everyday gamer

In a little less than thirteen weeks, the thirteenth game in the venerated Final Fantasy series will be released in Japan.  Final Fantasy Thirteen.  The thirteenth game of a series best known for its unmatched quality and presentation, rabid fan base, and helping to bring the niche genre into the mainstream.  To celebrate this occasion, I figured I would write up sort of a retrospective on the series and step through the Final Fantasy games in the unconventional order that I played them in.  Enjoy!

My obsession with the Final Fantasy series began with the fourth game – the second one localized for western audiences on Nintendo platforms and the first on the Super NES.  My previous role-playing game experience was the original Dragon Quest (Dragon Warrior in the U.S.) on the NES, a highly touted and revered game to most of the world – except me, of course.  That’s not to say that Dragon Quest wasn’t a good game: several millions of fans spanning generations of gamers would angrily disagree otherwise.  Still, there was something about the game that I just couldn’t relate to.  Other contemporary games made it relatively easy to follow along with the story – both the Mario Bros. and the Mega Man series were both relatively successful in progressing their own plots along for the player.  While there wasn’t much in the way of actual text in both of these games, the experiences were both linear and directed – making it easy (for me at least) to build up a plot in my head to follow along with.  However with Dragon Quest the player had to work just a little bit harder to get that next tidbit of the story, a consequence of the game being a less directed, more open, and more abstract experience than other games at the time.  Sometimes that extra little bit of work became a lot of extra work – the player could only slay so many happy slimes before it became a chore and the player lost interest.  Which I did.

With my first experience with RPGs spoiled by an impenetrable plot and level grinding ad nauseum, it was a great surprise that I even gave Final Fantasy II a fair chance.  Maybe it was because I was because I was a little older at that point.  More likely, it was because of the fact that 16-bit cartridges actually allowed for a more comprehensible story with actual character development.  While the natural grindiness inherent to RPGs were still there in Final Fantasy IV, it was as if the more developed and mature storyline lessened the impact of that grind: because the characters all had names, personalities, history, and relationships, I actually cared about what was happening to them and where they were going.  As a result, Final Fantasy IV was the first game I could really sink my teeth into and get completely absorbed into the world.  It wasn’t just Cecil Harvey’s quest for redemption that kept me interested.  It was also Palom and Porom’s self-petrification to save the heroes from moving wall trap.  It was Sage Tellah’s revenge-fueled to cast the forbidden spell of Meteor in an attempt to stop the man responsible for the death of his daughter.  It was Monk Yang’s selfless decision to remain behind to try to stop a super cannon.  And then there was the final trip to the moon on a whale-shaped space ship to stop the embodiment of hatred itself.

Nowadays this would all sound very contrived – just another story about a handful of plucky adventurers try to save kingdom-land from becoming a bad world filled with evil.  But to my twelve year old self, Final Fantasy II was absolutely mind-blowing and made me realize that games were capable of evoking emotion – hell, Palom and Porom’s sacrifice actually drove me to tears.  Video games didn’t have to be limited to running and jumping and shooting; they could also be works of art.  And it is because of this that Final Fantasy II/IV will always hold a special place in my heart as the game that opened up the Final Fantasy floodgates – no matter how many times it gets re-released, I will always be along for the journey to the moon.

Next time: Final Fantasy First – the reason why I should have played the Final Fantasy games in order.

Gaming Final Fantasy

These past two weeks in Whatcha Been Playin’ (I apologize for not having one last week) were spent playing my two of my favorite games from my favorite jrpg series: Final Fantasy XII and Final Fantasy IV DS.  No new games…just good old games.  Yeah, yeah FFIV DS is technically new, but c’mon now.  It’s an old game.

Final Fantasy XII is a very special game to me as it’s the only Final Fantasy that I’ve played through completely only once and actually enjoyed.  FFVIII I barely played through the first time and swore never to draw a damned curaga again.  I appreciated the scope and presentation of FFX, but for the most part found the story (summarized by “I hate you dad!”) and the voice acting obnoxious enough to merit a “no thanks” on the second go-around.  On the other hand, I just loved XII.  Between the deep fusion of traditional jRPG and MMO styled gameplay to the made-for-adult (read: not 4 ragtag teens out to save the world) storyline to the Gambit system that tweaked the programmer inside of me, the game just clicked for me and I loved every minute of it.

Last week I felt a nostalgic obligation to continue playing my PS3 save that I started when I first bought the system.  Unsurprisingly, I found that the game play and story really does hold up, though perhaps I was just itching for an RPG to play without having to spend money.  FFXII is a really good game.  However, I do wish this game was given the high-def treatment.  It looked beautiful on standard def; less so on high.

Final Fantasy IV DS was the other game I spent a significant amount of time playing.  Good lord, this game is tough.  Similar to how old NES games did little more than drill you on muscle memory by subjecting you to learn by dying, FFIV DS seems to do the same thing.  Minus the muscle memory.  And many times more dying.  During one play session in the final dungeon, my level 65ish or so party was running around collecting the final armor sets for the better part of an hour only to get demolished by the Red Dragon guarding the Crystal Gloves.  I wanted to scream.  When I cooled off a few days later, I decided to skip that chest and head to the save point a handful of screens later.

“Ok, I have a save point.  Time to try that chest again!”

Three rounds later, I was met with another death.  Wonderful.  “How about I just skip this one for now?”

Two rooms down, I accept the challenge from the Lunasaur guarding a pair of Ribbons for Rosa and Rydia.  Five rounds of damage dealing and no problems!  Home free!  And then all of my guys get breathed for a billion status effects and are confused and uncontrollable.  Ok, no problem: use a remedy and fix the party turn by turn.  Next round, breathed again.  And again.  And again.  And then I turn the system off.  Damn.  This game is hard.

I did wind up finishing the game a few nights ago.  Don’t get me wrong, the storyline is still in my top 3 in the series.  But wow, was this game frustrating.

WBP Final Fantasy, WBP