Rant de Sara: The Gunblade (6/19/10)

Ok...why does the gunblade get so much flack?  I know it's a stupid weapon, but why is it that it's always the first target when someone wants to point out a game weapon that's faulty?

I guess we should start out by looking at the thing.




This is the gunblade.  At first glance, the weapon looks fucking ridiculous, and guess what?  It is.  It's one the most stupid looking weapons in gaming, only beaten by the Poki-poki Hammer and the Buster Sword.



Sorry, but I really doubt either Cloud or Amy Rose could lift their gargantuan weapon.

Anyways, back on topic.  The gunblade, first and foremost, is a sword.  If we were only to look at it as such, it can be a plausible weapon, though with some very odd stylistic choices.

Time for a fencing lesson.  If you've ever done even a slight amount of research on fencing, you'll notice that there are three types of blades with multiple types of grips.  The three types of blades are the foil, the epee, and the saber.

The most common type of grips are the French grip (a basic handle, designed for use with two fingers) and the Pistol Grip, which looks very much like a small pistol that your fingers wrap around.  The latter of these stems from a habit of the French duelists to model their grips after their muskets (these grips vary in terminology, though I most often have called them rifle grips, so that's what I will call them here).

The Rifle Gripped Blade had a build very similar to the gunblade, with a handle sloping down from the blade, much like the gun does.  Most of the gunblades seem to be aesthetic enhancement of such with more gun-like qualities, with the Revolver being the most obvious, having a trigger as hand guard, and a chamber as the handle brace.

These aesthetics have caused the gunblade the most grief, but what I want to know is why?  If you a sword fighter, but you like guns too, wouldn't you design your sword like a gun?  Granted, I'm not sure why SeeD fighters do so, and that can be called into question, but the gunblade itself seems to be a pretty able sword.

Then, the set of blades throws in a curveball that fucks with the whole design.  The Lion Heart.

The Lion Heart is a gunblade with the rifle grip, but also adds another piece of common sabers, the bell guard.  The bell guard is a small shield that extends from the hand guard to the tip of the handle or the pommel, the trigger aspect of this one though is less obvious, as it doesn't really match the blade's style, save that it keeps it in the gunblade line.

So, that explains the naming of the gunblade, and why it looks the way it does, but not the reason it doesn't shoot in the first game it's featured in, FFVIII, but it does in later.  For this one, we have to rely on Squaresoft/Square Enix's old cheat, the Final Fantasy games have no actual relationship to one another.

Where in VIII's world it's just a sword, VII's and XIII's uses the weapon as a gun as well.  This confuses the matter, however, doesn't make the sword type known as a gunblade any less effective of a sword.

So...stop bitching about the sword because it looks like it should shoot and bitch about the dumbass who thought, "You know what?  I think my sword should look like a gun."  The weapon is a decent sword, even if it looks odd.  It has a better handle than most blades, and is actually one of the more realistic looking weapons in the Final Fantasy series.

Anyways, just the rant on my mind.  What do you think of it?  Does the gunblade really deserve the treatment it gets?  Does it deserve more or none?  Should it actually be commended for being the only possibly realistic weapon in the entire series, post VI?

Let me know,
-Sara