Plot, schmot
You know, this challenge that we're doing makes FF5 really fun to play, even though I am currently on track to be fighting Exdeath with Faris as a berserker. It's the whole Progress Quest-ish thrill of seeing your guys learn new jobs and watching their stats go up, but I suppose that's where most of the fun in RPG gameplay lies. T
hat means that the plot in this game is just something to turbo through on my ZSNES so I can get back to gaining AP as soon as possible. Fortunately for me, the plot of this game is minimal, with none of the twists that characterized its predecessor. This is an old-fashioned game plot in the grand tradition of the 8-bit era, with quests involving "Collecting things", "Gaining more power," and "Defeating the bad guy." That said, this game does do a couple of things, plotwise, that we haven't seen before in the series.
1. Flashbacks. This is the first FF game where we actually see glimpses of individual characters' pasts. We learn about the backgrounds of the FF4 crew second-hand, but Cecil never actually flashbacks to the moon or whatever. Of course, the characters of this game are pretty much incidental to the plot for the most part, so their backgrounds wouldn't be detailed in
story-related dialogue, so flashbacks are the way to go.
The most important detail we learn from all this was that Butz's father and Galuf were part of a Light Warriors-y cabal back in the day that sealed away the evil mage tree Exdeath somehow-- because sealing away an ancient evil instead of killing it outright ALWAYS works out for the best, right?
2. Major player character death. Characters have died in FF games before. FF2 basically had a rotating party slot where people would join your party and then die heroically saving your party from a crushing boulder, exploding fortress, or whatever. The same basically held true for FF4, except it turned out that most of the people you thought were dead turned out to be magically cured, or rescued by fairies.
Galuf falls prey, once again, to the rule that old men in RPGs never survive, but he is one of five playable characters in the whole game, and so it is a much bigger deal when he dies than when, say, Tellah Meteos himself to death. It's actually kind of touching, given how little I care about the characters in this game. He totally sacrifices his life and keeps fighting while mortally wounded to keep Exdeath from killing his granddaughter. Awww. Note how your party at least TRIES a phoenix down before giving up. Do you hear that, Cloud?
hat means that the plot in this game is just something to turbo through on my ZSNES so I can get back to gaining AP as soon as possible. Fortunately for me, the plot of this game is minimal, with none of the twists that characterized its predecessor. This is an old-fashioned game plot in the grand tradition of the 8-bit era, with quests involving "Collecting things", "Gaining more power," and "Defeating the bad guy." That said, this game does do a couple of things, plotwise, that we haven't seen before in the series. 1. Flashbacks. This is the first FF game where we actually see glimpses of individual characters' pasts. We learn about the backgrounds of the FF4 crew second-hand, but Cecil never actually flashbacks to the moon or whatever. Of course, the characters of this game are pretty much incidental to the plot for the most part, so their backgrounds wouldn't be detailed in
story-related dialogue, so flashbacks are the way to go.The most important detail we learn from all this was that Butz's father and Galuf were part of a Light Warriors-y cabal back in the day that sealed away the evil mage tree Exdeath somehow-- because sealing away an ancient evil instead of killing it outright ALWAYS works out for the best, right?
2. Major player character death. Characters have died in FF games before. FF2 basically had a rotating party slot where people would join your party and then die heroically saving your party from a crushing boulder, exploding fortress, or whatever. The same basically held true for FF4, except it turned out that most of the people you thought were dead turned out to be magically cured, or rescued by fairies.
Galuf falls prey, once again, to the rule that old men in RPGs never survive, but he is one of five playable characters in the whole game, and so it is a much bigger deal when he dies than when, say, Tellah Meteos himself to death. It's actually kind of touching, given how little I care about the characters in this game. He totally sacrifices his life and keeps fighting while mortally wounded to keep Exdeath from killing his granddaughter. Awww. Note how your party at least TRIES a phoenix down before giving up. Do you hear that, Cloud?
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