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Mar. 11th, 2011 09:35 amHmm, it appears that the choice I made at the end of TO's first chapter led me into the "Chaos" version of chapter two. I really hope that doesn't bite me too hard--I had made it a point throughout chapter one to only recruit Lawful and Neutral units and specifically shun Chaotic ones, since their feelings toward me were already strongly biased toward Law (Lawful units pretty much automatically loved me, Neutral were meh, Chaotic would sooner die than give me the time of day, which would have made recruiting them a bit of a trick anyway even if I had actually wanted to) so I just assumed that meant I was destined to walk a lawful path. I GUESS NOT. As of the beginning of chapter two, everyone's loyalty is completely unchanged (all my Lawful party members still love me, all my Neutral ones are meh except Hissy Ardei whom I must have scored the equivalent of a crit when recruiting or something since he's much more warm to me than any other Neutral unit) but I'm going to have to keep a very close eye on everyone I care about from here on in, I guess.
Even more surprising than that, though, is that Canopus is apparently still important. In FFT, when someone stopped being a Guest and joined your party legitimately, you could rest assured that they have pretty much been written out of the story at that point, and will be awesome to have in battle but no more important (or even present) in the cutscenes and such than the generic people and monsters you recruited. This is because actual recruits can be removed and the game has no way of knowing how gently you're going to treat them. Aside from non-main-plot bonus side stuff that specifically has certain character prerequisites (you need to still have Mustadio around in chapter four if you want to start the whole chain of sidequests to get Cloud, for example,) the game just doesn't have the resources to plan for "if this character is still around or if he isn't" forks in the main story. Like, what if a certain character was supposed to say or do something critical at one particular moment, except that you dismissed him from your party or got him permanently killed like three chapters ago? Thus, a character legitimately joining your party was basically the plot letting you know that it's done with him. If they want a character to ally with you but still contribute to the plot later, that's precisely what the Guest system was for! (Guests can't be killed or dismissed, they just stay with you under CPU control until they die, betray you, or just wander off to go do something else, or the plot is done with them and they join you for real.)
TO has what I thought was the exact same system--in fact, my team is now two Guest units lighter after making that end-of-chapter-one decision there--except Canopus joined me for real a long time ago, yet now he not only showed up in chapter two's opening cutscene, but the plot now has us off to go do something that was basically his idea. WHAT. HOW
Even more surprising than that, though, is that Canopus is apparently still important. In FFT, when someone stopped being a Guest and joined your party legitimately, you could rest assured that they have pretty much been written out of the story at that point, and will be awesome to have in battle but no more important (or even present) in the cutscenes and such than the generic people and monsters you recruited. This is because actual recruits can be removed and the game has no way of knowing how gently you're going to treat them. Aside from non-main-plot bonus side stuff that specifically has certain character prerequisites (you need to still have Mustadio around in chapter four if you want to start the whole chain of sidequests to get Cloud, for example,) the game just doesn't have the resources to plan for "if this character is still around or if he isn't" forks in the main story. Like, what if a certain character was supposed to say or do something critical at one particular moment, except that you dismissed him from your party or got him permanently killed like three chapters ago? Thus, a character legitimately joining your party was basically the plot letting you know that it's done with him. If they want a character to ally with you but still contribute to the plot later, that's precisely what the Guest system was for! (Guests can't be killed or dismissed, they just stay with you under CPU control until they die, betray you, or just wander off to go do something else, or the plot is done with them and they join you for real.)
TO has what I thought was the exact same system--in fact, my team is now two Guest units lighter after making that end-of-chapter-one decision there--except Canopus joined me for real a long time ago, yet now he not only showed up in chapter two's opening cutscene, but the plot now has us off to go do something that was basically his idea. WHAT. HOW