More interesting things about FFIV

When I last left off, we were all sad because Tellah just bit the big one. Well, there's only a certain number of cutscene related deaths allowed every plot point, so we eventually broke into the chamber where Rosa, our token female white mage, was being held captive. Suspended above her head was a huge-ass iron ball. This, somehow, is a kinder, more friendly punishment than the guillotine in FFIVj. I don't know about you, but dead is dead, and a huge iron ball seems like a much worse death than choppy choppy, but maybe that's just me.

FFIV starts a few conventions which are rather irksome to me. One is the 'fake ending precisely halfway through the game'. FFVI improves on this, but really, considering how dark of a past Cecil had, surely he must understand the number one rule of gaming -- you have to kill a great evil six, maybe seven times before it's actually dead.

Also, Golbez was fairly normal looking. Evil has to have some weird crotch-related deformity.

Everyone is pretty happy for a few minutes, before the other shoe drops. Oh, wait, Golbez isn't dead? The Tower is going to explode?! We only have five minutes to live? Oh no! The cutscene death quota was sated for the time being, so we all made it out safe.

In fact, the next incident lets me break out Kamarile's favorite post tag. This is Cid. Everyone's favorite technogeek.

And world-famous suicide bomber.

I honestly wonder if this game could get published in today's standards without a crazy religious figure / homeless person / methadone addict getting on the television and talking about how it's gonna corrupt our bay-bees.

But, then again, there's not an evil Catholic church-style organization, so maybe it's okay.

FFIV - Surprisingly Controversial!

One of the really surprising things about Final Fantasy IV is just how controversial it is. Your first quest of the game involves you taking a friendly package to the village of summoners to the North. This has all the feelings of a fetch quest, but you'd be wrong if you thought this would be a Get X, Take to Y, Get Z from Y, Take Z to AA.....

In fact -- when you deliver the package to the village, it contains.... Bombs. I'll pause for a moment while you're paralyzed from laughter.

No, really. I can wait. The package was full of BOMBs. Get it? BOMBS? Ahaha.

Things go pretty smoothly from here -- I mean, he DOES kill one of our character's daughter (and another character's love interest!), when he blows up a neighboring kingdom, which pretty much causes an international incident. I mean, we have some pretty serious warmongers coming in future Final Fantasies, and maybe it's just a product of the Times that we now live in (TM), but Golbez really was the king of the preemptive strike strategery.







So, we team up with a neighboring kingdom. The boys go off to fight and kill, and the girls? Well, I can only assume they're sipping Pina Coladas and getting caught in the rain. Despite the girls taking the 'office of relief", this scene does lead to probably the most clever bit of dialogue we've seen yet.

Occasionally, the translators do hit the mark.

(Also) Starting FF2

Ah, FF2. The bastard parent of FF12. Seriously. This thing is a Star Wars / Medieval Epic crossover, except without the robots that plague the FF12iverse. (Or does it actually have bastard robots? Find out soon!)


It starts out, like any good American would want, with terrorists. Seriously. Look at their clothes. See how they're different from our clothes? And they're threatening our way of life. With Fires of Mass Destruction* (wait for our FF6 post to tie this all together).







But, seriously -- it's a great game. Any game that starts out with Black Knights (and why, exactly do the knights have to be BLACK? That's racist!) that immediately slaughter the party. Do they REALLY have to hit me for 30x the HP I have? I mean, cut a Guy (zing!) a break.








FF2 is very unique in that you can 'learn' key phrases, and then parrot them back to people for more information. This means that in order for Queen Hussywhatsits to talk to you about airships, you have to bring up the Dreadnaught. This is a grave change from 'The Castle has many soldiers!' or 'Go ye forthe, warriores ofe Lighte!' being repeated until pink goo pours forth(e) from your ears.


That aside -- I do like FF2, even though the leveling system makes no sense, and I can't really poke fun at Kamarile for self-flagellation.



...if only Rockstar made this game instead of Nintendo. That would be the secret alternate ending.