Review: Final Fantasy X

Posted on August 9, 2026 by Arleigh

“Now is the time to choose! Die and be free of pain, or live and fight your sorrow!” — Auron

While Final Fantasy VI is still my personal favorite game in the entire Final Fantasy series, Final Fantasy X is the entry that reached me most directly on an emotional level. VI remains the peak of the pixel-art era for me: a sprawling, tragic, beautifully varied masterpiece whose cast, music, and broken world are impossible to separate from what the franchise means to me. But X feels more intimate. Its story of Tidus, Yuna, and a society trapped in a cycle of grief and sacrifice hits with a particular sadness because it takes the time to let its characters live inside that pain. In that sense, Final Fantasy Xis the high point of the series’ 3D era in much the same way Final Fantasy VI represents the high point of its 2D era—not necessarily my number-one favorite overall, but perhaps the most emotionally affecting game in the franchise.

That distinction matters because Final Fantasy X was not merely a graphical leap. It was a game that used its new presentation to deepen the things Final Fantasy had always done best. The move to fully three-dimensional environments, voiced dialogue, and cinematic camera work could have pushed the series toward empty spectacle, but X uses those tools to make its people and places feel more immediate. It was also a major mechanical departure, replacing Active Time Battle with the Conditional Turn-Based system and conventional leveling with the Sphere Grid. Even now, it feels like a near-perfect midpoint between the intimate pacing of classic turn-based JRPGs and the larger dramatic ambitions the series pursued in later generations.

The game opens with one of the strongest introductions in the entire series. Tidus, a cocky Blitzball star from the futuristic city of Zanarkand, is suddenly pulled into chaos when the massive entity called Sin attacks. He wakes up in Spira, a world that considers his home a myth from a thousand years ago. This makes Tidus a useful protagonist because he is just as confused as the player. He asks why everyone fears Sin, why technology is considered dangerous, and why people willingly accept a religious system built around loss. The initial premise is deceptively simple: Tidus joins Yuna, a summoner, and her guardians on a pilgrimage to defeat Sin. But every new location and revelation complicates the purpose of that journey.

Tidus can be obnoxious at first, and that is not necessarily a flaw. He is immature, defensive, loud, and permanently irritated by the shadow cast by his famous father, Jecht. Yet he is also emotionally transparent in a way many RPG heroes are not. He is frightened, lonely, jealous, and desperate to believe he can return to the life he lost. His character arc works because the game lets him grow out of that narrow perspective. He begins by wanting to save himself, then slowly realizes that everyone around him has been surviving a kind of pain he never understood. Even the infamous laughing scene makes more sense in context: it is two people forcing themselves to laugh because admitting how sad they are would be even harder. Tidus is messy, but that is why he feels human.

Yuna is the true heart of Final Fantasy X. At first, she appears reserved, gentle, and almost impossibly composed, but that calmness is a defense. She has been raised to accept an obligation that asks her to carry the hopes of Spira, and the game gradually exposes the brutal cost of that role. Her story is about realizing that kindness does not require obedience, and that faith does not have to mean accepting cruelty forever. Yuna is never reduced to being simply Tidus’s romantic interest. Their relationship matters because he sees her as a person before he fully understands what the world expects her to give up. That dynamic makes their romance feel earned rather than imposed.

Their relationship is one of the best in the series because it is built through ordinary moments as much as grand ones. They talk, joke, tease one another, share awkward silences, and slowly become the one person each can speak honestly with. The romance is not there to distract from the larger plot; it gives the story its emotional center. The question is never only whether Spira can be saved from Sin. It becomes whether Tidus and Yuna are allowed to imagine a life that is not defined by sacrifice. That is why the later turns of the story hurt as much as they do. Final Fantasy X understands that a world-saving quest becomes meaningful when the people involved have something personal they are fighting to keep.

The rest of the party helps make Spira feel like a lived-in place rather than a backdrop for Tidus and Yuna. Auron is the cool, stoic guardian archetype, but his guarded nature hides regret and responsibility. Wakka can be frustrating because he begins with deeply ingrained prejudices and unquestioned religious beliefs, but his growth works precisely because the game does not pretend he starts out enlightened. Lulu has some of the sharpest dialogue and a quietly emotional connection to the group. Kimahri is sparse with words, but his loyalty and history of exile make his presence meaningful. Rikku brings skepticism, humor, and a much-needed challenge to the assumptions that most of Spira has normalized. Together, they feel like a genuine group of travelers linked by old wounds, conflicting loyalties, and a growing sense that they cannot continue following the same path.

Spira is one of the series’ finest worlds because it is colorful, beautiful, and deeply sad all at once. Its beaches, temples, forests, ruined cities, and moonlit roads give it a warmer visual character than the industrial settings of several earlier entries, but that warmth never becomes carefree. Sin hangs over everything. The clash between the high-tech Zanarkand of Tidus’s memories and Spira’s restrictive religious society creates the game’s central tension. Technology is not simply treated as good or bad; it is tangled up with historical guilt, fear, and the power to decide who is allowed to define sin. The game is critical of religious institutions without being cynical about faith itself, which gives its world more depth than a simple rebellion narrative.

The music is inseparable from the story’s impact. Composed primarily by Nobuo Uematsu, Masashi Hamauzu, and Junya Nakano, the soundtrack understands that a melody can tell the player how to feel before the plot explains why. “To Zanarkand” is one of the defining pieces of Final Fantasy music: lonely, fragile piano notes that announce immediately that this is going to be a sad story. “Besaid Island” is warmer and lighter, creating a brief sense of peace before the pilgrimage’s true weight becomes clear. “The Hymn of the Fayth” may be even more important because it functions as an in-world sacred song, with its emotional meaning changing as the player learns more about Spira.

Other tracks turn scenes into permanent memories. “Otherworld” makes the opening Blitzball sequence feel thrilling and chaotic. “Suteki da ne” is openly romantic, but it earns its emotion because the game has patiently developed Tidus and Yuna’s connection. “A Fleeting Dream” and “Someday the Dream Will End” are quietly devastating, allowing sadness to settle rather than demanding tears from the player. Even the battle themes have a strong sense of momentum and atmosphere. Later games in the series have excellent soundtracks—some arguably have individual tracks that stand alongside anything here—but Final Fantasy X may be the strongest at integrating its music with its storytelling. Certain melodies do not just remind you of scenes; they make you feel the scenes again.

Its biggest mechanical innovation is the Sphere Grid. Instead of receiving traditional level-ups with automatic stat increases, characters earn AP after battles, gain Sphere Levels, and use those levels to travel across a huge board of connected nodes. Each node can grant a stat boost, a spell, a special technique, or a passive ability, but it must be activated with the appropriate sphere item. The result is a leveling system that feels visual and physical. You do not merely watch Strength or Magic rise in a menu. You plot a route, move through it, unlock a node, and decide where that character should grow next.

The early game gives every party member a distinct route. Tidus moves toward speed and time-based support magic, Yuna develops white magic and summoning tools, Lulu gains increasingly powerful black magic, Auron builds physical strength and defensive enemy-breaking abilities, and Rikku develops utility skills. That structure works because the battle system expects the player to rotate the party depending on enemy weaknesses. Tidus handles fast and airborne enemies, Auron crushes armored foes, Lulu punishes elemental weaknesses, and Yuna’s Aeons can change the entire rhythm of a difficult battle. The Sphere Grid makes those roles feel natural rather than arbitrary.

Later, the system becomes much freer. Key Spheres open locked paths, and special movement spheres can move a character into another person’s section of the Grid. You can turn Yuna into a formidable physical attacker, give Tidus high-level magic, or make Auron a surprisingly effective support character. The Standard Grid keeps everyone on more clearly defined routes, while the Expert Grid begins characters closer together and allows more experimentation earlier. It is one of the series’ most elegant systems because it gives newcomers direction without depriving experienced players of freedom. It also fits the story’s themes: Spira is filled with people assigned roles by faith, family, history, and fear, while the Sphere Grid lets the player decide whether to stay on the expected route or become something different.

Subsequent Final Fantasy games have surpassed Final Fantasy X visually. Final Fantasy XII offers massive environments and political scale, Final Fantasy XIII has some of the most striking art direction in the franchise, and Final Fantasy XV, Final Fantasy XVI, and the Final Fantasy VII Remake project achieve cinematic visual detail impossible on the PlayStation 2. Yet bigger worlds and more advanced graphics have not consistently produced better storytelling, stronger music integration, or more satisfying character progression. Later games often have tremendous individual strengths, but they can also feel more fragmented: mechanically uncertain, overly dependent on lore, or less focused in their party dynamics.

That is why Final Fantasy X still stands so tall. Like Final Fantasy VI, it feels like a point where the series’ best ideas aligned. Its story is emotional without becoming hollow spectacle, its soundtrack is embedded in the player’s memory, and the Sphere Grid makes progression feel like an active creative choice. It can be linear, very sincere, and occasionally a little corny, but those are parts of its personality rather than weaknesses that ruin it. Final Fantasy VI will always be my favorite, but Final Fantasy X is the one that hurts the most—and that is exactly why it remains the bar that later 3D Final Fantasy games still struggle to reach.

Villain of the Day: Kefka Palazzo (Final Fantasy VI)

Posted on July 7, 2026 by Arleigh

“Nothing can beat the music of hundreds of voices screaming in unison!” — Kefka Palazzo

(spoilers)

When you think of great villains (especially rpg ones), you usually picture brooding pretty boys with giant swords or ancient, unknowable evils lurking in the shadows. Kefka Palazzo from Final Fantasy VI completely breaks that mold the second he steps onto the screen. He’s a walking, talking clown with a shrill, maniacal laugh, brightly colored clothes, and makeup that makes him look like a demented circus performer. Honestly, that’s exactly what makes him so instantly memorable and charismatic. He doesn’t sit in a dark castle brooding over a tragic past; he’s out in the dirt actively causing chaos just for the sheer fun of it. Right from his first appearance poisoning a kingdom’s water supply, you realize this guy is operating on a completely different wavelength than your standard bad guy, and it’s impossible not to be hooked by his sheer audacity.

Kefka’s charisma also heavily relies on his incredibly distinct presence and dialogue. He doesn’t speak in deep, philosophical riddles or stern, intimidating commands; he speaks in cackling, immature outbursts, frequently dropping his iconic “Uwee hee hee!” laugh. He’s intensely petty, throwing literal tantrums when things don’t go his way, yet he’s terrifyingly lethal when he gets mad. He constantly mocks the heroes and even his own boss, Emperor Gestahl, right to his face. This blend of childish absurdity and genuine menace creates a bizarre tension. You never know if he’s going to tell a bad joke or commit a horrific war crime, and that whiplash keeps you completely engaged every time he’s on screen.

What really makes Kefka so mesmerizing, though, is his total lack of a traditional villainous motive. In Final Fantasy VI, the Emperor wants world domination, which is pretty standard stuff. Kefka, on the other hand, realizes halfway through that ruling the world is actually kind of boring. His philosophy boils down to pure, unadulterated nihilism—he looks at life, sees no inherent meaning, and decides that if everything is pointless, he might as well burn it all to the ground. It’s a surprisingly dark and mature concept for a 90s video game, especially coming from a guy dressed like a jester. He doesn’t want to be a king; he wants to be a god of ruin, and his complete rejection of the usual “I want to rule the world” trope makes him stand out even decades later.

Another huge part of his undeniable charisma comes from the fact that he actually wins. Long before the Joker was reimagined in Nolan’s The Dark Knight, Kefka was the nihilistic jester who wanted to watch the world burn, and burn it he did. Usually, you stop the villain right before they can enact their master plan, but in Final Fantasy VI, Kefka actually succeeds in reshaping the entire planet into the apocalyptic World of Ruin. He knocks the heroes down, scatters them to the wind, and sits on top of his literal tower of garbage as a deity of destruction. Seeing a villain not only achieve their goal but hold onto it for the entire second half of the game makes him feel incredibly dangerous. You aren’t fighting to stop his evil plan; you’re just trying to survive in the miserable aftermath of the world he already broke.

The sheer scale of his ascent to power is another detail that makes him so fascinating to watch unfold. Most villains spend the whole game sitting on a throne waiting for the heroes to come to them, but Kefka is highly active and proactive. When he reaches the Floating Continent and finally gets his hands on the power of the Warring Triad, the shift in his character is palpable. He doesn’t just defeat the Emperor in a grand duel; he casually betrays him and kicks him off the edge of the world. Absorbing the statues’ magic physically mutates Kefka into an angelic, six-winged monstrosity of divine power. It’s a crazy visual progression from a goofy, mocked court mage to a literal, untouchable god who reshapes the planet’s geography with a thought.

You could argue that Kefka has a tragic backstory since it’s revealed that the Empire’s magical Magitek experiments essentially broke his mind and stripped away his humanity. But what’s brilliant about his writing is that the game never uses this as an excuse to make you feel sorry for him. It just explains the mechanics of why he’s so completely detached from reality. He’s a walking cautionary tale of what happens when absolute power is given to someone with absolutely zero moral compass. Because the story never tries to justify his actions with a sob story, he avoids becoming a tired, sympathetic anti-hero. He’s just irreparably broken and completely embraces the madness, which makes him wildly unpredictable and fun to watch.

At the end of the day, Kefka’s legacy boils down to how incredibly entertaining he is from start to finish. His final battle, set to the legendary, chaotic track “Dancing Mad,” is the perfect capstone to his character—a trippy, terrifying, and almost absurd confrontation with a monster who has literally given up on reality itself. Even his final words, questioning why people keep rebuilding when life is just going to end anyway, leave a weirdly haunting impression. Kefka Palazzo remains one of the greatest villains in gaming history not because he’s the strongest or the most deeply complex, but because he is a perfectly distilled, unapologetic force of pure chaos that you simply can’t look away from.

Villain of the Day

Review: Final Fantasy VI

Posted on January 5, 2026 by Arleigh

“It’s not the result of one’s life that’s important. It’s the day-to-day concerns, the personal victories, and the celebration of life… and love. It’s enough if people are able to experience the joy that each day can bring…” – Terra Bradford

Final Fantasy VI is one of those JRPGs that feels bigger than the cartridge it shipped on, and even now it earns its reputation as both a high point of the 16-bit era and a blueprint for what narrative-driven RPGs could become. It is dense, melodramatic, occasionally clunky, but consistently ambitious in ways that still feel relevant to the genre’s modern landscape, blending theatrical storytelling with flexible mechanics and a structure that dares to rethink its own world midway through. Revisiting it reveals not just a classic, but a foundational text whose echoes show up in everything from ensemble casts to customizable skill systems in later titles.

The opening hours set the tone with impressive confidence, dropping you right into a steampunk-flavored world where magic has been industrialized into a tool of conquest. Terra, a half-human, half-Esper whose mind is shackled by an imperial slave crown, marches through snowy mountains in powered Magitek armor toward the mining town of Narshe, instantly hooking you with her vulnerability amid high-stakes espionage. This personal thread weaves into a broader guerrilla war between the Gestahlian Empire—led by the scheming Gestahl and his unhinged general Kefka—and the ragtag Returners resistance, but the real genius is how the story quickly pivots from standard “rebels vs. empire” to a sprawling ensemble piece that trusts no single hero to carry the weight.

That cast of fourteen permanent party members is the game’s boldest swing, each layered with backstories, quirks, and mechanical identities that make them stick. Terra grapples with her monstrous heritage and search for belonging, Celes wrestles betrayal and isolation after defecting from the Empire, Locke chases redemption for a lost love, Cyan buries himself in grief over his family’s slaughter, Sabin roams as a free-spirited brawler, Edgar plays the charming king-turned-inventor, and Setzer brings cynical gambler flair—it’s a roster that juggles melodrama like opera-house soliloquies and doomed romances with quieter, human moments that land surprisingly hard even today. Some inevitably get shortchanged if you beeline through the back half, feeling more like vivid archetypes than deep dives, but the sheer ambition of giving everyone a mini-arc amid the chaos set a new bar for character work in JRPGs, influencing how later games like the Persona series built entire identities around tight-knit parties and personal subplots.

Kefka anchors the escalating stakes as few villains do, evolving from a clownish psycho prone to war crimes like poisoning a town into a nihilistic force who hijacks the god-like Warring Triad, shatters the planet, and rules the resulting apocalypse as a tyrant-god cackling over the ruins. Midway through, he doesn’t just threaten doom—he delivers it, wiping cities off the map and thrusting the story into the World of Ruin, a time-skipped wasteland where survivors scrape by amid decay and despair. This pivot isn’t a cheap shock; it’s a structural earthquake that shifts the tone to post-apocalyptic reflection, forcing each character to confront whether they even have a reason to fight on, with Celes’ suicidal low point on a lonely island giving way to gradual reunions that feel earned because you choose the order. That willingness to let the bad guy win—and make the heroes rebuild emotionally as well as literally—rippled through the genre, showing JRPGs could handle survivor guilt, loss, and fragile hope without hand-waving the darkness.

Structurally, it’s like two games fused together: the linear World of Balance builds your crew through set pieces like infiltrations, multi-party defenses, and the iconic opera sequence, then explodes into a semi-open World of Ruin where you roam a shattered map, tackling side dungeons and personal vignettes at will. Pacing can wobble if you stray off-path early or grind too hard later, but the freedom to prioritize arcs—like Cyan’s haunted family dreams or Terra’s village sanctuary—mirrors the themes of recovery, prefiguring how modern titles blend cosmic plots with player-driven character priorities.

Combat nails a sweet spot with the Active Time Battle system, where gauges fill in real-time for flexible pacing—toggle “Active” for pressure or “Wait” to strategize—and row positioning adds tactics, frontliners tanking full hits while backrow slings safer damage. Character-unique commands keep it fresh: Sabin’s Blitz commands mimic fighting-game inputs, Edgar’s Tools hit formations, Cyan charges sword techs, Gau Rages as monsters, Setzer gambles on slots—making swaps feel playful and deliberate. The Esper system elevates this, letting anyone equip magical summons to learn spells via Magic Points and snag level-up bonuses, blending fixed identities with modular builds in a way that blurred roles late-game but normalized customization as core to JRPG fun.

This philosophy—strong personalities atop teachable, recombinable abilities—quietly reshaped the genre, with Persona‘s demon/persona fusion, Lost Odyssey‘s memory-tied skills, and similar systems in Clair Obscur owing a debt to Espers as a bridge from rigid classes to player-sculpted parties without erasing narrative flavor. Dungeons mix it up too, from pincer ambushes and gimmick bosses like the shell-hiding Whelk to timed escapes and that charming opera blending inputs with spectacle, though some late hauls drag with random encounters exposing 16-bit limits.

Visually, it’s pixel art at its peak: expressive sprites, detailed industrial backdrops, and a palette flip from Balance’s vibrancy to Ruin’s sickly decay, with ruined landmarks and evolving NPC lines selling irreversible change. Bosses escalate to surreal, painterly horrors fitting the finale’s otherworldliness, proving art direction trumps raw fidelity.

Nobuo Uematsu’s soundtrack is legendary for good reason, weaving leitmotifs—Terra’s theme, Kefka’s manic laugh, Celes’ aria—into a narrative spine that evolves with the story, from triumphant fanfares to haunting piano and faux-choral dread, all within SNES constraints. It established JRPG scores as orchestral-caliber storytelling tools, influencing fully symphonic later works and live concerts.

Final Fantasy VI‘s legacy permeates JRPGs today, its DNA visible in the way Persona weaves school-life bonds with supernatural showdowns, how Lost Odyssey probes immortal grief through written vignettes, or how ambitious indies like Clair Obscur chase painterly melancholy and hope amid ruin—the ensemble healing, world-shattering pivots, and trauma-to-recovery arcs all trace back here, proving a 16-bit game could set emotional and structural templates still in play. Hironobu Sakaguchi crystallized as the modern JRPG’s godfather through this title, fusing mechanical innovation like Esper flexibility with mature themes of identity and despair that Final Fantasy VII and beyond amplified into global phenomena, his vision elevating the genre from quest logs to profound, character-soaked epics.

The Final Fantasy VII Remake‘s blockbuster success—reimagining a classic with modern graphics, cinematic flair, real-time twists, and expanded character beats—has only intensified fan campaigns for VI to get similar lavish treatment, from a fully voiced, motion-captured opera house to a destructible world rendered in heartbreaking detail and Ruin reunions that hit even harder with modern intimacy. Yet Square Enix leadership has flagged the project’s nigh-insurmountable scale: the fourteen-character sprawl, mid-game reset, player-driven nonlinearity, and web of optional stories demand a development odyssey that could dwarf even VII‘s trilogy, risking dilution of what makes the original a personal, unpredictable journey if forced into rigid cinematic lanes.

Flaws persist—sappy dialogue dates it amid earnest monologues, sidelined characters like Gau or Strago need deliberate hunting for payoff, Espers can shatter balance into spell-spam routs, and marathon dungeons fatigue under random encounter spam—but these 16-bit quirks pale against a boldness that endures. Final Fantasy VI isn’t frozen nostalgia; it’s a living cornerstone, its sprawling heart, tinkering joy, musical sweep, and unyielding ambition still sparking JRPG evolution, demanding replays not as history homework but as a masterclass in what the genre can feel like when it swings for the fences and connects. Decades on, it whispers to every ambitious RPG dev: let your world break, let your cast breathe, let your systems invite play—and watch players find reasons to care long after the credits roll.

Square-Enix Announces Final Fantasy VII Remake

Posted on June 15, 2015 by necromoonyeti

Need I say more?

Well, there’s not much to say just yet. The announcement was just made at E3 yesterday. The good news is that, while it’s coming out on the Playstation 4 first, Square-Enix imply that it will be available on multiple platforms eventually. Since I only play PC games, that’s pretty sweet news to me. As far as staff goes, the trailer credits Yoshinori Kitase as producer, Tetsuya Nomura as director, and Kazushige Nojima as writer. This maintains a decent bit of continuity. Original producer Hironobu Sakaguchi is long gone, but Nojima it maintaining his role as writer from the original PSX Final Fantasy VII while Kitase is switching seats from director to producer. Nomura will be the wildcard. He was involved in character design in the original, but he didn’t make his directing debut until Kingdom Hearts.

The bad news is, well, Square-Enix have not exactly been batting 1000 lately. They’ve earned a bad reputation over the past decade or so for rushing products, pushing quantity over quality, and releasing sham smartphone games mainly designed to gouge your wallet. It would be nice to think that a remake of the legendary Final Fantasy VII will receive an extra dose of attention. I mean, in all likelihood this game’s going to make more waves than the upcoming Final Fantasy XV. But considering the original release of Final Fantasy XIV was so terrible that the company issued multiple public apologies, it might be wise to wait for early reviews to trickle in before getting your hopes too high. The narration in the trailer feels hopelessly contrived to me, and that’s not a good foot to start on.

I’m still waiting to learn whether or not the most important staff member returns for this one though: Nobuo Uematsu!

Song of the Day: Masashi Hamauzu – Saber’s Edge, from Final Fantasy XIII

Posted on June 1, 2015 by necromoonyeti

If you frequented this blog back in 2012, you probably remember a 68 post series I ran on the history of video game music. While no one website served as my main source for it all, Final Fantasy Shrine definitely inspired the idea. As that community aged, it developed a unique trend towards game, anime, and film music discussion. I discovered a lot of obscure composers there, and that got the ball rolling for my series. One of the things we’ve been doing on FFShrine for ages now is making music compilations to showcase in a sort of knock-out tournament. Themes have ranged from the predictable mainstream to obscurities like “Best of Tim Follin”, but we never actually did Final Fantasy until last year. It turned out to be surprisingly novel, because I hadn’t heard anything since Square-Enix and Nobuo Uematsu parted ways. “Saber’s Edge”, a battle theme from Final Fantasy XIII composed by Masashi Hamauzu, ended up becoming one of my favorite songs in the series.

It’s been a year now, and (probably because I’ve been staying up until 5am watching a baby with absolutely nothing to entertain me) I decided to resurrect the Final Fantasy music knock-out game for a second run. FFShrine is a lot smaller than it used to be, though, and I’m not expecting much participation. So hey, if you’re bored and want to rehash some old RPG tunes, maybe discover a few new ones, stop by FFShrine and check the game out.

A Glorious Fantasy: Finally, a Thief!

Posted on September 14, 2014 by Semtex Skittle

Abbreviated boilerplate! Once again I return to this ongoing series, in which I attempt to play through every game in the Final Fantasy franchise that I can get my hands on, from FF1 through Lightning Returns, and a variety of the spinoffs and other titles not included in the ‘main series’. This list continues to undergo revision, and I seriously considered removing Final Fantasy 9 from it for personal reasons. In addition, no MMO titles will be played. Sorry, folks?

I think all of this is extremely important knowledge, and that the human race will be improved by my research. Let’s move on!

Previously on this series!

The traditional mood music is at hand!

Version Played: Original PSX discs, played using a “slim” PS2 system

Final Fantasy IX is a game that for me, and mine, and my generation of gamers… feels more modern than it actually is. How many among us would be surprised to learn that Final Fantasy IX was released in November of 2000? We are approaching its 15th anniversary. It’s perhaps the newest of the old Final Fantasy games. Except, we don’t think of Final Fantasy VII as old, do we? It is, and we should. Some of us probably do. But that still seems odd to me. Truthfully, Final Fantasy XIII probably has more in common with VII than it does with I. Evolution is an ongoing process, and it’s one that ongoing fans have learned to accept.

But there’s a lot going on in Final Fantasy IX that would be both weirdly prescient and altogether ignorant of the future. It’s an interesting game in many ways.

The core conceit behind FFIX is that it’s a return to the “roots” of the Final Fantasy series. Superficially, there can be no argument about this at all. Final Fantasy IX brings back the saga of the four crystals that rule or shape the world (a premise which every game before Final Fantasy VI incorporates). It’s got airships, it’s got the ATB gauge, you buy and equip weapons and armor, and your abilities are gained as you level. After Final Fantasy V (with its variable Job System), and VI, VII, and VIII… which allowed total freedom of customization to the player given more or less application of effort… Final Fantasy IX has our characters locked into their classes, in a nod to Final Fantasy I and IV.

The designs of both the world elements and (particularly) the characters are also a deliberate reaction against VI, VII and (especially) VIII, which featured increasingly advanced technologies and settings that were undeniably darker than previous Final Fantasy realms. Final Fantasy IX’s – and this is important – surface tone is much goofier. The character designs reinforce that for the entire game. Of course, this game is actually full of some really messed up shit… way more than I remembered there being, in fact. Even in the darkest pits of this game’s soul though, the bobblehead characters work to lessen the impact. There’s nothing creepy about them, for the most part.

The unfortunate side-effect of your characters being “locked in” to their roles is that a certain party composition is virtually required to complete the game. With enough ability gimmickry, you might be able to pass the game’s challenges by overleveling significantly and abusing Auto-Potion, but in general, you will take one of the game’s White Mage characters, Eiko or Garnet. Neither provides any meaningful offense. Garnet has offensive Eidolons, but their MP cost remains prohibitive until perhaps the very end of the game, with a few notable exceptions. Physical fighters like Steiner, Zidane and Freya remain your bread and butter as always, though Black Mage Vivi can certainly contribute. Indeed, my own party for this entire playthrough consisted of Zidane, Garnet, Vivi, and Steiner.

The one nod to character customization available in this title are character “abilities” which are learned off of equipped weapons, armor and accessories. Calling this system “customization” is a bit of a stretch, as all unique character abilities are learned this way (i.e., Garnet’s weapons will teach her White Magic, which Zidane and others cannot learn), along with the same pool of generic abilities for each character. Some abilities are easier to come by than others on certain types of armor. For example, Zidane’s light armor and daggers have easy access to thief abilities, as well as physical combat abilities such as Bird Killer or Golemslayer. You have a limited number of points with which to “equip” learned abilities, and equipping the proper status resistances and combat proficiencies can mean the difference between victory and defeat in many of the game’s areas.

That’s about all there is too it, really.

I have trouble taking the main antagonist of this game seriously, and it turns some of the dramatic moments into silly ones for me. Aside from that, however, it would be difficult to earnestly argue that this game doesn’t live up to what the Final Fantasy brand represents. It’s even a little meatier than its predecessors in VII and VIII in terms of core story, taking a fair amount of time to work through. In addition, some of the battles in IX can be difficult unless you’ve substantially overleveled. Once you’ve identified the best abilities for each situation, you won’t have much of a problem, though this game’s final boss might be the most difficult one I’ve faced, other than the infamous Cloud of Darkness from FF3. As always, your own mileage may vary, but I have a hard time conceiving of ways to make a more infuriating storyline boss.

All of that goes triple for Final Fantasy IX’s superboss, the dreaded Ozma. Although there are many cheesy workarounds available to make him much easier to defeat, he will still feel completely impossible unless everything goes perfectly. I have defeated him, but elected not to do so during this playthrough. I did defeat the other optional boss, Hades, in Memoria, which gives access to the game’s most complete Synthesis Shop. Taking advantage of the items available there will make the game’s final challenges – and Ozma! – quite a bit easier to deal with, and Hades is nothing more than a fairly difficult boss.

On the whole, I found IX to be fairly uneven. Its plot is a bit on the ridiculous side, which I’ve come to realize is an appropriate thing to say about most of the Final Fantasy games. The only ones whose stories have stuck with me so far were IV, VI, and VII, and maybe a little bit of FFT. Will this improve? Hmmm! The gameplay is very straightforward, which is a mixed bag. Eventually you’ll reach a point where you’ll have your ‘strong’ party, and the occasional swap of abilities to protect against local status effects will be enough to find your way. Certainly, I did not find the system here to be nearly as engaging as the ones from VI, VII and VIII, but nor is it entirely without substance (such as in FF1). Still, probably the weakest system to be seen since FFIV’s similarly static model. When the game was fun and interesting, it was fun and interesting, but I did spend periods tiring of the random encounter rate, wishing the graphics were better, and hating the back of Zidane’s face with the scorching power of my brain. Him and his stupid tail.

But I knew going in that this one would be far from my favourite installment. I actually think I enjoyed it more this second, and probably final, time through. So there’s that.

One word of caution for anyone looking to play back through this title: I played on the physical PS2 plugged into my HDTV, and boy did this game look like shit. I highly recommend pretty much any solution but the one I chose. The text was mercifully still quite legible, and the cutscenes scaled nicely, but the in-game graphics… well. Let’s say that I was startled after having played through the nicely-upscaled Steam ports of VII and VIII, and the beautiful PSP version of FFT.

Oh, and join me next time when I discuss the jump to the Playstation 2 with Final Fantasy X!

This game’s soundtrack is far from one of my favourites. It took time just to pick two songs for this piece. Yikes.

A Glorious Fantasy: The Original Klingon

Posted on August 4, 2014 by Semtex Skittle

Columnist’s Note: This article has been edited from its original form to include some thoughts about the Master Calculator and the battle with Belias the Gigas in response to compelling arguments made in the comments. This was an important change, and it expands humankind’s capacity for growth.

I think all of this is extremely important knowledge, and that the human race will be improved by my research. Let’s move on!

Previously in this series!

As is customary, let’s start with some mood music.

Version Played: “War of the Lions” PSP remake, complete with incredibly Shakespearian translation.

Final Fantasy Tactics is sort of the gold standard for tactical RPGs. It is also a game around which many PSX-era Final Fantasy fans rally together as a point of shared joy. In my entire life, I have never met someone who actively disliked this game. That, in and of itself, is incredible. I mean, who doesn’t know someone who dislikes Final Fantasy 7, 8, 9, 10, etc. ? Tactics rises above that crop to my mind for three major reasons.

1) The gameplay mechanics are deservedly the gold standard for tactical RPG play. Yes, I love Fire Emblem too. But there’s something about the job system and the customization available to the player in Tactics which hits the spot. Oh, and you get a variety of broken NPCs if you’d rather just use the cheater sword abilities the AI has been trying to best you with all game. I won’t blame you if that’s how you feel.

2) The story appeals to people in a kind of ‘Game of Thrones’ way. Despite all of the magic present, it’s not utterly fantastic. The focus of the story is on ambitious jackoffs who would sacrifice anything to advance their own ambitions… and one guy who is kind of the opposite. It’s a semi-kind-of-realistic middle ages type setting. It feels to the player like a place that could actually exist, which is simply not the case for other Final Fantasy titles.

3) Ramza Beoulve, despite ultimately not being that interesting, is a very easy protagonist to root for. He doesn’t have the capital-letter ISSUES that plague Cloud and Squall. He doesn’t have a bizarrely oversized head and a tail like Zidane. And he doesn’t narrate the whole game with inner monologues that caused some people to bleed into their brains like Tidus. No, Ramza is quite straightforward, and quite heroic.

But it’s mostly about #1. The mechanics are deep (sort of. They’re deep if you’re not just chasing the absolute optimum party, at any rate). They’re fun to play around with. They can make the game either embarrassingly easy or fairly challenging depending on which route you decide to go. It’s like the awesome job system from Final Fantasy V writ large in the PSX era! Only you also get many NPC characters with unique and interesting skill sets! I chose not to use any of them (except Agrias. I don’t hate myself) in this particular play through, but FFT certainly facilitates any style of play that you like.

The standout mechanic, of course, which you won’t find elsewhere – even in other incarnations of Final Fantasy’s own job system – is the Calculator or Master Calculator job. This job is very straightforward – it uses the battlefield metrics such as elevation, remaining wait time to act, and individual character level, and then devastates targets with magic. The Calculator need not spend MP to do his work, nor is he subject to the questionable charge times that render powerful spells like Holy of limited utility. Instead, the Calculator picks a metric to hit, then which multiple (3, 4, or 5) he wants to lash out at, and then gleefully rains fire down upon eligible targets… friend and foe alike. Because the Calculator class has abysmal stats and is unbelievably, unfathomably slow, I didn’t find it worth the time to train one of my party members in the skills this time around. But veteran players all know that the deployment of a Calculator’s skillset (preferably equipped on a better job: try Black Mage!) on the battlefield can easily win this war almost single-handedly.

Even using weak classes and abilities, and without the timely intervention of Count Orlandeau or the mighty Calculator, it’s perfectly possible to complete Final Fantasy Tactics. Once you have mastered the mechanics of the game and know what truly poses a danger to your group, I like to think the obstacles of this game are fairly easy to navigate. A standout, fairly brutal exception to this is a battle roughly halfway through the game at Riovanes Castle. You should save your game in a different slot before attempting it. In fact, keeping two different saves is always a good idea in this game, to avoid a possible soft lock of your file, where you’re locked into a battle that is too difficult for you to defeat, without the means to leave and level up or acquire better equipment.

There are a couple other possible exceptions, which revolve around a mechanic that simply doesn’t work as well as the designers probably intended. I consider it one of FFT’s flaws that several story battles involve “guest” characters. Early on, this takes the form of Delita and Algus, your supposed friends, who are there to make sure you can’t take a full party of 5 on a mission until the start of Chapter 2. They’re not always helpful, but they also can’t die, so they’re no liability either. Later, however, most such missions involve saving other “guest” characters from getting their dumb asses killed. Unfortunately, since guests are always under the control of the AI… this isn’t always possible. There is one battle (Castle Riovanes Roof. You know what I’m talking about) where the guest character routinely gets killed in the first round of action. Or any any subsequent round. In one shot. By some brazenly unfair enemy characters. This battle can be one of the most frustrating ones in the game because you have very little ability to impact its outcome. Either your “guest” behaves rationally and avoids the deadly enemy assassins… or she doesn’t… and it’s game over. Bummer.

One thing I want to mention in this space, before I get too far afield, is the translation. The original translation for FFT is in the same vein as the Ted Woolsey translations of earlier games. You still get the gist of it, but a lot of it is nonsense. It’s much worse than the original translations for Final Fantasy VII and VIII in this regard. Lots of stuff, even seemingly obvious stuff, is mistranslated, to the detriment of the story. PSP’s War of the Lions is heralded as a vast improvement, and in some ways that’s true. However, having now played both versions, I have to say, there’s a lot to dislike about the War of the Lions translation as well. It may simply be the original material to blame, which is fine, but this translation is insanely talky at times. We might as well be reading the original Shakespeare in some of the cutscenes. Melodrama and unnecessary wordiness abound, and the ultimate effect is a little bit off-putting to a modern player. Don’t misunderstand – by no means did I hate the War of the Lions treatment of the script. I just am not sure that it deserves the near-universal praise that it has received amongst gamers and critics alike. It’s talky. Often unnecessarily so.

By its nature, a game that you can play through with only Ramza and a party of generic characters (in fact, you can dismiss any of the story characters after they’ve formally joined) has to be light on character development. Characters like Agrias, who are central to the plot up until they join, disappear immediately upon doing so. As a result, the only meaty characterization is ultimately of the Beoulve family… Ramza, his sister Alma, and his two other brothers Zalbaag and Dycedarg. They are at the center of the conflict ripping Ivalice apart in any case, and they’re also the characters (along with Ramza’s best friend, Delita) who get the most screen time. Delita receives some additional attention in the War of the Lions, to where you could consider him one of the game’s better-explored characters. Still, you’ll actually find a lot of the most intriguing characterization actually belongs to the game’s various (and, boy, there are a lot of them) antagonists. This is definitely an intriguing reverse from the “norm”, but it works well here.

Ultimately, this is probably one that we can all still agree on. FFT kicks ass. It combines excellent and deep tactical gameplay with an intriguing story that might be a little less clear with the new translation… but certainly isn’t any worse. It might be one of the more cohesive FF plots around. It’s also got at least one more song I’ll share.

Join me next time, as I return to Final Fantasy’s roots, with Final Fantasy IX!

A Glorious Fantasy: Hyper-Realism and Time Travel

Posted on July 23, 2014 by Semtex Skittle

I think all of this is extremely important knowledge, and that the human race will be improved by my research. Let’s move on!

Why not start with some music?

Version Played: Steam-client PC port, with largely unnoticed upscaled resolutions!

Final Fantasy VIII, notable for its awesome FMVs and its mixed reviews, received a lot of hype. A lot of hype. Coming off of the cultural sensation that was Final Fantasy VII, how could it not? Unfortunately, the truth is, Final Fantasy VIII was disappointing for a lot of people. More than enough people for it to be considered a disappointment overall. Even I, who have always loved FF8, have no choice but to admit its faults. We’ll get to those in a minute.

To my mind, that FF8 fell victim to its own hype machine is a shame. Because as a kid, there were very few games that I enjoyed as much or as completely as I enjoyed Final Fantasy VIII. And this is going to lead to my most controversial opinion about this game (well, maybe not, we’ll see). But it’s also an opinion that needs to just get out there. Let’s talk about it. Leave some feedback in the comments. Let’s talk about the protagonist, Squall Leonheart.

Squall is one hell of a fighter. But what the hell is his problem?

Ultimately, Squall isn’t that likable. I recognize that now. But I’ve always identified with him on some level. It’s important to remember that the characters in this game are all intended to be teenagers. Teenagers with teenager problems. Squall is misunderstood in his own mind. In everyone else’s, he can’t communicate, so they can’t get to know him, so they misunderstand him. In a lot of ways, he’s a very realistic character. He’s devoted himself to his studies, but he’s awkward around everyone, because he never considered that he might need social or leadership skills, because his childhood taught him not to rely on other people for anything. His arc, over the course of the game, is coming to terms with the fact that people aren’t islands. Everyone needs help sometimes, and together, we can be greater than the sum of our parts. I believe his arc, so I like Squall.

Oh, and there’s a love story with Rinoa.

This is the first Final Fantasy game which has a focus upon a love story of any kind. We’ve seen the theme of love before; Cecil and Rosa create a love triangle of despair with Kain in Final Fantasy IV. Locke sees the love of his life come again in Celes in Final Fantasy VI. Cloud was totally oblivious to the various beautiful women hitting on him in Final Fantasy VII. It’s not until Final Fantasy VIII where we actually explore a love story as a central idea in the plot. Squall and Rinoa meet early in the game, get off to a great start, then fall apart when they get to know each other a little. Only to come all the way back around once they get to know each other a lot. The sequence I personally associate most with their relationship is best captured on video. It can (and probably should!) be argued that this is not only not the most important sequence, but doesn’t even make the top five. Among other highlights, Squall carries a comatose Rinoa on his back across like, literally, half the world, along some train tracks in a probably-futile effort to save her. Later, he attacks head-on a garrison of the most technologically sophisticated troops in the world with uhh… with his steel balls, mostly. Oh, and probably the 255 STR you’ll have Junctioned by then, as it’s very nearly the last bit of the game.

The rest of the characters are kind of incidental to this process. Quistis doesn’t become jilted when she realizes that Squall’s just not that into her. Zell, Selphie, and Irvine don’t grow up. None of them gets an especially deep treatment. Quistis and Zell get to have a little more fun since they’re around early in the game, but there’s just not much for us to know about most of these characters. They’re mercenaries. They’re time-travelers. They’re hyper-realistic.

The hyper-realistic style of FFVIII was another significant departure for the game when it first launched. Obviously, the later technology of the PS2, and the XBox 360 rendered this distinction irrelevant, but it was a big deal at the time, and the relatively lukewarm reception that the realistic character models got informed the design choices in FF9, which ultimately became all about going back to the ‘roots’ of the series. Squall and his friends have realistic proportions, and while on my HD monitor they looked pixelated and kinda crappy… they looked that way on the PSX too. The technology didn’t really exist to bring them to life. While some sequences show off the realistic motion of the characters (Quistis and Rinoa both speak in a lot of subtle gestures), the motions of Squall and Zell – particularly Zell – are often hugely exaggerated, and not really at home with the character models themselves. Luckily, the monsters and Guardian Forces don’t suffer from this same issue – they’re as grand as ever.

I probably mentioned a couple times about the time-travel. I assume at this point everyone has played FF8, but a reminder is always helpful, yes? The basic plot of Final Fantasy VIII is this: In the world, there exists a succession of powerful, female, spellcasters. They are called, creatively enough, Sorceresses. This condition is not genetic, but it is inherited, with the Sorceress either voluntarily relinquishing her powers to another, or when that Sorceress is very near death, they pass on by default. Of the four Sorceresses we meet in Final Fantasy VIII, one is a power-hungry madwoman, one is a time-traveling psychopath, and the other two are possessed by a time-traveling psychopath. Fortunately, since this is a world that knows Sorceresses could go crazy at any time, a man named Cid Kramer established a military academy at Balamb. Balamb Garden, as it is called, trains SeeD, an elite force. To finance Balamb Garden, SeeD undertakes military operations all over the world. SeeD’s true purpose, however, are to be warriors ready to contend with these Sorceresses. That much all seems pretty grounded. Now let’s take a magic carpet ride. All of the party members but Rinoa – but including major Plot MacGuffin Ellone – were raised together in an orphanage. Only none of them remember that because the Guardian Forces (the game’s summons, and the beating heart of the Junction system) steal memories in order to function. The sacrifice for becoming powerful soldiers is a loss of memories, starting with early childhood. Only Irvine actually does remember, he just doesn’t tell anyone, until everyone figures it out. Huh.

Ellone, meanwhile, has the very special power to send people’s consciousnesses back in time. She uses this ability on Squall and his friends repeatedly, sending them back into the bodies of deuteragonist Laguna Loire and his friends Kiros and Ward, who had their own misadventures 20 years earlier. Because time travel, Laguna and his friends survived many battles with the super-powerful SeeDs from the future dumping rocket fuel into their minds. Ellone just wanted to change the past for her own selfish – if understandable – reasons. She failed. But her powers are also very much desired by the time-traveling psychopath Sorceress from the future – Ultimecia – who is trying to cast a spell from three different time periods called Time Compression that does… eh, let’s actually not worry about what it does. We don’t know what it does. “Time Compression” doesn’t sound good for us though. In fact, it’s only good for Ultimecia. That’s all we know. So in order to stop that, we hatch an elaborate plan to let it happen, only, before it finishes, Squall and the gang will go rough Ultimecia up. She has a spooky castle, it has a superboss in it, and Ultimecia herself has got roughly five forms. And some great battle music. She’s also actually pretty hard if you cut a lot of corners on the way to her, and get unlucky during the battle.

So that’s the story of FF8. Only, what may or may not be interesting is that the game isn’t really about most of that stuff at all. It would be disingenuous to say that Laguna Loire’s story doesn’t matter, because you spend a fair amount of time playing as him… but the rest? That’s just stuff that’s going on while Squall tries to grow as a person, he and Rinoa fall in love, and he eventually does a series of very brave and very stupid things in order to rescue her. Then, in the end, she saves him when he’s lost in the vagaries of time travel. Time travel!

Final Fantasy VIII’s take on the battle system is also controversial. What can I say? It’s a controversial game. The Junction system works like this: You have an “inventory” of Magic, up to 100 copies of each spell, rather than using MP or spells per day or whatever else. In general, these spells never get cast, because they are “Junctioned” to your stats, like strength and defense, or your defenses. 100 Firagas to your elemental defense, for example, will put you at about 25% “absorb” on all incoming fire damage. The better the magic, the stronger the effect. Ultima junctions well to just about everything, and if you’re patient enough to accumulate 100 of them, it will raise any stat as high as it can go. So, it’s very customizable, you can basically do whatever with the characters you like best. As with FF7, the specific differences between characters are primarily in Limit Break techniques, although in FF8, Squall’s is so powerful it’s virtually required to defeat the superboss Omega Weapon. So if you’re not familiar with the game, the question you should be asking right now is “how do you get this magic?” Well, the game has a sophisticated system for refining items into spells, said items both being won from battle and from playing the (incredibly addictive) card mini-game, Triple Triad. Oh, how do you get magic before you have the right item? Or if you can’t find the right item? Well… unfortunately… you ‘draw’ it from enemies. As a command in battle. Very slowly.

Oh.

Yep. This is why people hate the Junction system. The first few hours of FF8 – assuming you already know where the right monsters are to draw from – are spent largely of sucking enemies dry of their magic to power yourself up. This process is occasionally helpful through the rest of the game, as if you know where to look, you can get early access to very powerful spells. Bosses often have good spells as well, and there are also several Guardian Forces you must ‘draw’ from bosses throughout the game. Unfortunately, unless your – I think? – Magic stat is pretty good… you’ll draw spells at a rate of 0-5 with each use of the command. You really need 100 of your spells, as the quantity affects the power of the Junction. So drawing sucks. This is where one feature of the Steam version is quite handy; the magic booster! With this turned on, all your party members receive 100 of a bunch of core spells. None of the best stuff, mind you, but some solid spells so that there is NO time lost drawing early in the game. Since the later drawing is entirely optional – everything can be obtained from items, often more easily – the Junction system’s worst feature can just be switched off. All other versions will have to go through the grind.

But FF8 isn’t about the Junction system. Junction is just something you have to deal with. And if you can get past it, you might appreciate the game a little. It’s by no means a bad entry in the series. Its plot is full of holes. Most of its characters are pretty shallow. But there’s some really good stuff at the core of FF8, and it certainly has its place in the development of the franchise as well. I think it deserves a little bit of our love.

And now I shall leave you with another one of FF8’s beautiful cutscenes. Good day.

A Glorious Fantasy: A World of Three Dimensions

Posted on June 28, 2014 by Semtex Skittle

I think all of this is extremely important knowledge, and that the human race will be improved by my research. Let’s move on!

And, actually, let’s give this a little music, shall we? I hear that particular music in my head every time I see an image on the internet of the city of Midgar, or the logo for Final Fantasy VII.

Yes, that’s right. It’s time to talk about Final Fantasy VII.

Version Played: Steam-client PC port, with fun upscaled resolutions!

For those of you who have been following this series from its start, you probably already know that Final Fantasy VI is my favourite game in the series, and that this exercise was very unlikely to topple VI from its stance, astride the Final Fantasy world like a colossus. Despite having rediscovered how much of a bridge VI is between eras of the games, and despite gaining a much deeper and more interesting understanding of the franchise through this play experience… the dominance of VI, at the very least, has not changed. It is keeping this in mind, and knowing some of what must follow, that I want to preface this piece by saying the following: Final Fantasy VII is irrefutably a great game, and I wholeheartedly believe that, no matter what the rest of this article may contain.

What should also be apparent to everyone, already, is the degree to which Final Fantasy VII infected our cultural consciousness. The fact is, the beautiful CGI video sequences and 3-D scenario of Final Fantasy VII make it perhaps the most memorable of any game in the whole series. It is worth noting that on this day, far more games have been released after VII than came before it. I actually find that statement astonishing, now that I consider it. Just imagine how a sequence like the incredible Opera House performance in Final Fantasy VI might have captured our imaginations if it had been given a full CGI treatment on the PSX… or the PS2… or the 360… Incredible, right? (Don’t bring up the ill-executed “Final Fantasy Anthology” collection). Well, while no single sequence in Final Fantasy VII might equal up to the Opera House performance, or Kefka seizing the statues and destroying the world, the truth is lesser sequences are more memorable for many of us (those who exist in both the 2D and 3D era, meaningfully)… and, in many ways, that is the power of Final Fantasy VII.

It has other things to recommend it. Final Fantasy VII follows a large, diverse party. Each character gets to experience complex characterization as things progress, with a couple notable exceptions…. including side quests, some unique abilities, and the powerful and diverse Limit Breaks that really set them apart in mechanical terms. Each character I used in Final Fantasy VII felt very distinct and different… for a while. But unlike a game like Final Fantasy IV, or even VI, where they have absolutely distinct features, many of which come into play every single battle… the primary – non-cosmetic, let’s get real! – differences between characters in Final Fantasy VII deal with their unique Limit Break techniques. Some of those Limit Breaks are incredibly memorable, and will probably come to define the characters of Final Fantasy VII in many ways for you as a player… but you don’t see them every battle, and they don’t establish an identity in the way that “this character can use Steal” does.

This is because the characters in Final Fantasy VII are so customizable. While it is true that Aeris Gainsborough is a better magician and a (far) worse physical attacker than Barrett Wallace… I could make Barrett into a magician if I wanted to. It would involve loading him down with Materia to change his stats, but equipping him that way is a matter of seconds of work. And, if I change my mind later, it will take only seconds to change him back. Final Fantasy VI eventually allowed a player to control the stat growth of each party member by strategic use of Espers, but the changes were a) permanent and b) permanent.

I suspect that this trend – this gameplay quirk – will be significant in the immediate future of Final Fantasy. But we’ll see.

When I see people extol the virtues of Final Fantasy VII, I typically see three big arguments. There’s simply no way to talk about this game independent of the billions of words and millions of hours that have already been spent on it.

1) THE STORY, MAN. I don’t even know if this is legitimately the #1 argument made in favour of Final Fantasy VII, but it’s a common one, and it is compelling. Does Final Fantasy VII’s story plot tightly together, eliminate all holes, answer all questions, etc? No, it sure doesn’t. But that’s not everything. Final Fantasy VII’s storyline (in case you somehow don’t know…) traces the fortunes of a group of people who have decided to resist the oppression of the ShinRa Electric Power Company. ShinRa provides electricity to the world to power all manner of modern conveniences, which they obtain through the harvest of Mako energy. Of course, as we quickly learn, Mako energy is also the literal life energy of the world of Gaia. In condensing that energy into Materia and using it to power TV broadcasts, the ShinRa company is quite possibly destroying the planet. Literally. Of course, it’s not that simple. Sephiroth, the greatest of ShinRa’s genetically engineered warriors (called SOLDIERs, cryptically enough) returns to the great city of Midgar, slaughters many of Shinra’s top personnel, and flees. Much of the rest of the game is spent in the pursuit of Sephiroth, whose objectives are unknown, but are almost assuredly not benevolent.

When things come together, about 75% of the way through the game, we know that Sephiroth has used the ultimate black magic, Meteor. In VII, this magic literally summons a wandering planetoid, diverting its course through space toward Gaia. It will strike the surface, causing incredible damage. Unlike Earth, however, Gaia has a defense mechanism to protect it against such catastrophic damage. The Mako energy – actually called the Lifestream – will be gathered at the spot of the gaping wound caused by Meteor. Sephiroth will stand there, become one with all of the planet’s energy, and become a God. Not a benevolent one.

Heavy stuff, man. And ultimately very satisfying. We don’t need all the ends tied off on this story. We don’t need to see every detail hashed out to the end. And, if you [i]do[/i] want that, there are actually resources available! Such is its popularity, that there is now an actually thing called Compilation Final Fantasy VII. The expanded universe around Final Fantasy VII probes many of its deepest mysteries, expands upon fan-favourite characters, and in general should give you the satisfaction that you desire.

I have not yet decided whether to include any of these Compilation titles in my own quest to explore Final Fantasy’s depths.

2) It was my first Final Fantasy.

This one is more difficult to break down point by point, but it is definitely worth addressing. My first Final Fantasy (that I completed) was VI. I know for a fact that this creates a nostalgic bias on my part toward the game. Now, of course, Final Fantasy VI is universally heralded as excellent, so my opinion has never proved unpopular. But so many people were introduced to the genre by Final Fantasy VII at a ripe, young age that the game’s explosive – and enduring – popularity make total sense.

3) It was the first 3-D game in the franchise.

Let me add on to this that the 3-D combined nicely with the sheer scope of this game, to create something that – at the time – was utterly without precedent. This is another reason why this game’s flaws are less important than its triumphs. They were when it was released, and they still are today. When I played this game for the first time, in my buddy’s basement (he had the PSX before I did), he and I decided to trade off the controller periodically, and counsel each other on game decisions and so on. All of that was fun, but one thing I remember as much as anything else, was how incredible this game looked by the standards of the time. To this day, some people still prefer the sprites and the beautiful hand drawings of games like Final Fantasy VI… but the first time I saw this game, I knew that we were never going back.

Well. That was a load of nostalgia. Let’s talk about the game when looked at through modern sensibilities. I’m going to knock this out in list format.

1) Was it any good?

It sure was. I had a lot of fun playing this one. I enjoyed it enough to explore all of its various nooks and crannies, including breeding the Golden Chocobo, and using the power of Knights of the Round to unseat the mighty Emerald and Ruby WEAPON monsters. I played the shit out of Final Fantasy VII, and it didn’t matter how many times I had played it before.

2) How’s it hold up?

Unfortunately, Final Fantasy VII’s graphics have aged even more poorly than the sprites from early consoles. The nice resolution upscale of the Steam port made the character models look unusually sharp, while the matte backgrounds through most of the game looked fuzzy and out of focus at best. Unfortunately, even ‘sharp’ looking polygonal character models still look crappy compared to modern games. But what do you want? It’s between 17 years since Final Fantasy VII dropped. And, ultimately, it held up well enough for me to sink 50+ hours into it, and defeat the superbosses, so the graphical considerations weren’t so bad.

Of equally important note is that Final Fantasy VII has one of the series’ better soundtracks. While I personally think several games have better battle music – and yes, that includes the widely beloved One-Winged Angel, Final Fantasy VII has a vast soundtrack that includes a number of mood-setting tracks that are simply superb – tracks like Great Warrior, which plays as Red XIII learns the truth about his family legacy. Within the game, it plays only twice to my recollection, but it’s an incredibly compelling track. The same could be said for Launching a Dream Into Space, a theme composed explicitly for flashbacks about the failed Shinra space launch. Considering scope as a major factor, some would argue that VII’s soundtrack is Nobuo Uematsu’s triumph. I’m not sure that I would agree, but I do think that it was squarely at the center of the “golden age” of Square’s music, which ranged from Final Fantasy VI through Final Fantasy VIII.

3) Is Final Fantasy VII really overrated?

Perhaps.

It probably depends on whose rating you use as a baseline. The manic Sephiroth fans of the world probably do overrate the game. I think, however, most modern gamers who go far enough back to have played and enjoyed Final Fantasy VII when it was shiny and new have given it the due it deserves, and have come to accept its faults as well.

Well, this piece was probably not exceptionally helpful, since everyone has played the effing game, but thanks as always for reading. Next time, I’ll plunge into the depths of Final Fantasy VIII.

A Glorious Fantasy: The Magitek Revolution

Posted on May 10, 2014 by Semtex Skittle

Once again I return to this ongoing series, in which I attempt to play through every game in the Final Fantasy franchise that I can get my hands on, from FF1 through Lightning Returns, and a variety of the spinoffs and other titles not included in the ‘main series’. This list continues to undergo revision, and I seriously considered removing Final Fantasy 9 from it for personal reasons. In addition, no MMO titles will be played. Sorry, folks?

I think all of this is extremely important knowledge, and that the human race will be improved by my research. Let’s move on!

This is a bittersweet entry for me. Final Fantasy 6 has always been my favourite Final Fantasy. It is the first one that I played to completion, and I still think of it as the absolute pinnacle of the JRPG form. There are things about later games that I like, individually, better than certain aspects of Final Fantasy VI. But unless I really undergo a transformation moving forward in the series (or if Lightning Returns is somehow the greatest game ever released… and I doubt it) … this is the high point. This is the pinnacle. For me, this is the definitive FF experience, and the game I would recommend throughout this entire odyssey without hesitation to anyone, anywhere, anytime.

Version Played: GBA Remake

Version Notes: Having played the original SNES version 90282834 times (all numbers approximate) and the GBA version 0 times, this was kind of fun for me. The primary feature of the GBA version is a new, upgraded translation over the Ted Woolsey original. Obvious upgrades include the names of characters no longer being in all caps for whatever reason, and the expansion of several characters. I never thought that the original translation of FFVI was particularly egregious, but I will freely admit to liking the GBA translation better. The GBA version also fixes a number of rather infamous bugs from the original game, including the Evade bug. I would highly recommend this version to both new players and returning ones alike.

So… where to begin, really, with Final Fantasy VI? At the risk of exposing my knowledge of future games, I can certainly say that FFVI’s style paved the way for the characters and combat systems of Final Fantasy VII and Final Fantasy VIII. It also represents the only real departure (let’s not count FFI and FFIII where you have only ‘generic’ characters) in the entire Final Fantasy series from the idea of a single protagonist, with supporting characters around her. In this case, while Terra Branford is an obvious protagonist type, and does start the story as its central character, she remains such only until the first major split in the party, when Terra leads a group trying to escort the rebel leader Banon to safety on the Lete River… meanwhile, Locke Cole attempts to delay the impending invasion of the Gestahlian Empire from overrunning the peaceful realm of Figaro… and Sabin Figaro is lost on the Lete, and must make form new alliances to get back home.

Let the idea of that sink in, just a little. It’s a truly novel concept, and one that is not really used in any other RPG-style game that I can recall to mind. The ensemble cast of FFVI is not held together by the glue of Terra Branford, nor by any other single character. Certainly, the game has a few characters much more ‘major’ than others (Terra, Celes, and Locke receive a large amount of development over their fellow cast members), particularly if you don’t indulge in some of the sidequests that the game offers once you reach its second half.

If any single character provides focus to the narrative, then, it has to be the bad guy. Actually, in this case, as is often the case, there are a couple of them. The villains provide us with a single thread to follow through the complex characterizations and variety of locales that the party will explore. Ultimately, this game is about stopping the mighty Kefka from literally grinding the people of the world into dust, until nothing at all remains. While this has basically been the goal of every antagonist we’ve faced thus far (spoiler alert: probably most of the upcoming ones have the same plan in mind), Kefka begins to realize his goals in a visceral way which is, again, unusual for this game series.

Final Fantasy VI is also the first game to depart in a major way from several of the core story themes that we’ve seen before in every other installment. Gone are the crystals (Earth, Wind, Air, and Fire). Gone are prophecies of any kind – the people of Final Fantasy VI’s world are more worried about repeating the mistakes of the past through a cataclysmic conflict called the War of the Magi, which destroyed the world and erased magic, but also gave rise to the steam engine, and modern technology. It’s this technology, and this complete departure from the series’ roots that gives this game it’s unique flavour, and also very much sets the stage for the succeeding games.

Here, too, is another innovation, which in some ways builds on the stylings of Final Fantasy IV, but not entirely – each character here possesses a unique skill, such as ‘Steal’ for Locke, or ‘Morph’ for Terra (Cecil, for example, had ‘Darkness’, and Kain ‘Jump’). However, beyond that unique skill and their individual equipment lists, the characters have many interchangeable features. Their ability gain at level up is determined entirely by the Esper system, which also teaches characters magic. It is possible (albeit, pointlessly difficult and unrewarding) to turn even the most magically inept character like Edgar into a spellcasting powerhouse with the Ultima ability by the game’s end. While this was previously a function of jobs, the character ‘jobs’ in FFVI are immutable, though you have many characters to choose from by the end, unlike in Final Fantasy IV.

None of this is why the game is so effective, however, or why its memory has lingered with me far beyond any other game in the series. The truth is, all of that has to be attributed by incredible moments, like the Opera House sequence, which elevate this game from a story perspective far beyond any previous offering. Its combat system may not be quite as fun to play with as FFV’s deep and immersive job system… but the characters will draw you in in a way that perhaps no other game in the series will.

After so many years, there’s not too much more to add here. Just know that if you have never experienced Final Fantasy VI, you are missing one of the great games of all time. That would be a shame.