Ending

Now what are we going to say about the ending to FF6?

Other than the fact the ending to FF6 is the best ending in videogame history?

You mean better than Mario 2's "It was all a dream" ending?

That was actually the exact counterpoint I was thinking of. I mean, it's easily the best FF ending compared to the prior ones, in that, I don't know, you're not fighting a fucking tree.

Interesting note: FF6 and FF5, the only games in the series with non-linear endings. Unless you count X-2, which you don't.

I can't believe you'd sully FF6 with a post about X-2. I mean, FF6's ending is brilliant. It has customized parts for every character that ties into their individual storylines. It's actually probably the most serious part of FF6, though.

Yes, two of your party members die in the escape!

Sadly, none of them are Relm.

For me, a discussion of the ending of FF6 really rests upon the music. Uematsu has three tracks in FF6 that are better than anything else he has ever done. One is the opera. One is the final boss music. And one is the ending.

This is true. I think that, occasionally, I play FF6 just for the music.

It's here that you realize how clever Uematsu really was with his character themes. Like, how he designs Celes' and Locke's themes to be played together.

Locke and Celes - together because of harmonies since 2007.

I mean, the music adds a real poignancy to the ending-- an ending that isn't really so much about what the characters are doing as who the characters are.

Somewhere on the Internet, I'm sure you've just spawned a novella about philosophy in FF6.

Well, when you look at the endings to FF4 and FF5, they're very action-oriented and happily-ever-after-ish. In FF4, seriously, everyone becomes a king, except for Kain, who becomes an emo. And in FF5, the non-linear aspect is pretty much the luck of the draw, based on who is KO'd at the end of the final battle. In FF6, your ending changes if you didn't find certain characters. Celes gets a different ending without Locke, Relm gets a different ending without Strago, Edgar gets a different one without Sabin.

That's true, there's a lot of dialogue change, but on the all, it's also a very happy ending too. Terra goes back to being a baby momma, Celes and Locke doink on a bed of bandanas... even Strago and Relm ride off into the sunset together.

That's all implied, though. It is implied that Celes and Locke get together, but they ever actually confirm their lurve throughout the entire game.

Okay, if Celes is like, hoshit, this place is collapsing, gonna die, whoops, dropped a bandana of Locke's have to go get it... that's a little more than implying.

No, but if this were FF4, we'd see the wedding.

This is true.

I think if there were a fanfic that said that Celes and Locke broke up after a year because she's too emo and he loves his ex too much, I wouldn't call that OOC.

I don't know that they've got the true love that shall live forever, but you definitely know that they're rocking it in that tent on the save circle.

Okay, I'll give you that. Another sad thing: Shadow kicks it.

Well, he was understandably emo that his partner-in-crime/partner-in-the-sack died.

Right. So, all I'm saying, is that the ending is on the bittersweet side.

It's not all rainbows and sunshine, but it's pretty cheery, really.

Of course, once everyone realizes that Terra is alive, and can be a real live human girl, everything gets SUPER happy.

Exactly. Note to Square: Better ending? Terra dies.

Oh, come on.

Look, I'm sorry. But it's true.

You have to have a heart of stone not to smile just a little when the FF Prologue music is playing, and flowers start to bloom... and Duane sits in the back room while the small children of Mobliz deliver Katarin's baby...

I mean, that could all still happen with Terra taking a dirt nap. If Terra dies, everyone goes home a little wiser.

Awww, but FF6 is all about hope! If Terra died, it would be so nihilistic.

Admit it though, you'd bawl your eyes out if she did die. They could bury her next to Leo.

No, they couldn't, because if she died, it would be because the esper part of her poofed away like the magicite!

So they could bury half of her.

Oh, whatever. You can't kill your hero at the end of the game. It just doesn't happen.

Maybe it should. Wouldn't you have liked FFX better if Yuna died? No sequels.

So what makes FF6 the best game ending ever, if Terra's survival renders it imperfect?

It's a lot like the game. It's quirky and serious. Everyone gets to play a role in your survival, even if you've neglected to level them because they suck ass.

I think I screencapped like, everything in the ending.

As did I. It's all gold. I'm just saying that I could see a very good ending where Terra dies. Or even where it's left ambiguous.

FF6 is the happy medium between the overexplained ending of FF4 and the extremely ambiguous ending of FF7.

I think that's why it's so great. It's like the baby bear's stuff in Goldilocks. It's not too this, it's not too that, it's juuuust right.

Of course, I also love the FF7 ending, but many people didn't, at the time.

The 7 ending is a lot more clear than the 7 story.

I still think that if Terra died, it would defeat the whole point of the game, which is about Terra trying to find her place in the world.

Her place in the world could be in a wooden box!

You're a meanie!

I know. I'm a horrible, horrible person. Let's see if you defend Cloud so much in FF7 when I say he should have died.

I think the same is true for FF7. The game is pointless if Cloud dies, because the game is all about trying to figure out who Cloud is.

I mean, Terra couldn't die and have the ending make sense, of course. It's silly. Cyan beating up on machines, Setzer not trusting his luck... it's like everyone grew a little bit after saving the world.

I mean, yeah. And the growing is small and incremental, and not dramatic in every case. The game doesn't overreach.

Which, for any other game, might be an insult. The game doesn't strive for some the highest peak, it chills in the middle and speaks with the people.

Like, I said before that this game is ambitious, so I'm not like, revising that or anything. I just think that it is true to its characters and to itself.

I mean, that's 6's strong point. The plot and character development. They carry that right on through to the end, without doing something silly like, I dunno, killing the main character to be edgy.

Yeah, that would be silly, wouldn't it.

And not FF6 silly, appearantly.

So, our message to Square: You go, girl.

Are there any high ranking girls at Square?

Probably not. It's Japan.

Oh, right.

Anyway, stay tuned for our FF6 edition of Games In Conclusion.

It'll be great. (And someone might die!)

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.

FF4: In Conclusion

So, Kammy, what did you think of FFIV?

I've always really enjoyed FFIV, but I loved it even more seeing it coming out of FFIII. This game represents what I consider the greatest leap in quality in the series.

There's definitely a tremendous leap in quality coming from IIIj. What's interesting, though, is I think there's a similar leap coming up.

From V to VI, you mean?

Even from IV to V. I was mildly disappointed by my memory of FFIV versus the reality.

FFIV more than any other game in the series is one that I feel was limited by the programmer's skill with the new hardware.

And the script writers' skill with the language.

I mean, people complain about the blocky early-psx graphics of VII, but those didn't really affect the game.

That's true. In terms of graphics for SNES RPGs, FFIV is pretty top-notch.

Well, of course you had to go for the lousy translation. I quite like the FF Chronicles translation, and I am fond of the old J2E, despite my having dedicated a whole post to whining about it.

That's true. But even your translation was iffy. We're going to fly a giant whale to the moon?

Dude, my translation called it the "Magical Ship," which is totally lame. I think the newer official translations go with "Lunar Whale," but I'd have to check. (Readers who comment on things, you go do some detective work and tell me if that's true!)

Lunar Whale probably tops the lot.

What I meant by the constraints of the programming, though, is the extremely brief and fast-paced nature of the game. The world is small, the songs are short, ATB battle is quick and brutal. Remember the evil wall? and Odin?

The Odin battle felt right, in terms of future games keeping with the precedent, anyway. The world is ridiculously tiny, though, and that really hurts when you're trying to dicker around with the airship.

I always thought of that as a drawback to this game, but I just came out of FF3, which had the opposite problem.

If some of the gameplay issues were tweaked in FF3, I think it could have easily been better than FF4.

I think the compressed world lends FF4 a unique feel that sets it apart from a lot of the more bloated games in the series.

It's surprising just how much bigger the world was in 3 compared to this one.

But those late-generation NES RPGs had huge worlds. Remember DQ4?

True, though DQ4 is easily the best NES RPG out there. FF5 fixes a lot of the problems with FF4. I think the storyline is better put together, the speed issue is resolved...

But somehow FF5 is not as engaging a game for me. Maybe it's that FF4 is so much a character-driven game, and that was something completely new for the series. FF2 had dabbled in this a little bit, but you spend that game carrying out the goals of Hilda and the resistance, and in FF4 it's all about Cecil personally.

True. FF4, emo-fest though it is, is definitely character-driven.

FF5's story might be better thought out, but its characters aren't. Butz, Faris, Lenna, Galuf, and Cara aren't very interesting people. (You should still read when we do FF5, though! Honest! It'll be great!) I'm willing to forgive plot holes in RPGs if I genuinely care about what happens to the people in my party.

I think that they finally get the plot quirks worked out by FF6, though that starts to waver as we go 3d.

FF4 isn't a perfect game, but it is a great name. I've called it the first great 16-bit RPG, and I will stand by that nominer. I can't think of a single RPG as influential as FF4. Seriously.

I'll agree with that. It's not the greatest, by far, but it's great considering where it's roots were.

They invented ATB! Think of how many games, past and present, have used some variant of the ATB.

Well, Square certainly stuck by it. Other groups stuck by what they'd always used, more strictly turn-based combat. FFIV is the mold, at least, by which games are built for almost a decade after, though.

But it's neat, for me, seeing the vestiges of FF3 in this game. The fat chocobos, the graphic design...

What I like about these early games, is that they all feel like they're from the same world. Though once you hit FF6, you lose that common thread of super-magical Crystals.

You also begin to lose some of the traditional class distinctions that define the earlier games (even FF2, where you had pure white mages like Minwu, or dragoons like that one guy whose name I forget.) In this game in particular, characters are defined by their classes. Rosa's all white-magey about nurturing other people, particularly her boyfriend. Gilbert/Edward is such a pussy that his skill is to hide. There's also a neat bit in this translation about how Cain became a dragoon in order to follow in his father's footsteps. And Cecil can't redeem his soul until he switches classes from Dark Knight to Paladin.

Though, when he does redeem his soul, he goes from level xx to level 1, and all his stats are strangely higher. All dragoons are following in their father's footsteps.

The funny thing is, after FF2, all white mages in the FF universe are mysteriously female.

You can't heal people with a penis. That's just silly.

I guess not. Anyway, it seems as if we can't discuss FF4 without bringing up the entire history of the series.

It's because part of what makes FF4 great is that it sets a lot of good precedent. If you don't consider that, the game falls a bit flat.

Well, the game might have fallen flat for you, but I was playing the version with porn in it. So I have to go ahead and give this game an 8.5.

Though it fell flat, I can't give an exceptionally low score. I still think it's one of the better games in the series, though there are many I enjoy a lot more. I'll give FF4 a score of 7.5.

Aw gee, Matty, lower than FF2? How could you!

I feel guilty. Really.

If we were talking in person I'd smack you in the face with a frying pan.

Which is why I'm glad we'll never, ever meet. I'll point out that you only scored it half a point higher than FF2. Which shows that the two are fairly comparable.

Just as FF5 is an improved FF3, FF4 is an improved FF2. The difference is that the makers of FF4 are still trying to adjust to the platform switch.

I think a lot of the problems weren't related to new hardware. Keep in mind, the SNES came out late 1990. FF4 popped out Mid-1991. It was probably more an issue of "Crap, there's a new console! We need a cash cow! Hurry!".

What? Cash cows? In the Final Fantasy franchise? that would NEVER happen.

It's scandalous, I know.

But it's a cash cow with heart, Matty!

You mean it's a cash cow with Light! From the Moon!

And it has a good message for the kids!

Terrorism is okay if you're doing it for a paladin?

That, and if you say your prayers, a giant spaceship will rise out of the ocean and will be yours to command.

So many good lessons.

Anyway, stay tuned as the FF Nerds whip out the next installment of our playthrough: Final Fantasy V!

Which version of FFV will you be playing, Kammy?

I will be playing some sort of fan-translated SNES rom that I found on some sketchy Geocities website somewhere.

Fantastic. I'll be playing the official version.... from the GBA!

Ergh, Reina? Lenna? Kara? Cara? How will we keep them straight?

It's like we're playing two different games!

Anyway, stick around. We'll be sure to make lots of Butz jokes.

Heh heh. Butz.


That gives FF4 an FFNerds score of 8.0. Seriously, you guys, stick around. FF5 will be fabulous.

Happy ending?

Hooray! I defeated Zeromus!







Of course I had enough power, bitch. I'm a fricking SPACE PALADIN.








Now for the ending of the game. Everyone lives happily ever after, except for Palom, who is constantly being cockblocked by his sister. The king of Fabul decides that Yang is just so great ("Fabul"ous, even?) that he has to resign and install Yang as king in his place. Edge becomes a king. Cecil marries Rosa and becomes a king... do you see where this is going?





Cain decides that this ending doesn't have enough emo, so he brings some of his own.





But the best ending of all has to go to Gilbert/Edward, the spoony bard himself. In the beginning of the game, he was a weakling who could never be in charge of anything. But now...





...he's taking initiative and leading an efficient and cost-effective child labor cabal!



You go, girl.

Attack of the fan translations!

The J2E fan translation, for its time, was a pretty sweet fan translation. Remember, guys, this was before all the official Square re-releases where they fixed all the glaring mistakes of their earlier games. This was the first FF4 hardtype that English-speakers could play. I played the original FF2e first, and this translation made me think of FF4 as one of the series' great games.

That said, it is a prime example of what I earlier described as the otaku over-eagerness to put in naughty words. It's like they were all sitting around in their mom's basement, being all, "Those evil executive bastards, giving us the pansy little kid's version of this game! FF4 is super DARK and EDGY. It is a MASTERPIECE of EPIC PROPORTIONS. Never mind the dancing pigs in Mithril Town, this is a game for ADULTS! Squaresoft is so not kawaii. Let's put in what the original Japanese scriptwriters really MEANT to say."

With that in mind, I am giving you the following montage of J2E profanity.


What?! Isn't Cain sort of, like, completely in love with Rosa, which causes him to be jealous of Cecil? Or isn't it like a Gypsy's Girl kind of thing, at least? Her being some sort of lady of the night kind of comes out of nowhere.


"Screw you" isn't a terribly naughty thing to say, but it's completely inappropriate for a mad scientist like Lugeie (the proto-Hojo) to say it. "Screw you" is what you say if you are a high school girl and your best friend totally just asked out the guy that you were crushing on since like last semester when you had bio class together. Why not a good old-fashioned "Damn you!" or "Curses!" or "And I would have gotten away with it too, if it weren't for you meddling kids!"?


Looks like that something isn't syntax.


Edge is a veritable wellspring of profanity. He is actually the character that suffers the most for it. The thing about Edge is that for a character who is egotistical and sexist, you have to find some way of making him likable and princely. If all he ever says is "Shit! Rydia, go into the kitchen and make me a fucking Chocobo pie, biatch!", then you kind of want to punt him instead of level him up.

Cid is foulmouthed too:



But what does that even MEAN?

Fly me to the moon....

When we last left off, we had, with the help of Edge, sexist Ninja, finally embarked on our mission to the moon. Well, we were, except, surprise, surprise, Kain betrayed us again. So, now that we can't take the easy way to the moon, we've got to exhaust all of our alternatives.

And, having exhausted ALL of our alternatives, we decide to fly to the moon in the legendary Big Whale. There's no mention that it's an airship until you actually acquire it -- I envisioned my party riding an orca and jumping out of the ocean with such force that we'd leave the gravitational pull of our planet, ala Free Willy on steroids.




The moon is a lot like the "Blue Planet" we came from, except the inhabitants are mildly tactless. You see, we recently learned that Cecil was a half-breed. Half moonman, half blue planetian.

Even I, crass though I can be, know that a polite conversation does not go:

Hi! I'm Cecil!

Oh! You're a half-bre... er, Hi! I'm generic moon person #281.


So, after getting horribly offended by the moon people, it's time to go back to our own planet to stop it from destruction by a giant robotic-type creature (again, watch this, robopeople are very prominent in future games). Being successful brings to light what we in the business call a 'plot twist'.

You see, Golbez is, (wait for it), Cecil's brother. Scandalous! And, there's some more moon-people racial pride. Seriously, I'm starting to wonder if the whole plan to just destroy all the humans was just race (species?) based. "Oh, we're the Lunars. We're super awesome! Let's send a giant robot to destroy all the non-Lunars!".








Of course, this drives everyone to end-game. We go to the obligatory crystal walled dungeon, have the obligatory fake ending, kill a ridiculous looking boss, and then go home for tea and cookies.











This brings us to the end of FF4.

Teetering the Edge of the Funniest Scene Ever

So, we had a suicidal airship engineer with a penchant for flashy exits recently leave the party, which means that we have a slot to fill. And look! The kid's got gumption! AND he's got some of the best conversations in the game. (Oh, come on. You've read this blog enough by now to know that I couldn't let a question like: "Haven't you tasted enough of his power?" go without an immature response like, I bet he didn't last night! [See also: Kamarile + Your Mom]).

Anyhoo, the funny conversations can't go on for long, because Angsty McCloudette gets all emo and sobby over the fact that there's been a ridiculously high body count.

No. Really. She has. See?

This is one of those times that we take fancy 3d graphics for granted. I mean, sure, the characters don't have wacky hair....

Er, okay. So maybe they do. But here, where they could have a reasonable polygon-based cry, we have to resort to "-sob- -sob-".



But, on the bright side, with all the sprites dedicated to casting spells, they can at least use those in cutscene......

Oh.

Right.

They didn't.

(In case you haven't noticed, I pretty much took a screenshot of every single line of dialogue that took place here in the cave of princely delights. They're just that good.)

Something else good -- we're almost at the end of the game! One of these mornings, readers, one of these mornings.... BAM! POW! Right to the moon!