Let The Final Fantasy Wankery Commence!
DISCLAIMER: This is all my own opinion, so if you don't share my opinions, don't sweat it. Just don't try to tell me that my opinions are "objectively wrong" and we'll get along just fine.
Gretchen found an article on Bit Rebels (via Fark) that talked about "The Ten Greatest Video Games Of The Past Decade." Like any list of this type, people will take issue with it. In particular was the assertion that Final Fantasy XII was in that top ten, which quite surprised Gretchen and I both, as we were kind of "meh" on FFXII.
So my wife turns to me and asks, "How would *you* rank the Final Fantasy games, from worst to best?" The problem with this question is the sheer scope of it. Am I working with the "core" Final Fantasy titles only? What about related games, like Final Fantasy Tactics, or Crisis Core, or Crystal Chronicles?
For the sake of sanity, I'm going to stick with the "core" titles only, with the exception of XI, which as an Massively Multiplayer Game isn't really possible to compare to the others. Also, it's the only "core" game I haven't played. One other disclaimer -- some of these games, I have not played all the way through to the end, but I feel I've played enough of them in their original form to make at least some judgements. We'll start from 11 (the worst rank) and wind our way down to what I consider the #1 core Final Fantasy game.
Okay, let's start in with the worst, and go from there.
11: Final Fantasy II -- This wasn't hard to choose. Before you start on me that I'm being unfair to the NES titles for having comparitively weak graphics compared with something that came later on the PS2, let me explain that this rank has nothing to do with graphics, and everything to do with gameplay. The system of your character advancing in skill depending on what actions they take? Interesting in theory, crap in practice. The story didn't make much of impression either, good or bad. It's just dull. Lots of bad things about it, and no notable redeeming qualities. There's always got to be one at the bottom of the heap, and II is it.
10: Final Fantasy VIII -- This is the one that I know I'm going to get crap over. Some people I know consider this game one of their absolute favorites, but this was the first FF game to actually piss me off.
The cardinal sin is the magic mechanic, where you drain charges of a spell from enemies you meet, and then parlay those stored charges into stat boosts. I hated this. For one, it added drearily to the pace of combat, because I had to spend at least a third of each fight trying to drain magic, while in the meantime the enemy monsters are chewing on my leg. Then I felt like I was being punished for wanting to *use* any of that sexy magic, because every time I would, my stats would go down. Double Minus UnGood. Also, it added more inventory management, which can already be a chore in games like this as it is. But wait, there's more!
See, when I started this game, I was hopeful. The graphics were gorgeous, and the opening "Liberi Fatali" cinematic is a joy to watch. In fact, I think I'll go youtube that right now. ...Okay, back. Yep, still cool. The problem is that I couldn't stand half the cast of characters! Squall was a whiny emo twit, Rinoa felt like an empty shell, Selphie was nearly as annoying as Scrappy-Doo, and Irvine -- oh, Irvine! Get this; Irvine is a Sniper, right? Who loves the ladies, bow chicka wow wow! But when it comes time to actually do the job he was introduced for -- SHOOTING THE BAD GUY IN THE HEAD WITH HIS SNIPER RIFLE -- he chokes! He gives a short "yeah, I'm a coward, I just can't do this, sorry, here you do it Hero Guy" speech, and at that point the character may as well have not been introduced at all. Zell... well, they tried, but when his initial character note (besides some truely unfortunate fashion and makeup choices) involves never getting the Cool Food in the cafeteria? I'll pass. Quistis at least had a personality, but was the game's designated Shat-Upon target. She starts the game clearly into Squall, but is trying to be discreet and semi-professional about it (since she outranks him), but gets completely left in the dust. The game never did explain to my satisfaction why Squall ignored Quistis, but fell in Wuv, Twue Wuv with Rinoa the instant he meets her. Even a "sorry, I just have a thing for girls with dark hair, and you're a blonde, Quistis, and thus not my type" would've been enough.
Oh, and did I mention that Squall's an unlikeable, uncharasmatic, unsympathetic git? Because he is, and it deserves another mention. And yet, without any clear reason, everyone else thinks he'sThe Bomb.
BUT WAIT, THERE'S MORE! There were two other sequences in the story that annoyed me that deserve mention. First, a bit about halfway through the game where an Ancient Wise Elder Dude has you running your ass up and down the village road to do fetch quests and puzzles, and what's your reward in the end? You get to look at Ancient Wise Elder Dude's hand. Yep, that's it. See how wonderfully weathered and worn his hand is, the game tells you. Contemplate his ineffable wisdom that his fingernails somehow represent. Bask in the loving heart of his calluses. For once, I was in total agreement with Squall, who seemed to be of the "You Suck" school of response to this. If the game pisses off the character in the story, that can be good, if it's done in an interesting way and advances the plot. But when it pisses off the *player* as well, then there's a problem.
The second sequence had to do with the Triple Triad minigame. Now don't get me wrong, I *love* minigames. In fact, I loved the Blitzball minigame in FFX so much that Gretchen had to beg me to stop playing Blitz and move on with the plot at one point. But Triple Triad already had one strike against it with the whole "migrating house rules" crap. Apparently, in certain areas of the world, this collectible card game is played in slightly different ways -- okay, fine -- and as you travel and play, you pick up these house rules and take them with you and introduce other players in the game world to it. Wait, NOT so fine, when one of the earliest house rules you get is "Random", where you don't get to pick what cards to use in your deck -- you just get a random assortment of Goblin Dung cards. So early on, unless you're super selective on who you play with, you're doomed to play with Random rules for nearly the rest of the game, which totally screws you. But that's not the real problem. No, the real problem was when you meet Rinoa's father, who you can play Triple Triad against -- and beating him is the only way to get the Super Duper Rare "Rinoa" card. He even tells you, "I have my daughter's card, you know." Way to trebuchet me right out of the world-immersion, Square! Why would a card game that's popular worldwide in this setting have super special rare cards about a gang of teenagers? A little fourth-wall breaking can be fun, but this just didn't work for me.
Now, to be fair, the graphics in this game were fantastic, the action intense, and when I first managed to use Squall's limit break where he makes an energy gunblade that can be seen *from space*, I had serious nerdgasm. But all in all, this game still annoyed me far more than it entertained me, and that's the bottom line.
I lie, one last bit about VIII that I hated. We're introduced to the "Moomba" in this game, a little critter, vaguely lion-like, that had "designed with a plush toy in mind" written all over it. The game makes a huge point of introducing these adorable little wastes of life, with about as much subtlety as a 1950's Kids TV Host hocking Ovaltine or whatnot to their audience. The Moombas are clearly meant to capitalize on the sucess of the Chocobo and the Moogle, two previous critters from the FF franchise, but it just falls flat here. From the VIII wikipedia entry: "Moombas are covered in red fur, which the Shumi..." (the aforementioned Ancient Wise Elder Dudes) "...attribute to 'the passionate ingenuity in their hearts'" Hey fanboys and fangirls, wouldn't YOU like to write fanfics about those lovable Moombas and all their wacky adventures? No, no I would not.
Moving on.
9: Final Fantasy XII -- There was potential here, but it just didn't fly, and I'll lay the blame for this in three places: Music, Characters, and Gameplay.
The music in this game just didn't do anything for me. I know that some people point to the fact that it's the first core FF game that didn't have Nobuo Uematsu composing, but that's not the issue. There are other good game music composers out there, and even Uematsu isn't perfect, but the music in XII just didn't make an impresison. I can't recall a single tune from it.
The characters. Hurm. I wanted to like Balthier, but he never quite shook the "Han Solo with serial numbers filed off" flavor. Fran served no purpose other than fodder for teenage boys touching themselves, right down to the lovingly crafted shots of her bunny-tailed backside in far too many cutscenes. Penelo was a generic girl-next-door. Basch had potential, and was even originally slated to be the main protagonist early the development of the game, but was deemed to be too old for gamers to identify with -- 36. Okay, whatever. Vaan felt tacked on, especially bad for a viewpoint character, and the real protagonist, Ashe, never gelled in my mind. It didn't help that Ashe's outfit also felt like fetish bait. If you're not familiar with the term, go google "Zettai Ryouiki" and you'll see what I mean. Don't worry, it's nothing horrifying, it's just referring to girls who wear short skirts and thigh-high stockings or socks. If a teenybopper like Penelo was wearing "trendy" clothes like that, it wouldn't have been as bad, but Ashe is supposed to be a Deposed Princess, mourning for her dead royal husband. So why is she dressed like she's about to try and pick up boys at the Mall?
Gameplay. Oh, the gameplay. While not as deeply annoying as draining magic in the aforementioned VIII, XII made a bold experiment with real-time combat. You directly controlled one character, and set up a series of If-Then programming routines for the other characters. Good in theory, not so fun in practice, at least for me. Combat became a chore instead of something fun, and while I applaud the attempt at merging MMO combat tactics with "standard" RPG games, I didn't like the fast pace of it, and the feeling of the game "playing itself".
As in many things, Penny Arcade sums it up best. www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2006/9/8/
Despite lots of neat little touches, and interesting side chracters like Antonio Banderas -- sorry, I mean Al-Cid -- the game just became too much of a grind for me, and I gave up on it just before the final dungeon. The summons didn't excite, the quickenings got real old real fast, and I personally don't like the design choice of having all the characters function the same way. You can train Penelo to use the same weapons as Balthier, despite different starting points on their "License grids". Or have everyone train to use the exact same stuff, almost. I'd much rather have predetermined party roles, but with some freedom to customize within that framework, and even cross over into other roles. But that's just me.
8: Final Fantasy III -- The job system, used to much better effect later in FF Tactics, makes its debut here. It's a cute gimmick, and the game is full of cute gimmicks, like getting your first airship almost immediately instead of at least halfway through the story. But the substance isn't there, and the story failed to make an impression. Some classes were super useful, others just sort of there. All in all... meh. Not much else to say about it.
7: Final Fantasy V -- I'll be honest here, this is the game of the franchise that I've probably played the least, maybe ten to fifteen hours at most. So it's not bad, but it didn't make enough of a dent on my attention span to make me want to play more of it. The characters had engaging personalities, and the Job system was used again, which was kinda cool. As much as I prefer specialized character roles, I confess that unlocking new classes was rather fun, especially for the "How does Bartz as opposed to Lenna look as a Summoner?" factor. One of these days, I'll pick this up again and try it out, but I'm in no hurry.
6: We're at the halfway mark, which seems like a good time to drop the original -- Final Fantasy, no roman numeral. The thing that I loved about this game is that the story, really, is kind of an aside. The game's REALLY about killing monsters, earning Phat Lewt, and then moving on to kill BIGGER stuff. A personal favorite moment of mine is when you find Bahamut, who once you finish his quest, gives you all Super Duper Power Ups and new bad-ass sprites. And let's be honest -- nearly everyone who's played D&D has at some point been in a situation like that, where your DM decides that you all are suddenly going to be 20th level, and the cool gods like Bahamut and Marduk are your best buddies who give you lots of magic items, and you can cast Power Word Kill a lot, and get swords like Excalibur and Stormbringer... and then you can go find Asmodeus or Demogorgon and beat them up! YEAH! Roll for initative against the hordes of the Abyss, man!!!
Final Fantasy is just like that. In D&D 4th Edition terms, it runs the gamut from Heroic to Paragon to Epic, to the point that you can even GO IN SPACE, kinda like that flying saucer in that one module, Expedition From The Barrier Peaks! Where your fighter can get a LASER GUN, man!
What's to complain about? :) It's not deep, but it's fun. It certainly ate up a significant portion of my high school free time, and it set forth a nice little framework that Square has been able to build on for decades.
5: Final Fantasy IV -- This game has an important place in American gamer history, because we originally skipped getting FF II and III, and skipped right from the original game to this happy little number for the SNES. For a lot of gamers in my generation, this was the first console RPG that had a real story, with character development, foreshadowing, twists... you name it! It's overshadowed by what came later (which I'll get to in a bit), but it sure was fun. I remember some of the fights being rather tricky, and the graphics don't age very well, but man oh man, I loved this when it came out.
My fondest memory involves a spring break weekend at college my freshman year, where Fred Swetland and I were both going to be on campus for several days when everyone else we knew would be going home. So we got ahold of FFIV (which had been out for a couple years by then), hooked up my SNES to the dorm's TV, and played that sucker non-stop from start to finish, with breaks only for bathroom and ordering pizza or other food needs. I think we managed to finish it in just under 48 hours, certainly more than 36. We were both loopy as hell by the end; I was playing, Fred was consulting a guidebook and making hysterically funny commentary, and as we FINALLY took down the final boss, we both cheered as loud as we could. And then dazedly unhooked the SNES, congratulated each other on a fun weekend well spent, and crawled into bed for something like fifteen hours of sleep each. Ah, good times.
4: Final Fantasy IX -- For some reason, this game is not well thought of by many FF fans, which surprises me. It's basically a love letter to the series as a whole up to that point, reserving most of its love for the classic fantasy tropes that the older games built on, as opposed to the Techno-Magic bent of FF 6, 7, and 8. I absolutely loved the gameplay of this game. Each character has a unique role, and even characters that have some similar traits (Garnet and Eiko) have enough difference to satisfy me. Best of all, you could customize the characters' abilities somewhat with a buff system that hasn't been used since, much to my dismay.
While Zidane was a mediocre protagonist (albeit a breath of fresh air after the whiney suck that was Squall), Vivi was a lot of fun as the secondary protagonist, and I was rooting for him every step of the way. Everyone had some personality to them, buckets of it in Steiner's case, although I really wanted to see more scenes that focused on Freya and Amarant, as I thought both were quite cool. The only downside to the game is the villains. Queen Brahe was too buffoonish, and Kuja was trying too hard to be The Next Sephiroth without having enough style or sense of purpose to pull it off. Also, the final-final boss, Necron or whatever is name is, really came out of NOWHERE. Not a good way to close out the game, really. But even problems like that don't erase the raw fun of the game overall.
3: Final Fantasy VI -- Oh, this game had style, and in surplus. A world of science where magic is the new Weapon of Mass Destruction, with a masterful opening sequence that set an enthralling mood, and introduced both the villain and a compelling cast of heroes. Much to my surprise, the SNES graphics for VI have actually aged rather well, especially compared to FF IV, whose graphics looked outdated within a year of its release.
Fourteen playable heroes, each with unique flair, personality, and surprisingly deep histories. Well, for most of them, anyway. I'll forgive the lack of examination of Umaro and Gogo's childhood traumas, thank you. Kefka quickly became the villain that gamers loved to hate, although his motivations are sketchy at best -- "I'm NUTS! Everyone must die!", is about as complex as he gets. But a cool evil laugh makes up for a lot.
The game's only real flaw comes towards the latter part of the game, where it becomes obvious that learning every magic spell possible (which only becomes possible in the late game) is the path to victory, and the game slows down into a grindfest as you trade magicite between characters so everyone can learn the heavy hitters. This also takes away from each character's unique gameplay, as magic was only available to a couple of characters at first, and the special tricks most of the cast had instead of magic are second fiddle to spellcasting spam by the endgame.
But even so -- dear god, what a game! I had friends who would make a point of asking me if they could watch me while I played, the narrative was so good. The train to the underworld, fighting off an invasion in the snowy north, the Opera House -- hell, the Opera House sequence *alone* is enough to define this game as a classic, but that's just the tip of the iceberg. Let's just say that the mid-game twist "ending" left me absolutely speechless, if for no other reason than for the sheer balls it took on the part of the writers. It's one hell of a way to change the direction of the story, but it worked.
Even despite a few frustrating puzzles and the endgame grind, FF VI is a true classic. Nuff said!
2: Final Fantasy VII -- After the pure awesome of VI, many gamers were convinced that there was no way to top it, that the franchise couldn't possibly live up to the new standard.
Funny how that worked out, eh?
When the demo for VII hit, and every gamer I knew was on the edge of their seat, desperate to see more of this wonder they'd been teased with. This meant buying "Tobal #1", a crappy fighting game that the demo was packaged with, just so one could play twenty minutes worth of FF7. The graphical leap from the SNES to the Playstation was awe-inspiring, with the first view of Aeris and the cityscape of Midgar permanently etched in the memories of fans. But more to the point, the directors of VII were clearly eager to take these new graphical abilities for a spin and actually use them to enhance the story, rather than just make everything sparkly.
Three dimensional sprites for characters with three dimensional personalities. Cinematic cutscenes that have gone down in gaming history. A masterpiece soundtrack, minigames to help break the monotony, a damn cool story... and oh yeah, one other thing... SEPHIROTH. That, children, is how you make a bad guy. A terrifying bad ass from the word go, this guy became the icon of evil in videogames, easily on par with Darth Vader for pure "evil is COOL" factor. Quite frankly, no other game villain has quite managed to live up to his legacy. It's said that a hero is only as compelling as the villain he struggles against, and VII gave the heroes plenty to work with. Even if you took out The Big Sephrowski, the game still has cool villains galore. Jenova. Rufus Shinra and the Shinra Corporation. The Turks. Professor Hojo. Eventhe comic relief pimp and the giant kaiju "Weapons" had cool scenes as antagonists.
Yes, the characters had interchangable magic, with very few unique gameplay elements between them. Normally, I'd have been annoyed with this -- but dear god, the rest of the game was so incredible that I didn't care! The beautiful landscapes, the Summon animations (okay, those could get out of hand, but come on, they were COOL!), everything just fit together. I will never, ever, sell my original copy of FF VII, and I still play it from time to time.
Although -- I do have to wonder what it would be like if someone did a remake of it using PS3 graphics....hey, we can dream.
1: Final Fantasy X -- When I first sat down to write this list, I was not expecting X to be the last man standing. I was thinking it would probably be VI or VII, but the more I thought about it, the more I realized that X had just barely edged the other two out.
X was the first FF game to have access to photo-realistic graphics, and I'd be a liar if I said it wasn't a factor. Gorgeous flowing water, the cityscape of Zanarkand, the crowds, the lights -- this game had me hooked right at the start. But the story was at least as strong as any FF game before it, with a cast of heroes that you could really sink your teeth into. I know some folks hated Tidus, but I liked him as a protagonist. He was written well, he had human flaws I could empathize with, and his conflict with Jecht at the core of his character gave him a depth I appreciated.
The combat gameplay is absolute perfection. Turn-based, and using the entire party, rotated in and out on the fly. Every character has their own unique tricks, and good ones at that -- but with the Sphere Grid system, you could have characters train against their usual path, and double with other heroes if that floated your boat. You even had Kimahri, who could go the Jack of all trades route, or become a duplicate of someone else's combat role that you wanted more of -- I usually made him a secondary tank ala Auron.
I've already mentioned above how much I loved Blitzball, but let me say this here -- I would've paid for a game that was nothing *but* Blitzball, that's how much I enjoyed it.
The talented voice cast made for a nice touch, although it did add one slight wrinkle. In most FF games, you can name your characters whatever you want, although there is a default name to fall back on. You can't do that in FFX, save for Tidus, and even allowing that namechange required the script to never ever refer to Tidus by name. Instead it's "new kid", "hey you, get over here", things like that. But it's subtly done, so no worries.
X's only real weakness is its villains. Seymour is inevitably compared against Sephiroth, and comes far short. He's not horrible, but he's got a truely bizzare outfit and hairstyle that detracts from his presence, and he's just not especially interesting. He neither adds nor takes away from the game. Jecht actually works far better as an antagonist, even if his screentime is so limited; his relationship with Tidus, as mentioned, really helps drive the plot in ways I didn't expect. Sin is more of a force of nature than a villain, although it's still very cool to behold. Strangely, the ultimate evil *behind* Sin is never actually seen onscreen, which is a little odd, but doesn't detract too much.
I have to give a special shoutout to the soundtrack for X. One song in particular, the theme for Besaid Island, is practically hypnotic. It immediately relaxes me, and was the perfect music for the scenes that used it. And the rest of the soundtrack is pretty damn fine as well.
So that's my order of preference. Your order may be different, but this one works for me.
It's funny -- as I wrote this, I realized how the Final Fantasy franchise has shaped my game system buying. I bought an NES specifically so I could play Final Fantasy I. Final Fantasy VI was the driving force behind my SNES purchase. I walked out of Toys R Us with a Playstation and FFVII in my hands at the same time, and I got that PS1 modded specifically so I could play the Japanese demo of FFVIII months before it was released in the states. My PS2 purchase was done with FFX in mind, and I have promised myself that I will buy a PS3 no later than this march, which is the projected release date of FFXIII -- although there are plenty of other games for the PS3 that I want as well.
I'm not a slave to Square Enix, though. While I'm willing to give most Final Fantasy/Square games a good solid try, not all of them are created equal. Some are just plain bad (coughSagaFrontiercough) , while others (Final Fantasy Tactics and Chrono Trigger in particular) are at least as good as the best of the core FF games. But I can comfortably say that Square's track record is solid enough that I will always give them the benefit of the doubt.
Hrm. I wonder if there's any other game franchise I could write about like this?
Gretchen found an article on Bit Rebels (via Fark) that talked about "The Ten Greatest Video Games Of The Past Decade." Like any list of this type, people will take issue with it. In particular was the assertion that Final Fantasy XII was in that top ten, which quite surprised Gretchen and I both, as we were kind of "meh" on FFXII.
So my wife turns to me and asks, "How would *you* rank the Final Fantasy games, from worst to best?" The problem with this question is the sheer scope of it. Am I working with the "core" Final Fantasy titles only? What about related games, like Final Fantasy Tactics, or Crisis Core, or Crystal Chronicles?
For the sake of sanity, I'm going to stick with the "core" titles only, with the exception of XI, which as an Massively Multiplayer Game isn't really possible to compare to the others. Also, it's the only "core" game I haven't played. One other disclaimer -- some of these games, I have not played all the way through to the end, but I feel I've played enough of them in their original form to make at least some judgements. We'll start from 11 (the worst rank) and wind our way down to what I consider the #1 core Final Fantasy game.
Okay, let's start in with the worst, and go from there.
11: Final Fantasy II -- This wasn't hard to choose. Before you start on me that I'm being unfair to the NES titles for having comparitively weak graphics compared with something that came later on the PS2, let me explain that this rank has nothing to do with graphics, and everything to do with gameplay. The system of your character advancing in skill depending on what actions they take? Interesting in theory, crap in practice. The story didn't make much of impression either, good or bad. It's just dull. Lots of bad things about it, and no notable redeeming qualities. There's always got to be one at the bottom of the heap, and II is it.
10: Final Fantasy VIII -- This is the one that I know I'm going to get crap over. Some people I know consider this game one of their absolute favorites, but this was the first FF game to actually piss me off.
The cardinal sin is the magic mechanic, where you drain charges of a spell from enemies you meet, and then parlay those stored charges into stat boosts. I hated this. For one, it added drearily to the pace of combat, because I had to spend at least a third of each fight trying to drain magic, while in the meantime the enemy monsters are chewing on my leg. Then I felt like I was being punished for wanting to *use* any of that sexy magic, because every time I would, my stats would go down. Double Minus UnGood. Also, it added more inventory management, which can already be a chore in games like this as it is. But wait, there's more!
See, when I started this game, I was hopeful. The graphics were gorgeous, and the opening "Liberi Fatali" cinematic is a joy to watch. In fact, I think I'll go youtube that right now. ...Okay, back. Yep, still cool. The problem is that I couldn't stand half the cast of characters! Squall was a whiny emo twit, Rinoa felt like an empty shell, Selphie was nearly as annoying as Scrappy-Doo, and Irvine -- oh, Irvine! Get this; Irvine is a Sniper, right? Who loves the ladies, bow chicka wow wow! But when it comes time to actually do the job he was introduced for -- SHOOTING THE BAD GUY IN THE HEAD WITH HIS SNIPER RIFLE -- he chokes! He gives a short "yeah, I'm a coward, I just can't do this, sorry, here you do it Hero Guy" speech, and at that point the character may as well have not been introduced at all. Zell... well, they tried, but when his initial character note (besides some truely unfortunate fashion and makeup choices) involves never getting the Cool Food in the cafeteria? I'll pass. Quistis at least had a personality, but was the game's designated Shat-Upon target. She starts the game clearly into Squall, but is trying to be discreet and semi-professional about it (since she outranks him), but gets completely left in the dust. The game never did explain to my satisfaction why Squall ignored Quistis, but fell in Wuv, Twue Wuv with Rinoa the instant he meets her. Even a "sorry, I just have a thing for girls with dark hair, and you're a blonde, Quistis, and thus not my type" would've been enough.
Oh, and did I mention that Squall's an unlikeable, uncharasmatic, unsympathetic git? Because he is, and it deserves another mention. And yet, without any clear reason, everyone else thinks he'sThe Bomb.
BUT WAIT, THERE'S MORE! There were two other sequences in the story that annoyed me that deserve mention. First, a bit about halfway through the game where an Ancient Wise Elder Dude has you running your ass up and down the village road to do fetch quests and puzzles, and what's your reward in the end? You get to look at Ancient Wise Elder Dude's hand. Yep, that's it. See how wonderfully weathered and worn his hand is, the game tells you. Contemplate his ineffable wisdom that his fingernails somehow represent. Bask in the loving heart of his calluses. For once, I was in total agreement with Squall, who seemed to be of the "You Suck" school of response to this. If the game pisses off the character in the story, that can be good, if it's done in an interesting way and advances the plot. But when it pisses off the *player* as well, then there's a problem.
The second sequence had to do with the Triple Triad minigame. Now don't get me wrong, I *love* minigames. In fact, I loved the Blitzball minigame in FFX so much that Gretchen had to beg me to stop playing Blitz and move on with the plot at one point. But Triple Triad already had one strike against it with the whole "migrating house rules" crap. Apparently, in certain areas of the world, this collectible card game is played in slightly different ways -- okay, fine -- and as you travel and play, you pick up these house rules and take them with you and introduce other players in the game world to it. Wait, NOT so fine, when one of the earliest house rules you get is "Random", where you don't get to pick what cards to use in your deck -- you just get a random assortment of Goblin Dung cards. So early on, unless you're super selective on who you play with, you're doomed to play with Random rules for nearly the rest of the game, which totally screws you. But that's not the real problem. No, the real problem was when you meet Rinoa's father, who you can play Triple Triad against -- and beating him is the only way to get the Super Duper Rare "Rinoa" card. He even tells you, "I have my daughter's card, you know." Way to trebuchet me right out of the world-immersion, Square! Why would a card game that's popular worldwide in this setting have super special rare cards about a gang of teenagers? A little fourth-wall breaking can be fun, but this just didn't work for me.
Now, to be fair, the graphics in this game were fantastic, the action intense, and when I first managed to use Squall's limit break where he makes an energy gunblade that can be seen *from space*, I had serious nerdgasm. But all in all, this game still annoyed me far more than it entertained me, and that's the bottom line.
I lie, one last bit about VIII that I hated. We're introduced to the "Moomba" in this game, a little critter, vaguely lion-like, that had "designed with a plush toy in mind" written all over it. The game makes a huge point of introducing these adorable little wastes of life, with about as much subtlety as a 1950's Kids TV Host hocking Ovaltine or whatnot to their audience. The Moombas are clearly meant to capitalize on the sucess of the Chocobo and the Moogle, two previous critters from the FF franchise, but it just falls flat here. From the VIII wikipedia entry: "Moombas are covered in red fur, which the Shumi..." (the aforementioned Ancient Wise Elder Dudes) "...attribute to 'the passionate ingenuity in their hearts'" Hey fanboys and fangirls, wouldn't YOU like to write fanfics about those lovable Moombas and all their wacky adventures? No, no I would not.
Moving on.
9: Final Fantasy XII -- There was potential here, but it just didn't fly, and I'll lay the blame for this in three places: Music, Characters, and Gameplay.
The music in this game just didn't do anything for me. I know that some people point to the fact that it's the first core FF game that didn't have Nobuo Uematsu composing, but that's not the issue. There are other good game music composers out there, and even Uematsu isn't perfect, but the music in XII just didn't make an impresison. I can't recall a single tune from it.
The characters. Hurm. I wanted to like Balthier, but he never quite shook the "Han Solo with serial numbers filed off" flavor. Fran served no purpose other than fodder for teenage boys touching themselves, right down to the lovingly crafted shots of her bunny-tailed backside in far too many cutscenes. Penelo was a generic girl-next-door. Basch had potential, and was even originally slated to be the main protagonist early the development of the game, but was deemed to be too old for gamers to identify with -- 36. Okay, whatever. Vaan felt tacked on, especially bad for a viewpoint character, and the real protagonist, Ashe, never gelled in my mind. It didn't help that Ashe's outfit also felt like fetish bait. If you're not familiar with the term, go google "Zettai Ryouiki" and you'll see what I mean. Don't worry, it's nothing horrifying, it's just referring to girls who wear short skirts and thigh-high stockings or socks. If a teenybopper like Penelo was wearing "trendy" clothes like that, it wouldn't have been as bad, but Ashe is supposed to be a Deposed Princess, mourning for her dead royal husband. So why is she dressed like she's about to try and pick up boys at the Mall?
Gameplay. Oh, the gameplay. While not as deeply annoying as draining magic in the aforementioned VIII, XII made a bold experiment with real-time combat. You directly controlled one character, and set up a series of If-Then programming routines for the other characters. Good in theory, not so fun in practice, at least for me. Combat became a chore instead of something fun, and while I applaud the attempt at merging MMO combat tactics with "standard" RPG games, I didn't like the fast pace of it, and the feeling of the game "playing itself".
As in many things, Penny Arcade sums it up best. www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2006/9/8/
Despite lots of neat little touches, and interesting side chracters like Antonio Banderas -- sorry, I mean Al-Cid -- the game just became too much of a grind for me, and I gave up on it just before the final dungeon. The summons didn't excite, the quickenings got real old real fast, and I personally don't like the design choice of having all the characters function the same way. You can train Penelo to use the same weapons as Balthier, despite different starting points on their "License grids". Or have everyone train to use the exact same stuff, almost. I'd much rather have predetermined party roles, but with some freedom to customize within that framework, and even cross over into other roles. But that's just me.
8: Final Fantasy III -- The job system, used to much better effect later in FF Tactics, makes its debut here. It's a cute gimmick, and the game is full of cute gimmicks, like getting your first airship almost immediately instead of at least halfway through the story. But the substance isn't there, and the story failed to make an impression. Some classes were super useful, others just sort of there. All in all... meh. Not much else to say about it.
7: Final Fantasy V -- I'll be honest here, this is the game of the franchise that I've probably played the least, maybe ten to fifteen hours at most. So it's not bad, but it didn't make enough of a dent on my attention span to make me want to play more of it. The characters had engaging personalities, and the Job system was used again, which was kinda cool. As much as I prefer specialized character roles, I confess that unlocking new classes was rather fun, especially for the "How does Bartz as opposed to Lenna look as a Summoner?" factor. One of these days, I'll pick this up again and try it out, but I'm in no hurry.
6: We're at the halfway mark, which seems like a good time to drop the original -- Final Fantasy, no roman numeral. The thing that I loved about this game is that the story, really, is kind of an aside. The game's REALLY about killing monsters, earning Phat Lewt, and then moving on to kill BIGGER stuff. A personal favorite moment of mine is when you find Bahamut, who once you finish his quest, gives you all Super Duper Power Ups and new bad-ass sprites. And let's be honest -- nearly everyone who's played D&D has at some point been in a situation like that, where your DM decides that you all are suddenly going to be 20th level, and the cool gods like Bahamut and Marduk are your best buddies who give you lots of magic items, and you can cast Power Word Kill a lot, and get swords like Excalibur and Stormbringer... and then you can go find Asmodeus or Demogorgon and beat them up! YEAH! Roll for initative against the hordes of the Abyss, man!!!
Final Fantasy is just like that. In D&D 4th Edition terms, it runs the gamut from Heroic to Paragon to Epic, to the point that you can even GO IN SPACE, kinda like that flying saucer in that one module, Expedition From The Barrier Peaks! Where your fighter can get a LASER GUN, man!
What's to complain about? :) It's not deep, but it's fun. It certainly ate up a significant portion of my high school free time, and it set forth a nice little framework that Square has been able to build on for decades.
5: Final Fantasy IV -- This game has an important place in American gamer history, because we originally skipped getting FF II and III, and skipped right from the original game to this happy little number for the SNES. For a lot of gamers in my generation, this was the first console RPG that had a real story, with character development, foreshadowing, twists... you name it! It's overshadowed by what came later (which I'll get to in a bit), but it sure was fun. I remember some of the fights being rather tricky, and the graphics don't age very well, but man oh man, I loved this when it came out.
My fondest memory involves a spring break weekend at college my freshman year, where Fred Swetland and I were both going to be on campus for several days when everyone else we knew would be going home. So we got ahold of FFIV (which had been out for a couple years by then), hooked up my SNES to the dorm's TV, and played that sucker non-stop from start to finish, with breaks only for bathroom and ordering pizza or other food needs. I think we managed to finish it in just under 48 hours, certainly more than 36. We were both loopy as hell by the end; I was playing, Fred was consulting a guidebook and making hysterically funny commentary, and as we FINALLY took down the final boss, we both cheered as loud as we could. And then dazedly unhooked the SNES, congratulated each other on a fun weekend well spent, and crawled into bed for something like fifteen hours of sleep each. Ah, good times.
4: Final Fantasy IX -- For some reason, this game is not well thought of by many FF fans, which surprises me. It's basically a love letter to the series as a whole up to that point, reserving most of its love for the classic fantasy tropes that the older games built on, as opposed to the Techno-Magic bent of FF 6, 7, and 8. I absolutely loved the gameplay of this game. Each character has a unique role, and even characters that have some similar traits (Garnet and Eiko) have enough difference to satisfy me. Best of all, you could customize the characters' abilities somewhat with a buff system that hasn't been used since, much to my dismay.
While Zidane was a mediocre protagonist (albeit a breath of fresh air after the whiney suck that was Squall), Vivi was a lot of fun as the secondary protagonist, and I was rooting for him every step of the way. Everyone had some personality to them, buckets of it in Steiner's case, although I really wanted to see more scenes that focused on Freya and Amarant, as I thought both were quite cool. The only downside to the game is the villains. Queen Brahe was too buffoonish, and Kuja was trying too hard to be The Next Sephiroth without having enough style or sense of purpose to pull it off. Also, the final-final boss, Necron or whatever is name is, really came out of NOWHERE. Not a good way to close out the game, really. But even problems like that don't erase the raw fun of the game overall.
3: Final Fantasy VI -- Oh, this game had style, and in surplus. A world of science where magic is the new Weapon of Mass Destruction, with a masterful opening sequence that set an enthralling mood, and introduced both the villain and a compelling cast of heroes. Much to my surprise, the SNES graphics for VI have actually aged rather well, especially compared to FF IV, whose graphics looked outdated within a year of its release.
Fourteen playable heroes, each with unique flair, personality, and surprisingly deep histories. Well, for most of them, anyway. I'll forgive the lack of examination of Umaro and Gogo's childhood traumas, thank you. Kefka quickly became the villain that gamers loved to hate, although his motivations are sketchy at best -- "I'm NUTS! Everyone must die!", is about as complex as he gets. But a cool evil laugh makes up for a lot.
The game's only real flaw comes towards the latter part of the game, where it becomes obvious that learning every magic spell possible (which only becomes possible in the late game) is the path to victory, and the game slows down into a grindfest as you trade magicite between characters so everyone can learn the heavy hitters. This also takes away from each character's unique gameplay, as magic was only available to a couple of characters at first, and the special tricks most of the cast had instead of magic are second fiddle to spellcasting spam by the endgame.
But even so -- dear god, what a game! I had friends who would make a point of asking me if they could watch me while I played, the narrative was so good. The train to the underworld, fighting off an invasion in the snowy north, the Opera House -- hell, the Opera House sequence *alone* is enough to define this game as a classic, but that's just the tip of the iceberg. Let's just say that the mid-game twist "ending" left me absolutely speechless, if for no other reason than for the sheer balls it took on the part of the writers. It's one hell of a way to change the direction of the story, but it worked.
Even despite a few frustrating puzzles and the endgame grind, FF VI is a true classic. Nuff said!
2: Final Fantasy VII -- After the pure awesome of VI, many gamers were convinced that there was no way to top it, that the franchise couldn't possibly live up to the new standard.
Funny how that worked out, eh?
When the demo for VII hit, and every gamer I knew was on the edge of their seat, desperate to see more of this wonder they'd been teased with. This meant buying "Tobal #1", a crappy fighting game that the demo was packaged with, just so one could play twenty minutes worth of FF7. The graphical leap from the SNES to the Playstation was awe-inspiring, with the first view of Aeris and the cityscape of Midgar permanently etched in the memories of fans. But more to the point, the directors of VII were clearly eager to take these new graphical abilities for a spin and actually use them to enhance the story, rather than just make everything sparkly.
Three dimensional sprites for characters with three dimensional personalities. Cinematic cutscenes that have gone down in gaming history. A masterpiece soundtrack, minigames to help break the monotony, a damn cool story... and oh yeah, one other thing... SEPHIROTH. That, children, is how you make a bad guy. A terrifying bad ass from the word go, this guy became the icon of evil in videogames, easily on par with Darth Vader for pure "evil is COOL" factor. Quite frankly, no other game villain has quite managed to live up to his legacy. It's said that a hero is only as compelling as the villain he struggles against, and VII gave the heroes plenty to work with. Even if you took out The Big Sephrowski, the game still has cool villains galore. Jenova. Rufus Shinra and the Shinra Corporation. The Turks. Professor Hojo. Eventhe comic relief pimp and the giant kaiju "Weapons" had cool scenes as antagonists.
Yes, the characters had interchangable magic, with very few unique gameplay elements between them. Normally, I'd have been annoyed with this -- but dear god, the rest of the game was so incredible that I didn't care! The beautiful landscapes, the Summon animations (okay, those could get out of hand, but come on, they were COOL!), everything just fit together. I will never, ever, sell my original copy of FF VII, and I still play it from time to time.
Although -- I do have to wonder what it would be like if someone did a remake of it using PS3 graphics....hey, we can dream.
1: Final Fantasy X -- When I first sat down to write this list, I was not expecting X to be the last man standing. I was thinking it would probably be VI or VII, but the more I thought about it, the more I realized that X had just barely edged the other two out.
X was the first FF game to have access to photo-realistic graphics, and I'd be a liar if I said it wasn't a factor. Gorgeous flowing water, the cityscape of Zanarkand, the crowds, the lights -- this game had me hooked right at the start. But the story was at least as strong as any FF game before it, with a cast of heroes that you could really sink your teeth into. I know some folks hated Tidus, but I liked him as a protagonist. He was written well, he had human flaws I could empathize with, and his conflict with Jecht at the core of his character gave him a depth I appreciated.
The combat gameplay is absolute perfection. Turn-based, and using the entire party, rotated in and out on the fly. Every character has their own unique tricks, and good ones at that -- but with the Sphere Grid system, you could have characters train against their usual path, and double with other heroes if that floated your boat. You even had Kimahri, who could go the Jack of all trades route, or become a duplicate of someone else's combat role that you wanted more of -- I usually made him a secondary tank ala Auron.
I've already mentioned above how much I loved Blitzball, but let me say this here -- I would've paid for a game that was nothing *but* Blitzball, that's how much I enjoyed it.
The talented voice cast made for a nice touch, although it did add one slight wrinkle. In most FF games, you can name your characters whatever you want, although there is a default name to fall back on. You can't do that in FFX, save for Tidus, and even allowing that namechange required the script to never ever refer to Tidus by name. Instead it's "new kid", "hey you, get over here", things like that. But it's subtly done, so no worries.
X's only real weakness is its villains. Seymour is inevitably compared against Sephiroth, and comes far short. He's not horrible, but he's got a truely bizzare outfit and hairstyle that detracts from his presence, and he's just not especially interesting. He neither adds nor takes away from the game. Jecht actually works far better as an antagonist, even if his screentime is so limited; his relationship with Tidus, as mentioned, really helps drive the plot in ways I didn't expect. Sin is more of a force of nature than a villain, although it's still very cool to behold. Strangely, the ultimate evil *behind* Sin is never actually seen onscreen, which is a little odd, but doesn't detract too much.
I have to give a special shoutout to the soundtrack for X. One song in particular, the theme for Besaid Island, is practically hypnotic. It immediately relaxes me, and was the perfect music for the scenes that used it. And the rest of the soundtrack is pretty damn fine as well.
So that's my order of preference. Your order may be different, but this one works for me.
It's funny -- as I wrote this, I realized how the Final Fantasy franchise has shaped my game system buying. I bought an NES specifically so I could play Final Fantasy I. Final Fantasy VI was the driving force behind my SNES purchase. I walked out of Toys R Us with a Playstation and FFVII in my hands at the same time, and I got that PS1 modded specifically so I could play the Japanese demo of FFVIII months before it was released in the states. My PS2 purchase was done with FFX in mind, and I have promised myself that I will buy a PS3 no later than this march, which is the projected release date of FFXIII -- although there are plenty of other games for the PS3 that I want as well.
I'm not a slave to Square Enix, though. While I'm willing to give most Final Fantasy/Square games a good solid try, not all of them are created equal. Some are just plain bad (coughSagaFrontiercough) , while others (Final Fantasy Tactics and Chrono Trigger in particular) are at least as good as the best of the core FF games. But I can comfortably say that Square's track record is solid enough that I will always give them the benefit of the doubt.
Hrm. I wonder if there's any other game franchise I could write about like this?