“AN INTRODUCTION”

Final Fantasy 3/6/VI or whatever you choose to address it as is one of my favorite games of all time. A lot of people would tend to agree that this game is an unrivaled masterpiece of role playing and gaming. However you grow older and things change and while the nostalgia certainly hasn’t worn off for this gem certain cracks grow bigger with age. In almost every video game plot (most plots in general) there will always be things that you might not think about but upon further thought become really absurd and stupid. Now some of these observations may be obvious, they may have to do with the different versions or the directorial changes made, perhaps just inane little things that no socially adjusted adult would stop to think about under normal circumstances. It’s just always fun critiquing things in this nature but I figured why not do something from an unconventional stance and poke fun at something I hold in high regard. One of my favorite things in fact: Final Fantasy 6.

However before we do that let’s get something out of the way here. I am a huge Final Fantasy fan. I absolutely adore the better games in the series and I am one of those people that will not only regard some of them as the best role playing games of all time but also as examples of some of the greatest games of all time.

We've all come to accept that the title 'Final Fantasy' is truly meaningless.

Now opinionated folk will jump all over me for making a statement like that but first let me explain where I stand on the issue. I first played the series on the NES back in ’89 or ’90 when I was only a few years old. I can already hear some of you calling bullshit on that but I was “essentially” an only child with access to a Nintendo and a whole box of games for it and I played every one of them whenever my parents weren’t bugging me to eat or go to the bathroom (not that much has changed). Now admittedly I did play Dragon Warrior first but Final Fantasy was still the first role playing game that made me want to play it for any length of time. Having said that I never beat it as a kid as I would always play it to a point and stop, or my cartridge would get bumped and the save file would get erased frustrating the living hell out of me. It’s at that point that I’d move on to something much more fast paced and immediately rewarding an experience. Though I will never forget the mystery and awe of trying to figure out what little piece was shaking around in the cartridge’s innards. I later went on to greatly enjoy the PSP remake of this game.

From there I rented Final Fantasy 2 from my local Roger’s video and absolutely fell in love with my most fondly remembered Final Fantasy that even to this day is a close call to being my favorite. Despite that fact though I never did own the game as nobody around me sold the fucking thing so I was stuck having to rent it over and over again. A year or two later in that same Roger’s came Final Fantasy 3 (the game in question) with the cute little cat on the cover. It blew me away in every way that a game should. It is one of my favorite Super Nintendo games and one of my favorite games. However, we’ll talk more about that in the coming articles…

Also really good.

Years later the Playstation came along with other consoles. The big buzz was surrounding Final Fantasy 7 and caused a lot of people to cave in and gamble with Sony’s new system. I on the other hand wasn’t swept away into the marketing ploy… that is until I started hearing the rumors that Square was putting out a Final Fantasy collection set that had both Final Fantasy 4 AND Chrono Trigger which were two games that somehow managed to completely elude my collection but never my rental history. So soon enough I had the Playstation, FF7, FF Chronicles, Crash Bandicoot 2, Legacy of Kain Blood Omen, along with like 8 demo discs (which are assloads of fun to mess around with) in my hands and I was ready to be blown away once again.

This puppy made me want a PS1. Not FF7.

Final Fantasy 7 however marked a new age of Final Fantasy in which I’ve always felt a little alienated by. The rabid fanboyism and batshit insane anime/fanfic/cosplay culture surrounding it. Before I even finished the game I was already hearing the repetitive claims of it being the “best game ever made”. The other obvious word that never stopped traveling was the “epic” death of Aeris… err Aerith which I always felt was pretty dumb. I’ll tell you upfront that I was a little underwhelmed by Final Fantasy 7 and the claims that it’s the best game in the world is utter bullshit. It’s not even the best Final Fantasy game… It’s not even the best one on the Playstation.

Aeris was a boring character anyway.

Having said that it IS a good game and it is a worthy entry to the series but Final Fantasy 7 is actually one of my least favorite games in the series. The only one in the main series that I liked less was Final Fantasy 8 (and 11 but fuck that game) which even to this day just serves to be kind of mediocre in my eyes. I was ready to give up on the series until Final Fantasy 9 came out and completely won me over again. It’s another game that I love so much that I could write about endlessly but I won’t do that. Let’s just say it’s the best non-retro Final Fantasy that exists. I actually feel that this game would’ve made a worthy book end to the entire series but alas.. One bad thing I can say about FF9 is that it started the trend of weird furry people walking around in the towns.

Some more years later the second Playstation came out and two games immediately peaked my interest. Metal Gear Solid 2 and Final Fantasy 10. It wasn’t very long before I caved in and was in love with a whole new entry in the series. A lot of people hate on FF10 and regard it as the worst in the series but they clearly have no idea what they’re talking about. Yes there are a lot of aspects of the game that are really stupid and some of them may break the game experience for you. For example the cutscenes are extremely long winded and this wouldn’t be a problem if you could skip them but you can’t. So this means that every time you die on a hard boss you have to go back to the title screen, load the game, travel back to where you fought the boss, watch the 10 minute pre-battle monologue, make yourself a coffee and a tray of fries, and then fight the boss. This was a SERIOUS problem and Squaresoft didn’t even learn their lesson because they repeated the same crap with Kingdom Hearts except those cutscenes might’ve been even longer than those found in Final Fantasy 10. All of that ranting out of the way… with the exception of the odd placement of a Rob Zombie song in two of it’s pivotal scenes I find Final Fantasy 10 to be a perfectly worthy sequel to a line of games that I hold so dearly.

Dumb.

Final Fantasy 11 switched genres of gameplay and became a lame MMO. Forgetting the fact that I hate MMO’s and find them boring on a level that has no parallel they shouldn’t have called the game Final Fantasy 11 but instead Final Fantasy Online then I wouldn’t have bought it and been profoundly ripped off by it. I feel the game was marketed under false pretenses. That and it sucks. Even more years later Final Fantasy 12 came out and while it was a very well put together game I never got into it. I have a copy that I bought brand new and only played it once. I just found the game to be boring at the time. I may finish it one day but for now it’s just kinda okay.

Oh and dear lord I almost forgot about the absolute shit bomb that Final Fantasy 10-2 was. For the first time ever Square was actually making a sequel to one of the games in the series and how do they do it? Well by removing almost all of the cast from FF10 and injecting 50cc’s of Charlies Angels right into it’s spinal core, sprinkling it with some disco fever, and finally giving the Squaresoft writers the year off. I’m serious this game was absolutely wretched. For being the first Final Fantasy “sequel” this was such a botched attempt and I’ve never seen a missed opportunity so large since then… except maybe Mario and Sonic at the Olympics games. Having said that FF10-2′s battle system was really awesome and I wished they’d have used it again in FF12 but maybe that was to avoid any lingering memories that people had with 10-2. In that regard I can’t blame them.

In Summary…

No I didn't include the Japanese FF2 and 3 or the spin offs. Except for 10-2.

With my views on the series out of the way it’s finally time to get back to the main point. In any Final Fantasy game there are strange moments whether they are because of the limitations of the game format, or because they are just plain silly. Each game has dozens and dozens of moments where you can point fun at it and go over it with a fine tooth comb. FF6 may be the least stupid in this regard or perhaps it isn’t… This is after all the main turning point in the series where the stories of Final Fantasy became more dramatic and more serious. In Final Fantasy 4 for example you could forgive the glaring stupidity of the characters a little bit more because it seemed more like an innocent and basic game. Final Fantasies beyond the fifth entry starting taking a more epic soap opera approach and this eventually became both a curse and a blessing. So even though Final Fantasy 6 is still one of my all time favorites and I love it to pieces I’m positive there will be plenty of strange and stupid moments to discuss.

Stay tuned for more gripping excitement!