I remember seeing the first preview for what ended up being Final Fantasy XV. The guy I was dating at the time showed me the very first trailer that came out, oh, was it two years ago? One year ago? I have no conception of time.
ANYWAY.
As I was watching it, I was thinking to myself, wow this movie doesn’t really make any sense. Until BAM. The trailer delves into gameplay and I realize those aren’t real people.
Those . . . Those are video game characters. This is a video game.
I just HAD to get into this. I knew the Final Fantasy franchise always prided itself on its stellar graphics, offering crude-but-hey-they’re-there facial features in the Playstation-age of gaming while most games just had block-heads that coincidentally talked.
Harry, is that you?
So I decided to start with the arguably “best game” of the series, Final Fantasy VII. The graphics were a little hard to adjust to after playing nothing but Playstation 3 games for a while, but I could appreciate how good the graphics were for its time. What really captivates me is a good, solid storyline to keep me interested.
And, boy, did Final Fantasy VII deliver.
Unfortunately, I did get the whole plot twist at the end of disc two spoiled at some point. (Although, with a game that’s nearly 20 years old, is it really a spoiler? Eh.) I really appreciated the progression of the game. Sometimes, I feel that games have too many side quests that distract from the main storyline (Looking at you, Assassins Creed) but I felt this game had just enough extra side quests to keep me busy, but not enough to deter from the larger problem at hand – Sephiroth’s god-complex. (Although at some point, when I was trying to get the golden chocobo so I could have the legendary Knights of the Round materia, I thought to myself the end of the world is nigh, and here I am, raising giant chickens)
I loved the whole pre-Mewtwo complex of Sephiroth. I loved his agenda, and although (Spoilers?) he kind of killed of one of my favorite characters in the game, I couldn’t help but appreciate the depth of the character, his connections with Jenova and Cloud, him going mad trying to find his purpose. I love antagonists that are deeper than just evil, and while some of my friends argued that Sephiroth’s true mission gets buried in madness, I think that’s part of what drew me so much to the character.
We will ignore the fact that he wasn’t a particularly hard boss and I destroyed Safer Sephiroth in two hits, as horrible as I am at these things.
Another thing I really enjoyed about this game was the whole turn-based RPG aspect of it. I was always a fan of Pokemon, but usually tuckered out with the defeat of Lance (or whoever the final boss was) because after that, the game fell monotonous and Ash never caught them all, so why should I?
Anyway, I digress.
Next in my Final Fantasy adventure is Final Fantasy X, a game that I’ve really been wanting to get into because of my views as an atheist. Friends of mine have always squabbled over which game is better, and I’d love to be able to answer that question for myself.
As for the Pre-VII games? VI is definitely somewhere on my list, but I’ve heard the first five are extremely difficult, and in my opinion, if a game is too hard, it takes the fun out it. I play for storyline and enjoyment, not beating my controller against the wall and spending two weeks on one boss. Alas, that is another post for another time.
(And that is why I will probably never play Dark Souls)
I will continue my Final Fantasy endeavors and post them regularly.
Also, could they have picked a more annoying voice actor for Tidus? Seriously, the voice acting in that game almost ruined it for me, but keeping in mind it was their first shot at voice acting, I try to let it slide.
Except some things can’t be forgiven, like whoever made this atrocity.
Relics of Geekery 