Six Innovations (that is to say, FF6 innovations, not six in total) pt 1/3

So, according to Kamarile, I apparently love the hell out of game mechanics.   A typical IM conversation for us today led to the topics of our next two posts -- we discovered that she loves plot and story, and I love cool mechanics and the methods by which you convey yourself from plot point to plot point. And it's true.   You've seen on this very blog an argument about games with great plot and bad gameplay and with superb gameplay but atrocious plot.   I still believe, on some level, that great mechanics will forgive really poor plot.   I'm not so sure about the other way 'round. But, back to Final Fantasy 6.   The first cool thing about it is the sheer number of characters you have.   Look at them!   There's fourteen!   And, shocker, they're all unique!   They're not like, generic mage type person #316, and random chick with giant gozongas #4. Other games have had a lot of characters, and they've been unique, but here, you've got a chick that can double her magic power, a friendly thief, a samurai that turns time into powerful attacks, a ninja who can throw, a sexbomb who can use machinery, a body builder who uses a street fighter style mechanic to deal damage, a girl who can absorb magic, a blue mage, a kid who can control people, a sexbomb who can use slots, a moogle that can berserk himself and dance, a wind god who can take on the attacks of pretty much any enemy in the game, a character who CAN do anything in the game.... And, um, a sasquatch.   Hey, they can't all be winners.

Step one, put a pointer in that box.     Step two, throw a PC in that box....

 

Another innovation, and my favorite mechanic by far to be honest, is multi-party dungeons.    Check it.  There's Gau.   But wait!  There's Gogo!  How can this be?   Law clearly dictates that you must wander around the world with no more than 3 of your friends, all compacted into the space of one person. This is one of those mechanics that is used well, and used at the right times.   There are a whole two dungeons in the World of Ruin that use this mechanic -- the final dungeon, and the Phoenix Cave.  (The GBA version has a third, bonus dungeon that employs this mechanic.) This is nice, because it allows you to explore the depth and variety of all the cool characters that you end up collecting, rather than continually using a stock party of three or four characters. One might argue that you then have to spend three times longer leveling up, but, again, nothing is perfect.

If there's one thing I've learned from these games...

... it's that family is a beautiful thing. If your brother becomes some sort of black-garbed, cackling villain, all that you need to do is stage an intervention with your uncle if you want him to realize the error of his ways. Even deadbeat dads who are also hitmen can provide you with free puppies, if you play your cards right. Isn't that great? Families are so special.

However, there is one thing that you should know when it comes to families. And that is that you should never have grandchildren. Because if you have grandchildren, YOU WILL DIE. This isn't a value judgement or anything; it's a cosmic rule of the universe. Nothing shows this better than FF6.

Exhibit A: A healthy, happy, Cid, dressed like a condom, as is his wont.


Aww, isn't that nice? A happy reunion. But uh oh, what's this?


WHAT?! Celes wants Cid to be a grandpa? No, Cid!! No! Don't do it!!


SEE? The instand that Cid becomes a grandfather figure, he is stricken with a mortal illness that I am too lazy to cure.




Oh Cid... it didn't have to be like this.

From all of us here at Blogging Final Fantasy

We want to wish you a happy Thanksgiving.   Or a Happy 'Hey, the Americans are stuffing their faces today, so why don't we do it too, eh?" day, if you don't celebrate a Thursday in November by gobbling down six pounds of Turkey and two liters of cranberry sauce.

 

A treatise on Kefka, pt. 2

So, when we left off, I was talking about the fact that Kefka, more so than other FF villains, is awesome, only because there are so many human elements to identify with. (Again, see also: FFVI, better translation). Kefka is not just a pretty face. Kefka is not just 'human'. Kefka's smart. Completely off his rocker, true, but smart. It's pretty common knowledge that the party will take whatever their arch-nemesis (or anyone else) says on blind faith, but Kefka uses that to his full advantage. So, let's set the scene. We've got the party, who is planning on bringing down the Empire with the aide of one of their formal generals. Locke has been all, "OMG you guys, Celes is so totally on our side, like, y'know? Sure! She's torched a few cities in her time, but, like, totally reformed, 'kay?" Other party members were reluctant, at first, but remember -- the heroes believe anything anyone ever says. Ever. So, they welcome Celes into the fold. Cake and ice cream are had by all. Then they break into the Empire's Esper-draining facility and interactive learnatorium, where they run into Kefka. Kefka explains they totally fell into this awesome trap orchestrated by Celes. And Locke is all emo and sad, and Celes is all nuh-uh, but they still choose to believe Kefka, sending us in an emo-tinged downward spiral that will last the rest of the damn game.

A villain, trying to break up the heroes? This is nonsense!

Even after this -- your party still has to go back and ask the Emperor at a later date: "So, now that you're getting your asses stomped by a bunch of ultra-powerful pseudo-monsters, and we're the only people who can save your power-grubbing hides, and I know you've betrayed us once before, but you'd definitely never do it again... [pause to catch breath]... Is Celes really a spy, or can we trust her. Like we trust you now. Because we're good friends." This, also, might explain away the script problems with a good 'there's not enough storage space to hold all the implied dialogue. ...The more I think about it, Kefka might be a good villain just because he, and by extension, the Empire, are just damn clever. ...or maybe your party is dumber than a box of rocks. Six of one, half a dozen of the other.

Oh my hero, so far away now. Will I ever see your smile?

Yo, we need to post about the opera. What can we say about the opera?

What can't we say about it? It's probably the first epic cutscene in Final Fantasy history.

I guess. It's hard for me to call it purely a cutscene, because it's so interactive.

It's interactive, in that you have to click a few buttons.

Well, and fight a boss battle.

I don't consider, say, the struggle out of the gas chamber a cutscene, in FFVII. But this is more scene than not.

That's true. Now, why exactly has this particular scene become the definining FF6 scene in the minds of fanboys and -girls like ourselves? Wait, that's a rhetorical question. I have an answer.

I don't know-- maybe it's just that it's got cute opera music.

That's part of it. like, what I said about music and graphics being really important to the game's aesthetic? That's true here.

That's true-- the music is great, and on top of it all, it's a very funny scene too.

That's the nail on the head there. Like, I think you can look at the opera scene as a microcosm of all that's great about FF6. You start it out with this overture, yeah? It's this kind of dramatic prelude, and then this guy promptly takes a pratfall in front of all these chocobos running across the stage. Then Locke goes down into the dressing room to see Celes, and there's this kind of emo yet understated love scene, where neither of them admits that they want to jump the other's bones, but you know it's true. OTP.

Yeah, it's almost very highschool romance. "Tee-hee, you're pretty." "(omg, he thinks I'm pretty!) Uh, we'd better study the score one last time!" "Yeah, that's what my last girlfriend said!"

Oh, there's a tinge more emo to it. She's all like, are you only helping me because I remind you of your dead girlfriend whose corpse is being preserved in an old man's basement on your instructions and whose death you obsess over and feel responsible for? And he's like, um, I like your hair.

I was trying to gloss over all the damn emo.

But like, there's emo AND there's hilarity!

It's like watching Panic! at the Disco fall off stage and hurt themselves!

Yeah! Like, then you have the aria, which is kind of silly and kind of touching at the same time. I mean, when you have to dance with the ghost of Draco? Annoying and hilarious.

The aria is the very essence of FF music to me. That, and by extension, Celes' theme. Those two become the cornerstone of token female lead themes to me.

I agree. I think it's one of the most, if not the most, beautiful melodies Nobuo ever wrote.

I'd have to agree. I can't really think of any other piece that reminds me of future ones to come. Mainly because, while good, most of the other songs aren't very memorable.

I mean, I think the character theme work in FF6 is superb. There are a bunch of characters with really great melodic themes. Should I rattle off a few? Terra. Kefka. Gau.

VI probably has the best musical score ever.

The Figaro boys. Shadow. Relm. etc.

There's not really a bad song in the game.

Well, there's that Locke Throws Up on a Boat music.

I always crack a smile at the colosseum music. You have this very dramatic, serious, and somewhat sad overworld music. And then you step into the colosseum and it's like you walked into Vegas.

Ragtime Vegas.

I'd make a crude joke about now, but that'd be an insult to the opera, so I'll not.

Okay, good; I love the opera. Wait, that's what we were talking about, right?

Originally, I think. The oepra really perfects what is 'good' about FF6, so it's easy to get distracted.

But yeah, you have the kind of poignant aria immediately followed by the silliness of the dance, the duel, and the Ultros fight. My favorite part is how he announces that it will take him five minutes to push a weight onto the stage.

Yeah, and then the clock pops up and you're like, wow, Ultros has mad physics skills. And even the battle with Ultros is ridiculous, because he's pretty much a big purple wuss.

So like, the people who are all "The opera is the best part about FF6 because it is so moving and deep" are wrong. We're right. PS, Matty: FF6 opera original:



or FF6 opera advance?



Original, I'd have to say. Though the advance was interesting in terms of novelty.

It's hard for me to say.

I figured you'd be a purist.

I like the new translation because it fits the lines of the melody, and I like the improved synth voices. But the sound quality in general is so, so, so much better on the SNES. I can't decide. Both have their pros and cons.

That's true-- all other things being equal, you have to defer to the classic. I suppose it's telling they couldn't really make the opera 'better.' And making it 3D, Can you imagine how irritating it'd be to chase that loser dude during the dance?

I'd still play it, though. And you would too. Don't deny it!

Oh, I'd play it. But I'd also show pictures of Celes sneaking up from behind to do the lambada instead of the waltz.

In conclusion, the opera scene is awesome. of course, opera makes everything cooler. Could you imagine this game being made today? Celes would be singing J-pop in booty shorts, and there'd be a remix over the ending credits sung by some helium-voiced Japanese lady.

You know, I bet that, somewhere, there's a remix of the opera done with Yuna in short shorts.

Yuck.

Things I don't like about FFVI, pt. 1

While I'm waiting for Kamarile to man up and post something....

I'll admit.  FFVI isn't perfect.  *gasp* *shock* *horror*.   Now that we're done with that... this is actually less a complaint about FFVI, and more a complaint about American censorship.   Let me present to you, the discerning audience, the following scene.

 

Now, I'm not a big-city lawyer, but one doesn't often take a 'leap of faith' when you're feeling down.   It certainly doesn't perk you right up.   But there it is.   Why include this scene at all?    Sure, Cid has died, and she's sad, and boo-hoo, end of the world trauma.   She goes to the cliff, jumps, and wakes up on the beach crying.    You could have easily just skipped the cliff and jumped to the beachside boo-hoo.

Ah well.

Also?  Funniest thing ever?

Hee.  They're pooing.

Cool things about FFVI, pt. 1

So, there are a lot of cool things about FFVI.   Compared to its predecessors, this is a pretty damn story driven game.   I mean, there are times where you can't go two minutes without unearthing some sort of delicious pre-CGI rendering cutscene. It's especially nice for people like me, who are used to the era of 'you must visit every single town and talk to every single person multiple times in order to figure out what to do next.'.  This?  Not so much a problem in FFVI.  The story drives itself very well, and you could go through much of the game and not be at a loss to your next objective. But -- if you're a fan of backstory and exposition?  You can learn a surprising amount by just walking into town.   For example -- visit Locke's hometown?  You're treated to a sepia-toned montage of his first true love.  Take Sabin back to Figaro with Edgar?  You get the story of why Sabin left to become a steroid-addled gym jockey with a heart of gold.   (For those who don't know -- their dear old dad kicked it, and wanted them both to lead Figaro into the next generation of greatness.   Sabin wanted only to go out and work to avenge the death of Daddy by righting all wrongs.   Edgar suggested settling it with a coin flip -- heads he goes to lead his life, tails he stays and becomes King.)  It's heartwarming, is what it is.   In fact, I'd wager that most people don't see a quarter of the dialogue in the game during their first walkthroughs.    So much of the inner content is based upon not only where you go, but when and with whom.

Here's a good tip if you want to design a game.  Sepia = nostalgia.

 

See also -- Sabin/Edgar backstory

Even if you aren't thorough -- the game is very heavily plot driven.   A lot of seemingly innocent scenes, though, gain extra meaning when you visit them with the right people.     Like this scene where Celes hustles Setzer out of his airship by offering her pristine vee up on the betting table.   Heads?  The airship is ours.  Tails?  Mine is yours. As you can see, I took Gau and Sabin (Locke and Celes are mandatory for this point in the game).   If, instead, I had taken Sabin and Edgar, there would be additional dialogue in this scene.   Sabin will say:  "That coin...?  BIG BROTHER!!! Don't tell me...".   This ties back into the Figaro story mentioned above. It's a tremendous attention to detail, I think.   Even minor, non-party characters have plot.   From Duane and Katrin, with their blossoming romance, to the poor sick soldier in Mobliz and his love Lola. This isn't to say that the other Final Fantasies have failed in their mission to tell a good story.... but FFVI, I think, is where they perfected it to an art form.

Mail time!

We have decided to take a quick break from your regularly scheduled blogging... to dive into the mailbag and answer some reader questions and comments! Here goes!

Re: the tombstone in Elf Town in FF1:

"I'm curious if "here lies Link" was in the original version, I may have to go back and check, because I never recall noticing that. If it was, that's cool."

I think it was originally a DQ reference. Right? Like, here lies Erdrick.

I know there's a tombstone in some game that says that. It might be a DQ game, though. I'd have to fire it up and play through.

(A quick Google determines that the original NES text was indeed “here lies Erdrick.”)

"Just started reading this blog, and it's neat (especially since I have nowhere near enough time to actually do it myself...), but I do have to comment on this post - "dastard" is a real word, and works pretty well in context. Anyway, I'd rather someone be called a dastard than a bastard, if only because it's more interesting - bastard's used so often and for so many things these days, you know?"

Dastard is such a ducking stupid word.

I mean, I've only ever really seen that word used as an adjective. Like, “Tying maidens to train tracks is a very dastardly deed.” As a noun, it's kind of silly; as an adjective, I totally support it. Here, it does indeed come off as a motherducking poor word choice.

"But if I didn't have to choose between two options, I'd ask you guys do the King's Quests after Final Fantasies."

Ooh. King's Quest. (Note: After posting this, I realized that this is already being done at Cinder Inc. - Blogging Quest. Which is exciting, in that it saves me a bunch of money and time.)

The problem with good adventure games like KQ is that they tend to be well-written, though. Could you imagine Matty and I screencapping that much quality? What kind of jokes could we make?

We'd have to photoshop everything.

You're right, we would. That's why it's possible to do a playthrough of, say, all the Monkey Island games, but you couldn't really do a blog about it. Whereas with a console game from Japan, all you need is a screencap and you have your "Spoony Bard"s and your "Welcome to Assaram"s.

Heh. Assaram. I can't wait til we get to Rocket Town.

That doesn't mean Roberta Williams isn't the tits, of course. Here she is on the cover of the classic, “Softporn Adventure.” P.S, did you know, that the guy who voices Prince Alexander was also the voice of Disney's Beast? The more you know!

Re: Mystic Quest and its place in the FF canon:

"So is this game a FF iteration at all? Because the floating spaces is something was that there pretty intensively in both X and XII and let's not go into the morphing of final bosses."

Well, the short of it is that FF:MQ was essentially introduction into RPGs for stupid dumb Americans with more money than sense.

I liked it! I was six. Don't judge me!

I consider it to not be a part of the numbered series -- much like Tactics or what not. It borrows a lot from the series, so it's definitely a 'Final Fantasy', but it certainly doesn't qualify as a numbered iteration.

It's basically an RPG without the random encounters, buying new equipment, gaining abilities, or managing your party.

Or a platformer where you don't jump on people's heads to kill them.Though you can spend hours jumping over grannies.

Right. Although I maintain that the ability to jump makes ANY game more awesome. Didn't you ever play Xenogears and just stand on somebody's head while they're giving you a pseudo-religious spiel? It's great!

You can't jump in numbered Final Fantasies, though. It'd require too much processing power to do the physics on the busty heroines.

Sad but true.

Re: homoeroticism in FF3:

"[T]hey're face to face! that isn't spooning. "

Okay, I admit it, you're right. They're laying in bed, gazing longingly into each others' eyes. Just be glad I didn't post the pic of your guy doing the same thing with the 10 year old prince.

Your mom was doing the same thing with the 10 year old prince last night. Zing!

Wait, did I use that screencap? I still have it.

"The other reason I hated FF3 (I plyed the DS version, though) is the fact that there are no save points in the final dungeon (or any other one, I guess), so after 3 attempts at finishing the game (losing on the last Dark Cloud battle each time) I just gave up, ."

FF3 was probably the truest early game in terms of difficulty. Who needs to save? Not real gamers!

I feel guilty about not having done 1 and 2 in their original forms. Had I known that their difficulty would be so reduced, I would have stuck to the originals.

Yeah, and you'd have given up on this project a long time ago. It took you, what, three years to beat DQ4?

Yeah, but since then, I've gotten really good at level grinding! Really!

Too bad you don't have to ever do it again.

Re: our query about FF3 DS:

"Nope, there's still no save points in the dungeons in ff3 ds.

Btw, I really think its a great idea that phoenix down can't be brought in stores."

I think that's a neat idea too. It adds a level of planning to the games that the others don't have. (The no save points n that final dungeon? Not so much. At least on an emulator, there are save states... and I'm not ashamed to admit, I used them for this playthrough.)

I disagree - I love the ability to resurrect people on the fly, but I don't think the downs should cost as much as a potion. Slap a 10k price tag on them, making dying something you can recover from, but still painful. Modern final fantasies, it's often easier to kill and resurrect a party member than to heal their statuses.

True dat. Take FF6 as an example: Fenix downs are 300 GP, and Remedies are 1000 GP. Wait, or are they 500 GP? I forget. But Remedies are either more expensive than they should be, or Fenix downs are cheaper than they should be.s

FF6, of course, you just equip a ribbon on them and it takes the status away. And, considering how early in the game you GET a ribbon...

Well, you have to know the game really well to find the South Figaro ribbon.

That's true - you have to be persistant enough to find that damn staircase.

And then the chest itself is hidden from view even in that secret room. That sort of secret is more a reward to those kids whose parents let them spend money on guides.

Possibly. I don't ever recall really seeing many guides to video games when I was younger, though.

I owned the Secret of Mana one! It was the only way I could advance in that game, since my 9 year old mind didn't quite understand that you were supposed to level up in an RPG, since Mystic Quest didn't teach me about levelling up. Don't judge me!

Ugh. I still remember when you tried to make us do a SoM SCC.

What the duck, I did? How could that even work? Those ghosts would just get stuck behind everything. Duck them.

Who knew ghosts couldn't walk through walls?

Artadius of Blogging Dragon Quest writes:

"What I remember from FF2 (US) way back in the day was that it was the first console RPG that I found that if you never ever ran from a battle (i.e. fought every battle you encountered) you never had to worry about grinding up levels to beat the game.

That was a wild and totally foreign concept to me at the time. When I found out many years later that it was dumbed down for it's American release... I could definitely see that.

It's still a fun game though.

Speaking of which, did you hear recently that they were remaking this game for the DS? Apparently they left out three quarters of the full plot and storyline from the original release and that they're planning on stuffing that back into the new version that they're working on. Sounds awesome!"

Artadius! Get back to your blog.

Yes - this is true. Also? I'm excited about all these DS remakes. It's tiny 3d Terra! Marvel at her esper boobies!

I'm not so much of an FF4 purist that I would disapprove of a 3d version. I think that's an awesome idea. Also, as the one who played the hardtype for the playthrough, it's not that much harder. You feel it in a couple of battles, notably the timed ones like Odin and the Evil Wall, but that's about it. Remember that for all the increased difficulty, you also get a lot of items that were cut for the American release.

I mean, I enjoy a little grinding, but not so much that you have to spend five hours doing it.

Artadius also writes, re: FF6:

"My favorite was to play each character like a specific class from a previous FF game. You then can only use skills appropriate to that class plus any skills they inherently start with or get granted with through normal gameplay. For instance, Edgar makes a great Dragoon with lances and heavy armor equipped + jump boots. But, that means no spell casting at all for him. "

That's what I think we're doing in FF7.

Because that way, you'd end up having to use all your guys, instead of just the same 3 over and over again. (Cloud-Cid-Yuffie ftw! Am I the only one who uses that party?)

Doubtful - it's a pretty standard one. Cloud and Cid have the 3x AP weapons, Yuffie can use the conformer to morph things easily.

Barret and Yuffie are my favorites, just because ranged weapons are so useful.

We'd have to figure out what archetype each character is first, though.

And Yuffie has a healing limit, which is very handy afteray aerisay iesday.

Omg, oilerspays.

Even more Artadius:

"I started FF V a long time ago with one of the translation patches...but didn't get too far.

It seems pretty fun though, I like the job system.

You're making me want to play it. Sadly, the DQ series has priority! Maybe afterwards we should do a guest blog on each other's sites "

Yes, start posting again!

We could totally rock the pants off a DQ blogging session.

Re: FF6:

"I'm looking forward to this. I remember getting the guide when I was subscribing to Nintendo Power and I read through it months before I ever owned it. I ended up buying it used when I travelled with my dad to Columbus for his work.

With the foreknowledge, anticipation and actual goodness of the game it really solidified my like of FF and RPGs.

Sabin always ended up as my uber character. I wanted him in my main party all the time so he had all the spells but never really used them since he was using the fire attack (which hit all enemies) or the bum rush (I think it was called something like that). I always thought Terra was more powerful than she was and ditched her quick. Cyan was good for the multiple hits. Gau was usually pretty worthless but I remember trying to get all of his monster abilities. I think that's where I stopped on my last play-through.

I don't know how much of a challenge it would be but I wonder how interesting a game would be if you used Relm, Gau, and Terra as the main adventuring party. Well, they were always weak in my game, so I don't how much of a challenge it would be."

I never used Cyan, actually. Gau and Terra are two of the most powerful characters, though.

Gau is the single most useful character in the entire game. I'm not even kidding you. I never appreciated him until I did a LLG, where Gau is essential.

It requires a lot of optimization, but once you do it? There's a rage for every occasion. You can even do a Gau SCC!

There IS a rage for every situation. How does your saying go, Matty? Atma-- Magic Pot. Kefka-- Magic Pot. Tea-- Magic Pot. I like to use Cyan, actually, although he's pretty useless in a LLG.

I never use Cyan in a normal game, really.

I always liked him as a guy and so I put him in my party. Don't you ever do that? Make a party of your favorite guys regardless of how good they are?

Locke, Edgar, Sabin, and Gau are a very standard party for me.

Celes - Locke - Edgar - Sabin was always my favorite, with Edgar being the most expendable of those.

I didn't really ever identify with Cyan. He was a little too borderline emo for me. Which is funny, considering how emo this game will get.

Celes is an emosaurus rex. And so's Locke, Matty. Come on. You know you only use him because he is dreamy.

He does have a cute finger wag.

I think that if we were to discuss the FF6 characters, we'd have to put them into several groups: characters that are undeniably great, characters that are maybe a little underrated, characters that are maybe a little overrated, and characters that ducking suck.

I think, depending on what game style you're doing, that list changes too.

For reals. Like, Relm is unusable in a Natural Magic Game, because her draw is her insanely high magic power, but she doesn't learn spells on her own like Terra and Celes do.

It's unfortunate for characters like Relm and Strago that join so late -- I could see Strago as being more useful if he joined early in the game. I also wish you got to keep Banon. Now THERE'S a useful character.

Strago's problem is that, while he gets cool blue magic (Step mine ftw), the MP costs are prohibitively high. So you really have to give him a Gold Hairpin or an Economizer for him to be useful.

The other problem with Strago was all the backfarming getting him to be useful required.

Well, there's always the veldt. If I was getting Gau's rages, I'd just take Strago and Relm along too. If you're doing one, you'd might as well do the other.

That's true.

Anyway, because Blue Magic is allowed in a No-esper game, Strago has a handy niche. Let's classify these characters: Ones that are insanely good? I'll start: Celes and Terra.

Gau. Gau, Gau, and Gau.

Gau gets an asterisk though, because he's only as good as the amount of time you put into him.

I don't know that Celes is insanely good, though. I think if she's in group 1, she's near the bottom.

Well, it's the mblock that does it.

That's true. It depends on if you're paying a working version or not.

Mblock is still useful even when the evade bug is fixed, just not AS useful. To be fair, Terra can get perfect mblock too, but not quite as easily as Celes. People say you have to choose between them because they have the same equips, but you don't really. Like, I always give Terra the Atma weapon instead of Celes because it doesn't take Runic. And then Celes get the Illumina, and all is well.

Any character though, with Merit Award, can get pretty damn close. I mean, Umaro can easily get 255 defense.

Yeah, but Umaro is in a category of suck by himself. I can think of only one use for Umaro, and that is as part of the Magimaster strategy in a no esper game.

That's very true too.

I find Runic more useful than Morph in LLGs, too, where defense takes priority over offense most of the time. In normal games, though, you never need to use Runic after TunnelArmr.

I think morph is more useful, due to rod breaking, but meh.

Well, you can only break so many rods before your game is no longer legit. But I digress. I think Locke, Edgar, Sabin, Mog, are quality characters, but not quite as good as Terra, Gau, and Celes. Like, Mog can get perfect defense, but so can Gau, and Rage is so much better than Dance it's not even funny.

Dance is usually a hindrance. "Insta-death!" "Revive!"

I think Cyan is overrated, because of the amount of time it takes to use his skill. The thing you can say in his defense is that all his weapons are unique, so you never have to give equipment to him that you would otherwise give to someone else. The Tempest is actually a sweet weapon to have, as well.

That's true - but his attacks tie up all your party while you wait for them to charge. So really, you're stuck using 'fight' most of the time.

Oh, and Shadow, also a quality character. Equips are not that great, but the Interceptor attacks more than makes up for it, IMO.

I love watching that dog block 9000 points of damage and then come back to rip out a throat.

Love that dog. Right, so the only character in the game that sucks is Umaro. And sort of Cyan.

Right. And sort-of-Relm. Setzer rocks, if only because of his loaded dice and the usefulness thereof in an LLG.

Right. Without the Fixed Dice, Setzer would be lame.

Though it is fun using slots to cast espers in a no-esper game.

Fun, but hard to do. I just keep getting Chocobop over and over again.

Mugu Mugu!?

Ugh, don't even get me started on ducking Lagomorph. Anyway, were we answering questions?

I don't remember, anymore.

“I just found the blog yesterday, so I wanted to go back to 5 for a minute. What were the differences in gameplay in ff5a compared to ff5j? Was exp, ap, etc. handed out in different quantities and were your abilities roided out like in Dawn of Souls?"

I don't think there was a difference... was there?

Not that I could tell. It was pretty true to course, really. Though the difficulty was probably knocked down a tiny bit for 5a.

I believe the Advance remakes are mainly ports with new translations and some bonus content, unlike the NES ones where changed the xp and gold ratios. The reason we didn't play FF4a, though, is because apparently there is a bug that drastically messes with the ATB, and makes enemies absurdly easy. But I don't think that was intentional, and I don't think there were any intentional difficulty decreases in any of the SNES advance remakes.

Oh, and to all the people suggesting challenges: we just gave up and did a normal run. The only difficult challenges that we haven't done are things like Celes-Edgar-Setzer and the one where you do CES except you use the bug that turns Celes into a weaponless moogle. And we couldn't do those for the purpose of the blog, for obvious reasons.

I'm actually doing no-espers, Kammy.

Oh, you are? Well then, I guess I'm a lamezor noob.

You said it - not me.

Re: the demise of Blogging Zelda:

"Nuts. I was enjoying that one, as well as the blogging DQ fella (and you guys too), who also has been taking a bit of a break.

Certainly this means you will take over the zelda duties when you finish all 300 FF games?"

We should take over for our fallen comrades, you know? But you're a poor college student, so I doubt you could get all the N64 zeldas and what not.

Actually, I just did a quick replay of OOT a little while ago, when I should have been conceentrating on the blog. I'm sorry! I wanted to ride a horse and shoot some arrows!

Priorities, Kam.

Also, we'll see if we ever want to play video games again once we're done with FF12.

Yeah, that I'm not looking forward to.

"Are you bored from doing FF6 for the 1545654th time ?"

No!

You know, this is also the 1,545,654th time that I'm doing Matola's mother, coincidentally.

Zing.

And she still keeps it interesting. Just like FF6!

"I've been around a lot of Final Fantasy geeks. I've seen almost every argument possible.

You guys do an exceptional job of discussing the games. Not glossing over flaws, not putting them on a pedestal, but realistically talking about them. And it's clear that you enjoy them."

It's honestly hard to find any discussion about video games on the internet that isn't fanboys irrationally loving a game or haters irrationally hating a game. You know what I'm saying, Matty?

That's true. And we're not trying to be real -- we just like making jokes about things that aren't dirty, but SEEM dirty. Like Titicaca. Or Seattle.

I mean, even the games in the series that we love have their moments of utter ridonkulousness.

FF6, for example. Our posts have primarily been about how Edgar ain't nothin but a horndog, shagging all the time.

Aw, but you've gotta love Edgar. It's funny, but every professional review you read of a FF game right after its release gives it perfect scores. I find it hard to believe that anyone could seriously and without any reservations enjoy, say, FF12, and yet if you look it up on metacritic...

I think that's probably so that they can get advance copies of the game for free.

That's true, you can never trust the IGNs of the world.

I can guarantee you that Square's never going to go, here Matty and Kammy, have a copy of FF13 because you'll poke fun at it and be honest. Now, if we were to say pinnacle of gaming this, and epic masterpiece that.... Well, suffice to say, we'd probably be ffnerds.square-enix.com.

I don't know about you, Matty, but I'd sell out if Squeenix wanted to give me a free PS3. Did you hear that, Japan? Your games are so kawaii! ^______________^

Mega-kawaii.

Konichiwa.

Re: Matty's divisions of RPG players:

"You forgot the most important group of FF nerds: those of us who started with 7 but don't think it's the pinnacle of gaming. I have converted many people to the church of FF 6 just by insisting that it was better than 7. Anyway, I love the blog, especially since I have never played through most FF games. Keep up the good work."

Hey, FF7? Actually my first FF game, if you don't count Mystic Quest. And as we told you earlier, you shouldn't count MQ.

That's true. There is a surprising subset of people who started on 7 but still love 6. Sady, they're often drowned out by the 7 fanboys.

I love 7 too. I think 6 and 7 represent the creative peak of the series.

I agree. I think they had a few good innovations along the way (I'm actually fond of the card game in 8, for example).

The problem with 7, which we shall see in posts to come, is that a lot of the jokes are written for us. Cloud in a men's bathhouse? Check.

Cloud? Dating Barret? Check.

Tifa and Aeris prostituting themselves? Check. I mean, come on.

I'm actually really excited about 7/8/9. Since I can't play them on the go, I haven't actually enjoyed their gamey goodness for a long time now.

Well, we'll cross that bridge when we come to it. For now, that's all that we have in our mailbag.

Heh, male bag.

Stay tuned for more FF6 goodness!

PS: We are egomaniacs and love reading your comments. Thanks so much, and keep them coming!

PPS: Hehehehe... that's what she said.

A treatise on Edgar, pt. 1

I think Edgar gets a bit of a bum rap (not a word from you, Kammy!) from the two of us.   I think that *the* most common joke K and I make when we're chatting on IM is about Edgar, the date-rape King of Figaro.   I mean, ostensibly, Edgar is a good guy.    I'm not sure why his initial description calls him an ally to the Empire, only to have them tell you ten minutes later that he is, in fact, working with the Rebel Alliance to take down the Emperor.  If they could take out those four words, and replace them with lover of fine women, you'd probably be a bit closer to truth where Eddy is concerned. Edgar, to me, is a lot like a freshman, living away from home for the first time, and trying to find his identity in an alcohol-tinged year at Uni.  There's no denying that he's a genuinely nice guy -- he is, after all, working to overthrow the forces of evil. However, he's got a bit of an exaggerated machismo, in that he more or less catcalls at every smoking hot babe that happens to wander through Figaro proper.    Which is good -- I like that pretty much every hero in your party is flawed somehow.   Now -- I don't have too much more to say about Edgar, but instead, I'd like to present you with this photographic montage of the good King of Figaro.

Most misleading intro ever.

 

 

(Yes, I know I'm taking this out of context -- but it makes for the funneh!)

Edgar!  Getting what he wants through the pretty!

Edgar!  Equal opprotunity lover!

You know it's bad...

...when I'm not even halfway through the game and I already have well over 300 screencaps. I could go on for pages upon pages with pictures captioned with "that's what she said!", or "yeah, in her PANTS."






That's what she said!











Yeah, an inside look at Celes's pants!

Come on, look at his face. You know that's what he's thinking.

While I'm working on my next post...

Aww. This is all.

A treatise on Kefka, pt. 1

Kamarile and I talk about a lot of Final Fantasy (more so since the Advent of our Blog), usually when I'm at work on a conference call and am desperate for something to break the tedium of my day to day life. Today, I threw out a comment about which Final Fantasy was the darkest. I think it's something I'll revisit, but, it got me thinking about Kefka. Kefka, you see, crosses the line between everyday villany, and cartoonish super-villany. Before I get too deep into this, think back to our villains of Final Fantasies past. Final Fantasy 1 has an evil being (Chaos), who creates a time paradox in order to live forever. Final Fantasy 2 is essentially Star Wars, Episodes IV and V, complete with evil emperor trying to take over the world. Final Fantasy 3 is you fighting a big mean cloud and trying to restore the balance of the Crystals -- and the world! Final Fantasy 4, I think, is where we start getting a little more evil with our villains. Golbez is essentially trying to transplant all of the moon people onto the Earth, and thinks he has to kill all the humans to do it. Final Fantasy 5, of course, has X-Death, an evil wizard imprisoned in another dimension because he's a bad, bad boy. (He's also a fucking tree. Don't forget about that part. -Kammy)

Kefka is ridiculously evil.

Now, let's take a look at Final Fantasy VI. We've got Kefka. Who, clearly, is our major villain, as he's evil, and has the most memorable speaking lines. This? Is a person who revels in death. Now, I know what you're thinking. Gee, Matola, there are other villains who enjoy killing their adversaries. This? Truth. The difference, in my mind, is that Kefka doesn't care who he kills, so long as they die in a horrible, painful manner. Friend, foe, ally, enemy? Doesn't matter. The only thing that DOES matter is a swift, painful death. Final Fantasy 6 is a landmark game to me in a lot of ways. I think that you'll find that you can classify a large majority of FF Fanatics into one of three groups. The first group is those that played FF1 when it first game out, or got into the genre with Dragon Quest 1. The second would be the group who joined in the SNES era, and consider this to be the pinnacle of gaming. The third played FF7 when it game out on the PS1 and think it's the pinnacle of gaming. [I assume there might be a fourth group that started on FFX. Note no such comment of it being the pinnacle of gaming].

The other, more interesting thing to me, is how flippant Kefka is. And, I can't explain it, but this behavior that is almost the complete polar opposite of the above? It makes Kefka more believable to me. Or, perhaps, I can say, more human, despite how inappropriate that sentence may seem. Kefka subscribes to the principle of vengeance at any price. He wants to be the best, and he obviously wants to have a damn good time while he does it. Very human, I think. The problem, though, is a complete and total lack of a moral compass. And, actually, morality, to me, is the overarching theme behind the game. Some games are about 'love', and 'hope', but this one? It's all about fighting for what's right. And that's why Kefka, and by extension, FF6 is such a great game. Because, when it comes down to it, haven't we all heard that little voice in the back of our head, cackling madly and telling us to give into our baser impulses? I know that I have.

I bet you've seen this screenshot before!