March 9, 2010   1 note
There was a time in my life when the world stopped when a Final Fantasy game was released.  Even months before the actual launch, I would brace for the excitement.  I’d record the commercials on my VCR and replay them over and over again.  I’d read every magazine article, I would call game stores just to confirm when the game was getting released, and I would call them again just to make sure nothing changed.  I would count down the days in my head (not on a calendar, I never look at calendars) to when I would be able to sit in front of the TV and power on my gaming console with the newest Final Fantasy game inside.  A new Final Fantasy game was in stores, I wanted to be the first to get my hands on it.  I actually wasn’t the first, but I was one of the first, but that was fine enough for me. The game was Final Fantasy VII.  It was September 7, 1997. Today is March 9, 2010.  The latest Final Fantasy game was released into stores 12 hours ago.   I was asleep when the first copy came off the shelves. The greatness of Final Fantasy VI Final Fantasy III (it was originally released as Final Fantasy III in the U.S.  It’s actually the sixth game in the series, so I’ll refer to the series as VI moving forward.) is my favorite game of all time, one of the few games I can go back and play over and over again to completion.  It’s the perfect Final Fantasy, which means it’s the perfect RPG.  Great characters, engaging party system, involving combat gameplay.  Most importantly, it has one of the greatest storylines and most shocking twists in gaming history.  A group of rebels spend the entire first half of the game battling an Evil Empire and trying to stop them from using magic to destroy the world…only they fail and the Empire’s Court Jester (Kefka, one of the great villains in any medium) actually does destroy the world.  I got into the series with Final Fantasy II (IV in the series), and that was an awesome game in its own right, but this was an entirely new level of gaming. I loved Final Fantasy VI so much, as soon as I beat the final boss and watched the ending, I immediately started a new game just to go through the experience again.  From Christmas 1994 to 1997, I must have played and replayed the game 10 times.  600 hours of my childhood was devoted to playing and beating Final Fantasy VI.  And I wouldn’t change a thing.  Those were 600 hours well spent.  The graphics are outdated now, but I could pick up the game tomorrow and get sucked right into the storyline.  Holy Shit, there’s gonna be a Final Fantasy VII!!! Around 1996, Squaresoft (now Square Enix) announced that Final Fantasy VII was being released for the Sony PlayStation.  Being as rabid fan, the announcement of a new Final Fantasy was like the return of Jesus to a fundamental Christian.  I couldn’t have been more excited.  For the next year, I would go to book store or an EB Games, just to leaf through the magazines for any information about FF7.  In the internet era, I would just go to IGN.com for the latest news, or hop onto XBox Live and download the trailer.  Back in 1996, I had to wait a month for an issue of EGM or Game Players and hope they had at least a couple of gameplay screenshots.  Right before I went to high school, my parents finally got a computer that could hook up to the internet.  They figured I would need to go online in order to do research for History papers or English essays.  I figured I could go into video game chat rooms to talk about playing Final Fantasy VII. Me: man, i can’t wait to play final fantasy 7.  it’s going to be the best game ever!!!!(@@!$(!!! Creepy Old Guy on the Internet: 16/F , u? Disappointment It finally came out on September 7, 1997.  The date is still burned into my memory.  I figure I could develop a case of Alzheimers and the government could perform mind control on me and I’d still remember the day Final Fantasy VII shipped.  On the ride home from the mall, I must have read the instruction booklet three times (even back then, I could read really fast).  I couldn’t believe the game was actually in my possession, the three CDs just begging to be placed into the PlayStation tray.  I played it for about a month and I loved every step of the way.  The graphics and cut scenes were revolutionary, the mid-game twist was and is the greatest in gaming, the game was fun.  But after I had struck down Sephiroth for the last time, watched the ending. I didn’t feel like playing it again.  I might have gone through the game again at some point, but I don’t remember.  It’s the most popular Final Fantasy game of all time, one of the seminal video games of all time, but to me, it wasn’t as good as the last game.  If I had to pinpoint why I didn’t like it as much, I would go right to the moment Sephiroth’s sword pierced Aeris’ torso, killing her in the most shocking video game twist ever.  Like the Final Fantasy VI twist, it completely changed the tone of the game, but the second half of Final Fantasy VI was about finding your party members and bringing them together for one final battle against Kefka.  Final Fantasy VII followed up its twist with more depressing twists like Cloud actually being manipulated by Sephiroth to the point where everything Cloud said was a lie.  The storyline becomes much less engaging after Aeris (the best character in the game) dies. As it turns out, Aeris’ death marked the end of an era for my fandom of Final Fantasy. The end of an era The next year, I got Final Fantasy VIII, which was fun, but its storyline is so forgettable I didn’t even remember the basic premise of the game until I replayed it last year when it was released on PlayStation Network.  I didn’t even get Final Fantasy IX.  I did buy Final Fantasy X, but never beat it.  And Final Fantasy XII came out four years ago and I don’t even know what the game is about.  That was the story of Final Fantasy in my life.  Games that weren’t as good as the last one.  Western developers have taken over the RPG genre, featuring morality systems, open world gameplay, and branching storylines based on the player’s decisions.  Games like Mass Effect and Fallout have taken the place of Final Fantasy as RPGs that don’t just push the genre, but push video games forward.  Not only does Mass Effect have great characters and a great storyline, but the series features one of the best storytelling devices I’ve ever seen in a video game: Importing saved games.  So the choices the player makes in the previous game affect the entire series as a whole.  After playing and beating Mass Effect 2 last month, I immediately wanted to start a new game and play through it again.  I haven’t felt that way about a game in over a decade.  Not since Final Fantasy VI. The 13th edition of the Final Fantasy series comes out today, and from reviews I’ve read on the internet, the game is far too linear, more a dungeon crawler than a traditional RPG, let alone an open world Western RPG.  It has still gotten high scores and praise for its storyline and combat system, but I’m apprehensive.  I honestly don’t know if I’m even going to like it, or whether I’m just buying the game out of tradition, because for the last 20 years, I’ve gotten the first Final Fantasy game of the current video game generation. It’s a far cry from September 7, 1997.

There was a time in my life when the world stopped when a Final Fantasy game was released.  Even months before the actual launch, I would brace for the excitement.  I’d record the commercials on my VCR and replay them over and over again.  I’d read every magazine article, I would call game stores just to confirm when the game was getting released, and I would call them again just to make sure nothing changed.  I would count down the days in my head (not on a calendar, I never look at calendars) to when I would be able to sit in front of the TV and power on my gaming console with the newest Final Fantasy game inside.  A new Final Fantasy game was in stores, I wanted to be the first to get my hands on it.  I actually wasn’t the first, but I was one of the first, but that was fine enough for me. The game was Final Fantasy VII.  It was September 7, 1997.

Today is March 9, 2010.  The latest Final Fantasy game was released into stores 12 hours ago.   I was asleep when the first copy came off the shelves.

The greatness of Final Fantasy VI

Final Fantasy III (it was originally released as Final Fantasy III in the U.S.  It’s actually the sixth game in the series, so I’ll refer to the series as VI moving forward.) is my favorite game of all time, one of the few games I can go back and play over and over again to completion.  It’s the perfect Final Fantasy, which means it’s the perfect RPG.  Great characters, engaging party system, involving combat gameplay.  Most importantly, it has one of the greatest storylines and most shocking twists in gaming history.  A group of rebels spend the entire first half of the game battling an Evil Empire and trying to stop them from using magic to destroy the world…only they fail and the Empire’s Court Jester (Kefka, one of the great villains in any medium) actually does destroy the world.  I got into the series with Final Fantasy II (IV in the series), and that was an awesome game in its own right, but this was an entirely new level of gaming.

I loved Final Fantasy VI so much, as soon as I beat the final boss and watched the ending, I immediately started a new game just to go through the experience again.  From Christmas 1994 to 1997, I must have played and replayed the game 10 times.  600 hours of my childhood was devoted to playing and beating Final Fantasy VI.  And I wouldn’t change a thing.  Those were 600 hours well spent.  The graphics are outdated now, but I could pick up the game tomorrow and get sucked right into the storyline. 

Holy Shit, there’s gonna be a Final Fantasy VII!!!

Around 1996, Squaresoft (now Square Enix) announced that Final Fantasy VII was being released for the Sony PlayStation.  Being as rabid fan, the announcement of a new Final Fantasy was like the return of Jesus to a fundamental Christian.  I couldn’t have been more excited. 

For the next year, I would go to book store or an EB Games, just to leaf through the magazines for any information about FF7.  In the internet era, I would just go to IGN.com for the latest news, or hop onto XBox Live and download the trailer.  Back in 1996, I had to wait a month for an issue of EGM or Game Players and hope they had at least a couple of gameplay screenshots. 

Right before I went to high school, my parents finally got a computer that could hook up to the internet.  They figured I would need to go online in order to do research for History papers or English essays.  I figured I could go into video game chat rooms to talk about playing Final Fantasy VII.

Me: man, i can’t wait to play final fantasy 7.  it’s going to be the best game ever!!!!(@@!$(!!!
Creepy Old Guy on the Internet: 16/F , u?


Disappointment

It finally came out on September 7, 1997.  The date is still burned into my memory.  I figure I could develop a case of Alzheimers and the government could perform mind control on me and I’d still remember the day Final Fantasy VII shipped.  On the ride home from the mall, I must have read the instruction booklet three times (even back then, I could read really fast).  I couldn’t believe the game was actually in my possession, the three CDs just begging to be placed into the PlayStation tray. 

I played it for about a month and I loved every step of the way.  The graphics and cut scenes were revolutionary, the mid-game twist was and is the greatest in gaming, the game was fun.  But after I had struck down Sephiroth for the last time, watched the ending.

I didn’t feel like playing it again. 

I might have gone through the game again at some point, but I don’t remember.  It’s the most popular Final Fantasy game of all time, one of the seminal video games of all time, but to me, it wasn’t as good as the last game.  If I had to pinpoint why I didn’t like it as much, I would go right to the moment Sephiroth’s sword pierced Aeris’ torso, killing her in the most shocking video game twist ever.  Like the Final Fantasy VI twist, it completely changed the tone of the game, but the second half of Final Fantasy VI was about finding your party members and bringing them together for one final battle against Kefka.  Final Fantasy VII followed up its twist with more depressing twists like Cloud actually being manipulated by Sephiroth to the point where everything Cloud said was a lie.  The storyline becomes much less engaging after Aeris (the best character in the game) dies.

As it turns out, Aeris’ death marked the end of an era for my fandom of Final Fantasy.

The end of an era

The next year, I got Final Fantasy VIII, which was fun, but its storyline is so forgettable I didn’t even remember the basic premise of the game until I replayed it last year when it was released on PlayStation Network.  I didn’t even get Final Fantasy IX.  I did buy Final Fantasy X, but never beat it.  And Final Fantasy XII came out four years ago and I don’t even know what the game is about.  That was the story of Final Fantasy in my life.  Games that weren’t as good as the last one. 

Western developers have taken over the RPG genre, featuring morality systems, open world gameplay, and branching storylines based on the player’s decisions.  Games like Mass Effect and Fallout have taken the place of Final Fantasy as RPGs that don’t just push the genre, but push video games forward.  Not only does Mass Effect have great characters and a great storyline, but the series features one of the best storytelling devices I’ve ever seen in a video game: Importing saved games.  So the choices the player makes in the previous game affect the entire series as a whole.  After playing and beating Mass Effect 2 last month, I immediately wanted to start a new game and play through it again.  I haven’t felt that way about a game in over a decade.  Not since Final Fantasy VI.

The 13th edition of the Final Fantasy series comes out today, and from reviews I’ve read on the internet, the game is far too linear, more a dungeon crawler than a traditional RPG, let alone an open world Western RPG.  It has still gotten high scores and praise for its storyline and combat system, but I’m apprehensive.  I honestly don’t know if I’m even going to like it, or whether I’m just buying the game out of tradition, because for the last 20 years, I’ve gotten the first Final Fantasy game of the current video game generation.

It’s a far cry from September 7, 1997.

  1. sharkclaws posted this