you want to throw those out.

In a word, NO

I agree with your points but I disagree with your conclusion. If I was writing a sequel what story plot could I do ? The fist things I thought I would want in a sequel were

* A new area to explore The current Spira is getting a bit too familiar. Just a new dungeon wouldn't cut it. We could go explore the oceans, but a game all underwater would be a tad boring. A new planet ? That would be fun!
* Be able to get Auron back, perhaps others too, such as Jecht. And even "new old" ones like Lord Mi'hen the first Crusader...

Then I set to work

What could the villains / danger be ?

First let's see the need for new areas:
Right now, Spira has petty much been scoured for new areas and dungeons. There are no new big areas, except the oceans (underwater) or the Farplane. The advantage of the Farplane is that it would allow us to revisit some lost heroes such as Auron and Jecht. But both the Farplane and the oceans are not diverse enough to make a game as fun as the first two!

So we have to add some new stuff, that would allow you to visit other words...
- A portal from the Farplane to another word
- A new area on the Farplane
- A new dimension where Aeons and Fayth live
- A spaceship found by the Al Bhed (in Bikanel, in the bottom of the sea, ..)
- A spaceship in Bevelle's bowels (found by Baralai ? Isaru ?)

But why would our heroes leave Spira to a new place after finally being reunited ? We need a big danger

Here you can go for the obvious:
- Seymour is back in business using the Farplane monsters to plot a revenge .. or
- Yu Yevon (same as Seymour) .. or
- A brand new villain is coming to Spira (could be via Farplane or not)

but this would force the adventure to be in Spira or in at least in an unknown corner of the Farplane. Boring!

So the big danger needs to come from space or from a new dimension. Seymour and other past villains can help but the danger must be external.

But why would an alien attack Spira ? It's not like the current Spira has state of the art technology, gold or other riches… Spira does have pireflies though. Pireflies can power fiends, spheres, souls, memories… One could say they are one very good source of magic. And guess what place has tons of pireflies ? The Farplane! There, we found a good way to get Auron and other "sent" involved!

Bingo! We found what would attract thieves to Spira: Pireflies ! Like manna in some games or Dune's "spice" the thing can be mined and used by mages and techno-mages alike. Which means greedy robber barons would covet Spira. And would covet the Farplane in Spira.

So greedy robber barons from space or another dimension coming to strip mine Spira's pireflies would be a good "danger" to have. It would allow:
- the sequel to have several battles and exploration on a brand new place (the invader's home and his ship)
- some scenes in the Farplane with Auron, Seymour and other favorites.

But it is still a bit "loose". Like someone just plopped an alien ship in the middle of Luca's town square. Can we tie it better to the Spira of the past 2 games ?

We certainly can! Who said those strip miners of pireflies have not been exploring Spira all along ?

This is just one of the scenarios that would do what I wanted: allow us to gameplay with Auron again, and have a change of scenery.

What do you guys think ? How would you do it ?

[Yew-Yevon]

mabe a completly interactive freelance 3rd or 1st person explor mode, where you can talk to ppl face to face and jump and climb places (like acual climing required..not just pressing circle to get up big stairs. I mean like climbing steep rocky clifs and such) that Yuna cant normaly go to. And being able to do real jobs for ppl lol mabe Rikku might have to babysit for Wakka and Lulu...iv always wanted to see Spira in a (in you'r eyes) kind of way.

[Renmiri]

First I started with the "oddities" of FFX and FFX2 that could be explained in a sequel:

* Too many lost cities - Zanarkand, under Moonflow, in Mi'hen road, Bikanel desert, Besaid all have ruins of cities
* Too many machine debris - Under the ocean and in Bikanel there are so many debris that the Al Bhed have been digging them for 1,000 years and haven't even scratched the surface, 2 airships are found only after 1,000 years, as if they were very deeply hidden (Cid's under the ocean, Brother's under ice)
* Bevelle's machines - Why all the huge machines, that Gaol there ? Who keeps them in working order ? Why do they do it ? Why did they spend 1,000 years telling the rest of Spira that machines were evil while keeping machines themselves ?
* A calm interrupted every 10 years, for 1,000 years.

All that I listed above seems to indicate Spira's past has had some large civilization, with lots of technology, perhaps even larger than Tidus' Spira which only had Zanarkand. Why larger ? So many ruins of cities! Isn't it curious how Tidus never recognizes any other city name from Yuna's Spira? And he never mentions other cities from his time either. If all those cities in Besaid, Bikanel, etc.. were around in his time he could have visited or heard of them while growing up.

The 10 year "Calm / Mayhem" cycle is also very odd. Why ? Would a insane summoner like Yu Yevon really have that much patience ? Would Bevelle and Spira really resist that long without something else at stake ? Something sinister ?

Bear with me, I'm almost there

Now let's look at some stuff I thought I could also use:

* 2 airships, commspheres
* The Farplane
* Al Bhed, diving suits
* Hypello, Ronso - Obviously alien humanoid species. Are they native to Spira ?

I went into lots of detail in my previous post on why I chose an external danger (greedy aliens) and what would they would be looking for in Spira.

We learn that in the first 2 games that:
- the pireflies apparently are linked to Spira's dead.
- The Guado keep watch in a stable place where pireflies can be viewed, AKA, the Farplane.
- Summoners trained with Bevelle / Yevon's teachings can make sure the Spira's dead release their pireflies directly to the Farplane, by doing the sending.

The Farplane can be viewed as a giant pirefly warehouse, kept stocked constantly by Sin and the priests form Bevelle. Pretty convenient if you want to sell pireflies to some greedy robber barons, heh ? No need to strip mine.

The whole Sin / Bevelle religion can be looked as a huge pirefly collection operation. The poor Spira residents being milked for all they have with short, grief filled lives . Sounds ghastly, doesn't it ? But it isn't me here. I just added a BUSINESS RELATED MOTIVE for the senseless carnage Sin has done in the past 1,000 years.

If you ignore the gorgeous graphics, FFX world is incredibly dark. Short, grief filled lives is the Spira FFX describes: kids rarely meet their parents and every village gets destroyed once per decade. A land of orphans and widows. And according to FFX it was just to attend the vanity of ONE MAN. If you ask me, adding a bunch of greedy aliens that forced Bevelle's / Yu Yevon's hand into this crazy scheme makes it a bit more human. We humans can strip mine a land and ignore the destiny of those who live in it. See the Amazon, Africa...

So here comes the plot: TA-DA!

It's been 7 years since Yuna defeated Sin. The Guado (Trommel ?) send an urgent summons to Yuna and Tidus: Someone from the Farplane needs to talk with them ASAP. When Tidus and Yuna arrive at Guadosalam they got to the Farplane and see no other than Auron (and Jecht ?) telling them Spira is in grave danger:

An alien fleet is coming next year and it is expecting the pireflies / souls of 5 million Spirans to be delivered to them

Many years ago Spira was the home of a very advanced civilization that got discovered by (or contacted) aliens. Some of the aliens who made contact with Spira were good (Ronso, Hypello) some were very bad.

Some aliens were so bad that they decided to "harvest" the souls of Spirans for their evil potions (or evil machines, whatever..). Since the aliens wanted a steady supply of Spira souls (pireflies?) they couldn't just kill all in Spira.

Bevelle and Zanarkand were offered the job of "farm hand", i.e. be spared if they agreed to harvest the souls of their fellow Spirans for the evil aliens who came to collect a load every 10 years (hence the calm only lasting 10 years). Bevelle accepted. Most in Zanarkand refused (Lenne, fayth) and went to war against Bevelle. But Yu Yevon betrayed them and came up with Sin, a super harvester of souls who could collect thousands in a single attack. He and Bevelle made a deal to keep "farming" Spira Souls and delivering it every 10 years to the evil aliens for 1,000 years.

The scheme would be discovered easily if the people in Spira kept their airships and machines, as they would soon discover space flight and kick the alien invader's butt. So Yevon's religion was created to keep the people in Spira very low tech, particularly in weapons and space technology. Commspheres and spheres in general are allowed, as they help Bevelle spread their lies

[Christmas]

FF IX?

[Renmiri]

This is just one of the scenarios that would do what I wanted: allow us to gameplay with Auron again, and have a change of scenery. Another idea is scratch the aliens harvesting idea and Auron just calls Tidus for help with the Farplane (Seymour wants to come back ? or some similar danger)

But as someone pointed out before, Seymour coming back or yet another new villain with no ties to the past story would look a bit artificial..

The alien harvesting story is a riff on Anne McCaffrey's Freedom Ship stories, which rips it from HG Wells War of the Worlds. A classical Sci-Fi plot. A good writer (not me!) good make a great plot out of it

I'm not sure if pre-alien Spira had spaceships but it seems to me the Al Bhed would be the descendants of space pilots and space crews if Spira ever had them. It would make a lot of sense: Not falling for Yevon's lies, being fascinated for technology, a different language, feeling at home in diving suits (space suits). Plus it would make for cool Al Bhed scenes!

What do you guys think ? How would you do it ?

[Yew-Yevon]

what about trema's feind under bevel? whould that make and interesting add?

[Renmiri]

what about trema's feind under bevel? whould that make and interesting add?

Yes!!!

Bevelle could be the pireflies "processing facility" and Trema's dungeon the place they were "perfected" into strong monsters for the aliens (for sport on their homeworld gladiator style, for strong pireflies..).

Or Trema's tower could be an Alien x Predator type of plot: A dungeon where the aliens came to train their young..

Trema could be the heir of Yu Yevon: He discovered the hidden story behind Sin and Yevon's church on all those spheres he hogged all for himself and decided to keep the harvest scheme working even without Sin..

[Tabris]

Renmiri:

It's a fascinating story you have, and oddly enough it fits with the storyline and world of Spira. I, however, would like to go the other way - I would like to do the religion believable again. Of course, there will always be corrupt people, but I dont want mechanics and business to be behind it all. To me, that would be disappointing. But that is probably because I'm spiritually focused myself.

Taking the next game to other planets/dimensions outside of Spira would probably be quite popular, but I would prefer if they stayed in Spira but explored it a bit more. For instance, we have seen nothing of the cities of Luca and Bevelle except the Blitzball stadium, the docks and the Temple of Bevelle. They are supposed to be city - why not show more of them?

Also, if they made a prequel, they could show more of the places like Baaj Temple, Remiem Temple and the old Mi'ihen Highroad, when they were still in use. And maybe they could spend a little less time fighting random fiends, and spend more time on quests in the various location, meaning that we get to see more of Spira, and we get to go deeper into each place (perhaps a bit like X-2, expect a bit more serious and less "girly" assignments and atmosphere).