Final Fantasy Type-0: A Story Retrospective, Part I - The First Opening Cinematic

[If you're wondering what this blog post series is about, read the introduction.  This article only talks about the game's opening; therefore I don't consider any of its contents to be spoilers.]

I long assumed Final Fantasy Type-0 to be a game that I'd never play.  Released in Japan for the PSP back in 2009, it was never announced for release in the West.  And that was okay, since I half-suspected the game to be a third-rate cash grab.

That all changed when I saw the opening cinematic.

Thereafter it became the game I had to play someday, the game I might even learn Japanese for.  Thankfully, Square decided to release it in the West after all, and I was spared a flashback to the humiliations of my high school language classes.


The Opening

I'm going to narrate my impressions of the opening cinematic below.

 

00:00 - 01:54: Okay, this part is definitely skippable.  It lays the foundations of the world of Final Fantasy Type-0, but does so by using incomprehensible words while barraging us with bizarre names - not a good recipe for understanding.  That's okay; it's not the game's world-building that impresses me.

I will say that melding each of the four nation's symbolic animals with their flags is very cool.

01:55 - 02:42: This narration is much better.  It clearly establishes the key conflict of the story - the Militesi Empire's invasion of the Kingdom of Rubrum - and zooms in on a specific event - a sneak attack on Rubrum's capital.  So much less confusing than what came before!

The documentary affectations - the naming of specific dates, the newsreel filter applied over the cinematic, the dispassionate voice of the narrator - also lend the cinematic an interesting ambience.  It gives the audience some distance from the proceedings, while simultaneously giving the event the weight of history.

Incidentally I think that this initial 'distance' is an important narrative trick, one that helps enhance the theme of the game.

02:43 - 03:21: The neutral narration continues as the violence begins.  We have the faceless troopers of the invading Milites against magic-wielding teenagers and their powerful summons.  In the real world this result in horrific tragedy; in a video game, sure, it's fine.  The plucky kids and their magic always win.

03:22 - 03:35: Okay, maybe the kids will suffer a minor setback, but...

03:36 - 03:37: !!

03:38 - 04:32: This slaughter is one of the most horrifying scenes I've witnessed in a video game.  It's bloody and unrelenting and cruel and unfair.  Sword-wielding cadets are gunned down; the wounded are executed; cries for mercy are unheeded.  And in the background the narrator continues his unrelenting catalog of events, refusing to judge what the audience is seeing as if to say, This is simply what happened; this is just the way the world is.

04:33 - 04:43: I think a scene like this - a prayer to forces unknown and unseen -  can only work if the audience feels the desperation behind it.  And all I can say is that it worked for me.

04:44 - 04:49: The music turns, promising that not all hope is lost.  The narration disappears, not to be heard again for the rest of the cinematic.  The audience is drawn closer to whatever happens next.

04:50 - 05:03: This part of the cinematic is witnessed through the invaders eyes.  This shift invites the audience to understand, and maybe even empathize, with the fear of the Militesi soldiers as a mysterious blade plunges out of the heavens and into their midst.  And it reminds the audience that the powers being wielded here are not only wondrous; they're terrifying as well.

05:04 - 05:13: It's okay if you don't think this part is cool.  If you don't, show it to some children, watch their faces, and maybe you'll remember what it's like to live in a world of wonders.

05:14 - 05:47: Do we immediately identify with this stranger?  I think we do.  Why?  Because the cinematic thus far has been cleverly designed to push the audience to a point where they're aching to find someone with the power to destroy the Militesi invaders.  And because of that...

05:48 - 06:02: ... his words, which can reasonably be said to be laughably devoid of meaning, instead become imbued with an almost mystical weight...

06:03 - 06:22: ... and the final reveal of Class Zero becomes an iconic "F-ck yeah!" moment rather than a "Why the hell are they posing on a battlefield?" moment.


This opening cinematic ends on an incredibly heroic note.  The next cinematic, which plays once you actually start the game...

Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII: A Story Retrospective

[If you're wondering what this blog post series is about, read the introduction.  The first section of this article deals with the opening of the game; the second is marked as containing spoilers for the rest of the game.]

Final Fantasy XIII-2 was surprisingly excellent, considering how much I disliked Final Fantasy XIII.  Another surprise was realizing just how much I wanted to enjoy Final Fantasy games, like a jilted lover who secretly desires a reunion.

Which is all to say that I was fully back on board the Final Fantasy fan-train by the time Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII was announced.  Sure, there were reasons for trepidation, the biggest being that the game featured, well, Lightning, and seemed more like a direct continuation of Final Fantasy XIII rather than Final Fantasy XIII-2.

Still, as I said - I wanted to enjoy the Final Fantasy series, and thus found it very easy to ignore my misgivings.  And thus I ensured that Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII was in my hands on the very day it was released.


The Opening

It's true that the opening cinematic has its flaws.

 

Like the other games in the Final Fantasy XIII series, it doesn't provide much explanation about what's going on.  Lightning was last seen frozen in crystal; Snow has seemingly changed from a good-natured brawler to a cynical gang boss; there's no sign of Noel or Serah from Final Fantasy XIII-2; and who the hell is Lumina?

That being said, my confusion wasn't as thorough as when I sat through the beginning of Final Fantasy XIII.  Why?  One simple reason: this is clearly Lightning's story.  Having a character to follow is reassuring to the audience, engendering confidence that a guide that will lead us through the twists of plot up ahead.

Is it ideal that I came out of this opening in a state of befuddled optimism?  Probably not, but there are worse feelings to endure.


The Rest of the Story


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The basic story of Lightning Returns is this: far off in the future the earth is dying.  Lightning is contracted by the god Bhunivelze to "save" human souls so that they can be used to re-populate a new world.  And so Lightning travels from place to place, solving problems and setting minds at ease so that they're in the proper state for this upcoming transcendence.

In this manner Lightning encounters former friends and allies - Snow, Noel, Sazh, Vanille, and Fang - and returns hope into their lives.  Just as in Final Fantasy XIII-2, this journey has the feel of a series of inter-connected short stories, and it's just as welcome here as it was there.

There is some disappointment, however; the true ending of Final Fantasy XIII-2 revealed that every event in the game was carefully manipulated by Caius, setting him up to be a grandmaster villain.  Lightning Returns shows him as just another patsy, and even though he maintains his arrogance, he somehow seems lesser because of it.

Fortunately, the true villain of Lightning Returns is a worthy one.

The events of Lightning Returns causes Lightning to realize just how much of mankind's history is manipulated by Bhunivelze, god of light and existence.  And in the re-making of the world, she sees an opportunity to free all of humanity from the gods' terrible influence.

The conversation before their final fight does an excellent job of portraying both of their points of view.


Bhunivelze isn't a traditional villain; he sees himself as a shepherd with mankind as his sheep.  He knows what's best for us, and the idea of being opposed is literally incomprehensible to him.  His attitude as Lightning rants and spews threats is that of parental indulgence, willing to bear miniscule abuse with the understanding that all will ultimately bow to his will.

This attitude is carried through in a final battle which is truly awe-inspiring in nature and scope.


Some highlights include:

• 4:20: Bhunivelze ascends to the skies in truly bizarre fashion, allowing the audience to see just how truly connected he is with the world.  And what does he do?  His attack is called "Genethiliac Hymn": he is literally weaving a star with his hands, all so that he can drop it upon your head.
• 6:30: "Resist no more. Come to your god. A new goddess is born!"  There is true joy in his voice; Lightning has passed his trials and now, surely, she must accept her place in his pantheon.
• 10:55: His will defied, Bhunivelze warps the fabric of reality to destroy the impertinent.

I don't usually talk about gameplay here, but I will say this: this was a hard boss fight.  Hard, but somehow not unfair, not even when I initially got utterly destroyed in the first of the four stages.  Gradually improving try after try tells a story of its own; the difficulty of the battle was key in conveying the understanding that this was the confrontation to end all confrontations.

 Lightning Returns is not a perfect game, but I enjoyed it nonetheless.  Its story is direct and, at its heart, uncomplicated, allowing the writers to crescendo to an impressive finish with the minimum of needless distraction.  Does it redeem the Final Fantasy XIII series as a whole?  Who knows, but in the end, I'll endure a bum game like Final Fantasy XIII if that's the cost for games like Final Fantasy XIII-2 and Lightning Returns.

What's in the Box? (A Silent Hill Appreciation)

I read a gaming article recently that made me incredibly depressed: Silent Hills is cancelled.  The game had been surreptitiously announced through an anonymous game demo simply titled 'P.T.'.  And with the cancellation of the game, the demo was now due to be yanked from all distribution channels.

So I did what I suspect many other video game aficionados did as well: I ran downstairs, booted up my PS4, and downloaded the demo before it disappeared.  And now it sits on my console's hard drive, very likely to never be played.

Why?  Simply put: Silent Hill games are really f-cking scary.

We're not talking jump scares or zombie hordes; Silent Hill is nothing like Resident Evil.  Silent Hill is... well... check out the trailer for Silent Hill 4.



The other day I found myself trying to explain to my daughter what makes Silent Hill so scary (in very, very vague terms).  "Okay," I said.  "Silent Hill is a game where there's two worlds.  One is the normal world, just covered in fog.  Lots and lots of fog.  And the other world is this kind of ruined hellscape, where the ground is replaced by rusted grates and everything is broken and falling apart."

"Now, your character goes from one world to the other throughout the game.  And at one point, he comes to a locker which starts rattling from the inside.  And when you get open it... a cat jumps out.  It's just a cat."

"Then you return to the same place in the other world.  The locker starts rattling.  You get close, you open it, and this time..."


"... there's nothing."  (And yes, I left out any and all additional details about the trail of blood, etc.)

I'm not sure my daughter quite understood what I was getting at, but here it is: there's a lot of different ways to scare a person.  One way is a cheap jump scare: a zombie lurching out of the bushes or a killer bursting out of the closet.  It can be effective, but it can also be forgettable: it's a temporary moment of surprise.

Another way is to build tension: say, a long walk through a dark forest infested with beasts unknown.  The 'unknown' is pretty key here: put in such a moment, the mind will naturally assume that there's something bad lurking out there.  And with each passing moment, as the rustles quicken and the shadows grow longer, the mind will betray you and imagine something worse and worse.

At that point, the moment of revelation becomes a relief: you see the monster, and it's terrible, but at least you know what it is and what you have to deal with.  At least now you know you have to run.

But what happens if you take away that reveal?  What happens if you leave the audience with suspended dread?

Let me tell you.  I played the very first Silent Hill at a friend's dorm room while he was at class.  When he came back, all the lights were on, all the doors were wide open, and I was in a state of desperate terror.  I was scared of continuing on in the game, but I was more scared of not finishing it and leaving the story forever unresolved.  I was clutching the controller, huddled into myself as I fought to complete the game, and when my friend spoke to me I screamed.

Final Fantasy XIII-2: A Story Retrospective

[If you're wondering what this blog post series is about, read the introduction.  The first section of this article deals with the opening of the game; the second is marked as containing spoilers for the rest of the game.]

I rolled my eyes when Final Fantasy XIII-2 was announced.  Final Fantasy XIII had disappointed any desire to play another game in the series right out of me.  I was done with Final Fantasy.

Every incidental tidbit I learned about Final Fantasy XIII-2 confirmed my judgement.  The game featured Serah, Lightning's annoying and underdeveloped sister.  A moogle with a cartoon design and an annoyingly squeaky voice played an important role.  And the story had very little to do with Final Fantasy XIII, which probably meant that the writers were pulling strands of plot out of their... well, you know.

The release date for Final Fantasy XIII-2 came and went.  I ignored it.  Life continued on, and...

... and a year or two later, I quit World of Warcraft and was immediately bored.  Looking for something to do, I checked out the review for Final Fantasy XIII-2 and discovered that... they were not terrible.  Cautiously interested, I went to the local video game store and learned that the game was now heavily discounted.

All right then!  Why not.  Why not...


The Opening


The opening cinematic did not reassure me that my purchase was a good one.

 

The biggest issue with this opening?  We're supposedly continuing the story of Final Fantasy XIII, and yet this cinematic appears to take us completely away from that plot and throw us in media res into a new one.  That mismatch of expectations is disorienting, to say the least.

On the flip side?  This opening does an admirable job of focusing attention on the primary antagonist of the game, Caius Ballad.  His recognizable humanity, shown by the contrast between his tenderness as he lets Yeul go and his fury as he battles Lightning, is intriguing.  It hints at a story that is very personal in nature, and I think those are the stories that audiences respond to the strongest.


The Rest of the Story


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SPOILER WARNING
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Here's two ways to describe the story of Final Fantasy XIII-2:

• All of existence is threatened by a megalomaniacal villain who seeks to crack time itself by traveling back into the past and creating paradoxes.
• Inadvertently punished with immortality, our villain is forced to watch his love continually die and be reborn with no hope for her to find peace.  Driven nearly mad over eons of this cycle, he seeks to end this curse the only way he knows how.

Both are apt descriptions of the game, but I'm willing to bet that you find the second one more involving.  I certainly did.  And fortunately Final Fantasy XIII-2 doesn't make the mistake of losing focus of the latter in pursuit of the former.

What results is - simply put - incredible, a grand tale with epic sweep that never loses sight of the personal stakes involved.  It begins when Noel journeys back from the far future when he and Caius are the only humans left alive.  Foregoing his friendship with Caius, Noel joins Serah in a mad pursuit through time in an effort to fix the paradoxes that Caius has been instigating.

This quest device is interesting, as it essentially turns the game into a linked collection of short stories.  These smaller stories vary in tone, from saving a city from an invasion of demons to finding an extinct flower to place on the grave of a grieving father's child.  Each feels properly sized, with none overstaying their welcome.  And as Serah and Noel travel from time to time, they learn a bit more about the doomed history of Caius and Yeul.

A brief word about our heroes: they were nowhere near as annoying as I feared they might be.  Why not?  Simply put: because they're not whiners.  Serah and Noel and Caius all have clear purposes from which they do not deviate (which two exceptions, but these are presented as self-contained mini-stories with clear boundaries from the greater tale), and this clarity is extremely welcome.  If an audience is waiting for a climax where two trains to crash together, why slow their velocity with swerves that question whether the collision will happen at all?  Isn't it better to constantly increase their momentum?

And that final collision is grand indeed.  Here's the video; it spans the entire fight, so I'll talk about individual sections below.

00:00 - 13:30: Caius comes to destroy mankind's final hope in stabilizing time.  There's much here that will make no sense unless you've played the game, but what's neat is how various supporting characters are brought back to play a role in the finale.  It's always neat to have individual threads from the long story woven back together in the end.

13:31 - 15:49: A final confrontation between Noel and Caius.  Here Caius's controlled and calculating demeanor finally breaks, revealing the eons of pent up rage that drives his actions.  And here is when I realized the most incredible thing: I actually sympathized with Caius.  If I felt like the person I loved the most was cursed to suffer for a literal eternity, I think I might do everything in my power to free that person too.

The moment when Noel turns Caius's assumptions around is also chilling.

15:50 - 17:05: Lightning brings Noel and Serah back from the dead or something.  Okay, this part still makes no sense to me, but oddly enough - I don't mind.  Why?  Because I wanted Noel and Serah to come back and face Caius one final time.  If a story responds to the audience's desires, I think the audience will be more than willing to overlook any plot holes or other bits of nonsense.

17:06 - 25:35: The final boss fight against not one not two but three dragons!  This is a flippant comment, but in truth I was intimidated like hell when I realized what I'd have to face.  And the music that plays when the fight starts in earnest is still my favorite boss theme - dark, discordant, and full of rising power.

Note the little details as well: the red dragon fights with physical attacks, and when he appears he slams his claws against the platform.  The yellow dragons fights with magic, and he crosses his hands over his chest.  Minor details, sure, but I have much respect for the thought process that goes behind making everything just right.

25:36 - 29:25: The finale, where assumptions are turned on their heads as Caius begs Noel to kill him, and Noel refuses.  The words spoken are (generally) lean and to the point, without the overwrought excess that can sometimes haunt a story.  And Caius's final act... wow.

29:26 - 33:53: And I usually pretend the rest of the ending doesn't exist, as it goes full circle back to the opening cinematic - but only in the sense that it's disconnected from the rest of the story.  Oh well, nothing's perfect.


So, just in case you can't tell, let me say this unequivocally: I loved Final Fantasy XIII-2.  In some ways I think the game was helped by the negative reaction to Final Fantasy XIII, as it allowed the creators to forge something new for the series.  Its biggest flaw?  The cliffhanger ending that clearly indicates another sequel.  But that doesn't detract from the essentially self-contained story of the game.

And with my exceedingly positive reaction to Final Fantasy XIII-2, I found myself thinking: maybe a third game wouldn't be so bad after all...

Final Fantasy XIII: A Story Retrospective

[If you're wondering what this blog post series is about, read the introduction.  The first section of this article deals with the opening of the game; the second is marked as containing spoilers for the rest of the game.]

I had my doubts about Final Fantasy XIII.  Final Fantasy XII had appealed to me tremendously with its realistically-motivated characters and politics-driven storyline.  From what I read about Final Fantasy XIII, the game was a deliberate step away from all of that.

Early trailers deepened my concerns.  The main character, Lightning, felt like she was created to reflect Cloud and Squall, the moody and angst-ridden protagonists of Final Fantasy VII and VIII.  Combat was overly frenetic and busy, spectacle for the sake of being spectacle.  Environments looked like they were designed to show off the power of the PlayStation 3, and not for the sake of supporting the game itself.

Still, my enjoyment of Final Fantasy XII made me want to give the series the benefit of the doubt.  And that's just what I did.


The Opening

It's easiest for me to talk about Final Fantasy XIII's opening by contrasting it with other Final Fantasy openings (skip to 2:45 to bypass the introductory credits).

 

• Final Fantasy VIII's opening had its own flaws, but one thing it did capture well was the notion that the conflicts had highly personal elements: Squall against Seifer, Rinoa against Edea.  Without that personalization, the story has as much drama as a little kid kicking over action figures - which is what the fighting in Final Fantasy XIII's opening feels like.
• Final Fantasy IV's opening had Cecil troubled by his actions in forcibly taking the Crystal from the Mysidians.  This inner conflict gave Cecil dimensionality, something noticeably absent from the cinematic above.
• Final Fantasy XII's opening managed to neatly tell a complete story of its own, efficiently parceling out details both great and small without overwhelming the viewer.  By its end there's a firm grasp of who the major characters are and what their motivations might be.  This clarity is distinctly missing from Final Fantasy XIII's opening.

If it's not obvious by now, I'll state it straight out: I do not like the way FFXIII's story begins.  And I remember thinking that its flaws did not bode well for the rest of the game.

The Rest of the Story


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In the interests of saving the Internet from yet another rant, I'm going to summarize my overall impression of Final Fantasy XIII: a muddled over-produced mess whose characters feel like they were individually designed to be 'cool' rather than relatable. 


That being said, there are some positive aspects to the story.  I'll describe two of them.

The first is the character of Sazh.

Before the game was released many people thought of Sazh as an unfortunately stereotyped joke character, inserted for loose comic relief and nothing more (note: there is a chocobo chick living in his afro).  I shared this same dread, and was therefore pleasantly surprised when I found him to be the most fully-formed character in the game.

My daughter was four years old when Final Fantasy XIII was released.  The other protagonists in the game fight for freedom, or vengeance, or some simplified notion of justice.  Sazh fights to save his young son (please don't ask me "from what?") and I found his single-mindedness and desperation and self-loathing at the prospect that he might fail to be emotions that I innately understood.  He expresses this all while still being the comic relief of the group, and that jagged mess of feelings, both light and dark, is something that is very real.

The other thing that impressed me about FFXIII?  The sheer weirdness of the villains.  Check out the boss fight at the midpoint of the game, when the curtain is drawn back on the full scope of the story.

It is here that it is revealed that the antagonists of the game are not a powerful and corrupt human Empire, but the gods themselves.  And it is here that the over-designed nature of FFXIII really works in its favor, producing a divinity that is horrific in its ineffable strangeness: I remember starting when Barthandelus's true form was revealed (2:00 in the above video), and again when he revealed his strongest attack (5:50).  True gods would not be like us; they would be foreign and alien and awe-inspiring and terrible, and Final Fantasy XIII captures that well.

But overall?  The game was a tremendous slog to get through.  And I remember thinking: this is it.  This is the last Final Fantasy I'll ever play.

Final Fantasy XII: A Story Retrospective

[If you're wondering what this blog post series is about, read the introduction.  The first section of this article deals with the opening of the game; the second is marked as containing spoilers for the rest of the game.]

Despite my tepid reaction to recent entries in the series, Final Fantasy XII excited me beyond all reason as soon as it was announced.  Why?  Because that's when I learned that the Final Fantasy XII development team was led by the same people who had created two of my favorite games of the PlayStation generation: Final Fantasy Tactics and Vagrant Story.

In the years that followed between the game's announcement and its release, I fed on every interview, screenshot, and trailer that Square released.  I was delighted when it was declared that FFXII's story would have a more adult tone.  The series I had grown up with was finally growing up with me.

I got the game a minute after midnight on release day and popped it into my PlayStation 2 shortly thereafter.  I remember bouncing up and down on my butt impatiently as I waited for the loading screens to clear.  Did I have any trepidation that my expectations would not be met?  I did not.


The Opening

Here's how Final Fantasy XII opens.

 

Watching it now makes me think that that good storytelling requires contrast.  Without contrast, action and emotion and size all feel flat; there's no sense of grandeur because each beat of a story is the same as the others.

That's why Final Fantasy XII's opening cinematic works for me.  You have the large scale celebrations and battles that contrast with intimate moments featuring major characters; this allows us to understand the enormous scope of the world in which these people try and survive.  You have the love and joy present at Princess Ashe's and Prince Rasler's wedding, and then the sorrow that follows as Basch fails to protect the prince from his death; this allows us to understand the stakes and consequences.

All of this invests the viewer in the story that unfolds, and also makes it easier to drop in some needed exposition without running the risk of having the viewer's eyes glaze over: the Empire is on the warpath and conquers Rasler's homeland.  Ashe's homeland is next.  It would have been easy to delivering this information through a text crawl.  But FFXII chooses a better option in order to draw in the audience: it presents the information naturally in the characters' actions and speech.


The Rest of the Story


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The central point-of-view characters of Final Fantasy XII are Vaan and Penelo, two orphaned children who fall into a grand adventure to free the kingdom of Dalmalsca from the clutches of the Empire.  There's a rumor that they were shoe-horned into the game by executives that were worried that the intended focal characters would not be marketable draws.  I don't know if this rumor is true or not... but I do know that the original direction of FFXII stepped down for "health" reasons.  And I also know that the opening cinematic does not feature Vaan and Penelo; it features Basch and Ashe.

I will say that if the rumor is true, Vaan and Penelo are remarkable for not feeling completely out of place.  Having said that, I do agree that they don't really fit into the politically-realistic storyline that follows the opening.  So I'm going to pretend they don't exist.

Shortly after the events of the opening cinematic, the king of Dalmalsca begins peace talks with the Empire.  During those talks he is assassinated, and the assassin is identified by all to be Basch.  Dalmalsca is declared a protectorate of the Empire, to be governed by Lord Vayne Solidor, eldest surviving son of the Emperor.  Princess Ashe is nowhere to be found.

What follows is a highly complex series of events.  We learn that Basch was framed by his twin brother Gabranth, now a highly-ranked Judge in service of the Empire.  He is freed by Ashe, who has started a movement to free her kingdom from the clutches of the Empire; they are eventually joined by the charming mercenary Balthier and his partner Fran.  In the meantime Vayne has arranged for the death of his father and ascended to the throne.  From there he is free to pursue his real goals, which are far greater than they appear.

There's far too much plot to summarize, so I'll just hit upon some points that interested me.

Unlike other Final Fantasy games, the characters in Final Fantasy XII never sit and whine about whether they really want to do whatever it is that they're doing.  Ashe and Basch know exactly what they want, and never deviate from their goal; Balthier and Fran stay loyal to who they are.  Some people mistake this constancy for lack of character development.  I disagree, as the characters do change; however it is their journey that directs their growth, and not the other way around.  I think this is entirely appropriate for a sweeping historical epic.

Some of this growth is apparent.  Ashe evolves from a resistance fighter bent only on destroying the Empire's hold on her kingdom to a stateswoman who - especially after meeting Lord Larsa, Vayne's kind and intelligent younger brother - understands that a compromise may be the only way to secure her people's future.  The story of Basch and Gabranth is different, showing how the weight of events led two brothers onto opposing paths.  And Balthier...

... well, Balthier's story is one of the most subtle.  He's a Han Solo-like rogue, quick of wit and ever-ready with a quip ("Spare me your quiddities" is my favorite), and he remains a constant even after his backstory is revealed.  It's a bit complex and requires an understanding of the greater plot; just try to hang in there with me...

Balthier's father, Cid, is a high-ranking Imperial researcher who is close friends with Vayne.  It is Cid who is contacted by Venat, a rogue being of a god-like race of immortal beings called the Occuria.  He learns that the Occuria have been manipulating the mortal realm throughout history by tempting them with powerful Crystals.  Venat wants to break mankind free of the Occuria's grasp, and that is what Vayne and Cid ultimately hope to achieve as well.

His father's preoccupation with this task drives Balthier away from the Empire and into a vagrant life.  The party eventually confronts Cid and defeats him, and father and son have one final conversation.

This is the one time when Balthier is left with nothing to say.  And there is a payoff at the very end of the game.

But before we get there, I'll talk about the final battle with Vayne.  This confrontation takes place when Vayne gathers an immensely powerful air-fleet with the intent of wiping out the last rebels.  The Crystals have already been destroyed, Ashe having refused the Occuria's offer of power in return for sparing the Crystals.  With no other hope left, the party steals aboard Vayne's flagship, the Bahamut... and defeat him.

Stumbling away and dying, Vayne calls out to Venat, and the last act of their friendship is darkly moving.


Venat's final sacrifice was one of pure altruism, and not born out of desperation or need.  Its goals had already been fulfilled, and it had no more need of its mortal allies.  The final battle is entirely unnecessary.

But that's how life works.  Life is messy and accidental and full of unnecessary events that ripple outwards in strange ways.  The truth is that people don't really influence the present so much as they react to the past.  Final Fantasy XII is a story that embraces that idea whole-heartedly, and it is pretty unique in doing so.

Let me wrap up Balthier's story now.  After Vayne's death, the Bahamut begins to fall out of the sky, threatening to crush the city of Rabanastre.  And in a moment of heroism, Balthier and Fran stay behind to massage the engines long enough to have the Bahamut fly over the city and crash just beyond.

His act is completely uncharacteristic - unless you remember Cid's final words to his son, the ones that Balthier had no answer to and which I imagine he could not dismiss.  It's a subtle resolution and easily missed.

And in the end Final Fantasy XII might be a bit too subtle.  Whether it's a fault of the storytelling or a consequence of the original director's departure, FFXII feels like an ambitious dream whose flaws are readily apparent under close scrutiny.

Still, I can marvel at the grandeur of the original vision; and I can appreciate the many points of execution that Final Fantasy XII did get right.

Final Fantasy XI: A Story Retrospective

[If you're wondering what this blog post series is about, read the introduction.  The first section of this article deals with the opening of the game; the second is marked as containing spoilers for the rest of the game.]

I remember being disappointed when Final Fantasy XI was announced as an MMORPG - but not as disappointed as one might think.  Yes, turning an RPG into a social endeavor meant that playing the game successfully was beyond an introvert like me (or so I thought at the time).  But instead of gnashing my teeth and rending my garments, I gave a half-hearted shrug.

My "meh" reaction to FFIX and FFX had a lot to do with this change in attitude.  I felt like I had grown up while the Final Fantasy series remained stuck in my past.  FFXI being an MMO was simply an added incentive to put childish things away.

To make a long story short - I failed to do so.  All it took was one week of overwhelming boredom before I "accidentally" found myself in a game store and "accidentally" picked up FFXI off the shelves so I could "try it for an hour or two".  Whoops...


The Opening

Back in the ancient days of 2002 I didn't realize that an MMO could feature a story.  Thus Final Fantasy XI's opening surprised me quite a bit.

 

A castle town is overrun despite the heroic efforts of its defenders; a boy is thrust to safety by his older sister and left alone in the world.  Many years later he and others return, ready to reclaim the land that was taken from them.

It's a simple story, neither unexpected nor original.  Yet the presentation gives it a resonance beyond a simple two sentence summary, and despite finding the scene between the two siblings rather overdone, I found myself unexpectedly moved.

How this would translate to the rest of the game - I had no idea.  The opening presents a main character, but how could FFXI possibly expect millions of players playing different races and classes to relate to a single protagonist... ?


The Rest of the Story


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The answer was so obvious that I missed it completely: players are not supposed to do so.  They're supposed to be swept up in the grandeur of the final shot of the opening movie, when the camera pulls back to reveal the massive army ready to go to war.  FFXI taught me something new about stories: every single character has complexity and history, and is a hero in his or her own eyes.

This was never more clear to me than when I explored around the world of Vana'diel, marveling at all the players running off to points unknown, embarking on their own goals and adventures.  The sense of stepping into truly foreign territory was heightened - in a good way - by the fact that servers were shared by both Japanese and American players, with communication handled by a system of complicated preset phrases and emotes.

I dipped my toe into the water; I waded in deeper; then I dove in whole-heartedly.  I partied with Japanese players who were alternately grudgingly patient and extremely accommodating with my lack of skill.  I joined a 'linkshell' of US-timezone players and made friendships of greater diversity - by far - than any I had made before.  I learned that while some individuals may be cruel, the majority are genuinely kind.

If the above sounds like I was an explorer traveling through a previously unknown continent, well, that's exactly what it was like.  I played previous Final Fantasy games in the role of an observer, but in Final Fantasy XI I lived as my own hero.

At this point I'd like to describe the plot of the game - except as much as I am loath to admit it, my understanding of the story was always weak, and it's a bit of a muddle in my mind.  There definitely is a story; however it's revealed in bits and pieces at a non-constant rhythm (since players set their own pace), and important details can be missed entirely if players skip certain quests or regions.

All I can say definitively is: the invasion of the Beastmen featured in the opening cinematic is triggered by the rise of the Shadow Lord.  Eventually you have an epic confrontation against him.



And then you win!  And... the game keeps going.

From a story perspective, one of the problems with MMOs is that they're designed not to have an ending; otherwise, all the precious subscribers with their precious monthly payments slip away.  And so the game keeps going, powered by players addicted to their routines, and eventually the game becomes a chore rather than a fun activity.

It was a relief to finally break away from Final Fantasy XI.  But it's still an experience I'm glad I had.

Inspirational Video Games I Have Known

Writers need to read.  Professionals in every field learn from their peers, and writers are no exception.  There's no other way to understand what others can accomplish with language and voice, and if you don't gain that understanding, you run the risk of having your own words molder.

Reading is great, but it's not the only avenue to learn more about the possibilities of storytelling.  I have had my mind broadened by more than a few movies; somewhat more controversially (for my parents at least - HI MOM AND DAD), I can say that the same is true of more than a few video games.

I'll list a few here without going into detail about any of them; hopefully I'll get a chance to do that in a future blog post:

• Silent Hill 2
• Shadow of the Colossus
• Final Fantasy Tactics
• Final Fantasy XIII-2 (seriously guys, it's really good)

And the latest video game whose release inspired me to start my Final Fantasy story retrospectives: Final Fantasy Type-0.  I finished this game at the lively hour of 4am last night (I guess technically  that should be "this morning") and then spent the next hour unable to sleep as I marveled at what the game accomplished with its story.  Sure, objectively speaking the larger-scale story was both convoluted and nonsensical; but the personal journeys of the twelve cadets was...

... I'll stop there before I write out my retrospective two months ahead of schedule.  It's not the point of this rambling anyway.  My point is this: I finished Final Fantasy Type-0 and was immediately inspired to try and put some of the emotions I felt into a story of my own.  I won't go into details as to how, but suffice it to say that the story I'm working on about my daughter's stuffed animals now has a much needed injection of drama and stakes.

I'll end this by saying that movies and video games cannot be substituted wholesale for books; things like style and pacing and imagery and a host of other writerly considerations can only be learned through the written word.  But I will say that a story is a story no matter how it is told.

Final Fantasy X: A Story Retrospective

[If you're wondering what this blog post series is about, read the introduction.  The first section of this article deals with the opening of the game; the second is marked as containing spoilers for the rest of the game.]

I should have been more excited about Final Fantasy X.  The first Final Fantasy introduced for the PlayStation 2, it promised to be a technical showcase for the power of the console.

And yet... in the months and weeks and days leading up to FFX's release, I felt curiously flat about the game.  Two years removed from my college graduation, I was now living on my own for the first time in my life.  I had outgrown roommates, outgrown the overwrought dramas of FFVII and FFVIII, and no longer appreciated the nostalgic adorability of FFIX.  Had I outgrown the Final Fantasy series as a whole?

"Yes" might have been a legitimate answer, but at that time I was not yet ready to let go of the relics of my younger days.


The Opening

The opening is a bit schizophrenic.

 

On the one hand you have a peaceful moment around a campfire set to the strains of a beautiful piano melody.  It's quiet and sedate and wistful, and it feels like the setup to an intriguingly introspective game.  On the other hand, you have what comes after: a frenetic and confusingly busy cutscene accompanied to metal rock, movie seemingly designed to appeal to a targeted demographic looking for a hardcore game experience.  After watching the opening, the question became - which hand would win out?

A quick note: FFX was also the first Final Fantasy game to feature voice acting, and boy, was I nervous (and if you've watched dubbed anime, you know why).  I'm glad to say that my fears were unjustified; the voice acting in this series has ranged from surprisingly bearable to excellent.


The Rest of the Story


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The gist of the plot is this: Tidus, a star blitzball player, is transported to another time where a monstrous entity known as Sin threatens to destroy the world.  Yuna is a summoner whose father - along with Tidus's father - turned back Sin ten years ago.  She and Tidus and others embark on a journey to prevent this destruction, only to learn that the the situation is not as simple as it seems.

This is a fairly generic summary, and in all honesty I found much of the game to be similarly generic.  Other than Tidus and Yuna, the characters are not all that interesting to me - not even Auron, the "cool" laconic wandering samurai - so I'll skip the bulk of the story and just mention the parts that stood out.

Before talking about what's really going on in the story, let me talk about two relationships.

The first is the romance between Tidus and Yuna.  At the time I found it lacking in both drama and passion.  Now when I think about it, it feels honest and surprisingly subtle.  Again, I don't know whether my mind is playing tricks on me; but I will say that my views on love fifteen years ago could be charitably described as "naive".  Now I'm... well, perhaps I am still a bit willfully naive, but I also appreciate that a good relationship requires steadiness and a thousand quiet moments that build into something strong and lasting.  And I think FFX does an excellent job depicting that.

The second relationship is that between Tidus and his father, Jecht.  Abandoned as a child (it's not revealed until later that Jecht left to join Yuna's father in a quest to turn back Sin), Tidus harbors a deep-seated resentment towards his father.  It's an intriguing bit of darkness within an otherwise sunny personality.

Although Jecht is presumed dead, the truth is far more complicated.  Although Sin is presumed to be turned back every ten years through the trials of a summoner and a guardian, it turns out that this cycle is what actually allows Sin to renew itself.  Each journey to defeat Sin merely destroys a form, one that is almost immediately renewed through the body of either the summoner and the guardian.  And so when Tidus and Yuna and the others embark on their quest to turn back Sin, they are unknowingly also seeking to destroy Tidus's father once and for all.

Twining together two threads of the plot - the world-spanning one and the highly personal one - is a neat device that adds weight and consequence to both.  It all comes together in one final battle that is preceded by an emotional meeting (1:39 - 7:00).



Okay, the animation is stilted and the voice acting is excessive, but I still find the dialogue effective: beneath the spoken words you can infer everything that the characters are leaving unspoken.  There is subtlety in the scene, and it's hard not to appreciate that.

Then, of course, we get another heavy metal ballad.  To further belabor my point, I'll mention the tragedy of the ending where Tidus and Yuna are pulled apart, and praise the emotional maturity of both characters upon realizing their fates.  Then I'll mention that there's a sequel - Final Fantasy X-2 - that completely undoes this ending.  I only know this because I read the plot of the sequel on Wikipedia; the game itself I found to be honestly abhorrent.

That's the FFX experience  It's a haunting tale covered in layers and layers of unfortunate excess.  When I played it I was unable to separate the two, but now I find myself feeling far more charitable towards the game.  Was I overly judgmental back then, or is my memory kinder now?  I'm not sure.

Final Fantasy IX: A Story Retrospective

[If you're wondering what this blog post series is about, read the introduction.  The first section of this article deals with the opening of the game; the second is marked as containing spoilers for the rest of the game.]

If I remember my gaming news articles correctly, Final Fantasy IX was consciously developed as a course correction.  The previous Final Fantasies had lost the fantastical feel of the early games in favor of technological dystopias, and the series was growing increasingly somber and dark.  So Square decided that Final Fantasy IX would be set in a medieval world and created a story with a lighter heart (although with some serious themes).

I was disappointed.  In some odd way the Final Fantasy games and I had grown up together.  But now I was a fresh college graduate with his first real job, and it was like my 'friend' had retreated back to the safety of elementary school.

Still, Final Fantasy was Final Fantasy, and so I bought FFIX on release day, hoping to quiet the skeptical voices in my head.


The Opening

The opening did not reassure me.

 

The first three minutes are frankly bizarre - sedate rural county fair music and visages of characters that we don't know overlaid with ponderous quotes that are meaningless without context.

The opening cinematic proper starts three minutes in, and it begins a bit more promisingly with three hooded figures stranded in a tiny boat fighting against the raging ocean.  But that's just a half-remembered memory; the cinematic cuts to the present where Princess Garnet is alone, preparing for a kingdom-wide birthday celebration.  She's distracted by the sight of an airship flying against the rosy skies, and then we see glimpses of Zidane, the monkey-tailed thief, and Vivi, the wandering black mage with wide spotlight eyes.  And then the cinematic is over.

This opening does a few things well.  Show, not tell is the classroom maxim, and I think the cinematic performs well in detailing two characters.  First, there's Garnet's loneliness and desire to experience the larger world.  And then there's Vivi childish confusion, innocence, and wonder.  Square's cinematic department does an excellent job with subtle motions and facial expression.

However, for me the opening falls short in another area.  FFIX is the only Final Fantasy game I played whose opening I could not recall from memory.  Why?  I think it's because it fails to provide the tension and conflict needed for viewers to quickly invest themselves in the story.  Start off with a bang!

The Rest of the Story


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The rest of the story is also similarly unmemorable to me, so I'll just list the general arcs of the characters that I do remember:

Zidane: the archetypal good-hearted thief and main protagonist of the game.  Has a secret connection with Kuja, the main villain of the game.  He and Garnet become romantically involved.  And then...

... honestly Zidane's just not that interesting; he feels like a character that could have been spit out by an extremely simple plot-generator program.

Vivi: one of many artificially created black mages constructed to be weapons of war with limited lifespans.  But his 'programming' cannot overcome his essentially kind nature, and his creators try to hunt him down as a defective.  This is a 'can-robots-become-real-people' story in a fantasy setting!

Vivi's arc is well-told and moving, and I can't quite explain why it didn't connect with me more.  Thinking about it, I suspect it's because I played FFIX when I had just graduated from college and was trying to assert myself as a non-clueless adult who possessed complete mastery over the ways of the world (spoiler alert: I was pretty clueless).  I think people are often most embarrassed by the things that they secretly identify with.

Garnet and Eiko: although Garnet is a princess, she is actually the adopted daughter of the evil queen who once destroyed a village of summoner mages and stole away the baby who would grow up to be Garnet.  The only other survivor from the village is Eiko, who is an extremely temperamental young girl.

Although initially in conflict over a shared affection for Zidane, they each gradually realize that the other provides a missing piece of their lives: for Garnet, knowledge of her forgotten origins; and for Eiko, a sense of family that she never knew that she needed.  And in FFIX's most dramatic cutscene, their shared understanding allows them to unleash a great power.




For me, the image of Garnet and Eiko with palms pressed against palms, sharing acceptance of themselves and each other, is the enduring image of the game.  In my opinion it is their story that forms the emotional heart of Final Fantasy IX, not Zidane's.  They should have been the central protagonists.

Final Fantasy Tactics: A Story Retrospective

[If you're wondering what this blog post series is about, read the introduction.  The first section of this article deals with the opening of the game; the second is marked as containing spoilers for the rest of the game.]

I think I was desperate for something to do the day that I picked up Final Fantasy Tactics.  I had heard good things about the game, and it was certainly intriguing that Square had almost decided against releasing it in the West due to controversial religious content - but the graphics were a step backwards from Final Fantasy VII and Final Fantasy VIII, and as a tactical RPG the gameplay was not what I was used to.

And so I delayed, and delayed, and delayed some more.  I might still be delaying to this day if not for the most powerful force known to man: boredom.


The Opening

Sadly, Final Fantasy Tactic's opening movie is not the most thrilling.

 

The music is great, and the idea of turning chocobos - the cute yellow birds omnipresent in Final Fantasy games - into war steeds is really cool, but the movie itself is dated and doesn't reveal much about the story.

I do find its restraint admirable, though; better too little than too much.  And it segues nicely into the introductory level.  The player controls Ramza and his party - the chocobo riders - riding to the church to protect Princess Ovelia.  But they are too late; they fight off a wave of attackers, only to see another kidnapper ride away with the unconscious Ovelia.  And Ramza is shocked when he realizes that the kidnapper is his former friend, Delita.

The game is split up into four chapters, and I'm going to detail most of Chapter One now (stopping right before the shocking moment neat its end) to add some context to the rest of the game.  Chapter One flashes back to a time before the introduction.  Ramza Beoulve is the third son of a noble house, training to become a knight.  Delita Hyral is the son of a servant, but despite their class differences, they are the best of friends.

But trouble is brewing: a group of disaffected peasants-turned-bandits led by a man named Wiegraf threatens local stability.  Wiegraf and his band kidnap Delita's younger sister, Teta, believing her to be a Beoulve.  Ramza, Delita, and various Beoulve retainers chase after the bandits.  Along the way they rescue Algus, a noble fallen upon hard times.

Algus shows great respect towards Ramza and his name.  However he is far less respectful towards those he considers his inferiors and constantly belittles Delita.  They fight battle after battle against the bandits, but arguments eventually come to a boiling point.  Ramza siding with Delita, and Algus leads the party in disgust.

Matters come to a head when the bandits are cornered at their mountain hideout.  Ramza and Delita arrive at the scene at the same time Algus does.  Algus has joined up with Ramza's elder brother, Zalbag.  Without hope of escape a bandit holds a knife up to Teta's throat, screaming at them all to leave, and...


The Rest of the Story


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Up until this point in Final Fantasy Tactics, I had been playing on auto-pilot - concentrating on the game mechanics, fast forwarding through the text scrolls.  I had already marked the plot as uninteresting.  Bandits?  Who cared about the bandits?  Where were the dragons and sorceresses and world-ending threats?

And then I watched as Zalbag commands Algus to shoot both the bandit... and Teta (0:35 - 1:55).




Only now do I realize that my shock was pretty much the same as the bandit's: "What's this?"

It was a transformative moment, and readers of epic fantasy who have been punched in the brain by George R.R. Martin's "Game of Thrones" will know how I felt.  It was the moment when I realized that games could tell dark and moving stories on a human level, ones that moved you and pained you and made you look at the world in a new way.

The rest of Final Fantasy Tactic's story is extremely complex.  There's the tale of Delita's wrath and vengeance against the Beoulves; how his morals fall away as he intrigues his way ever upwards, eventually marrying Ovelia and becoming king.

That's the background story of the game.  In the foreground Ramza and his growing party learn about secrets and deceptions and plots within plots.  There are nefarious noblemen and sly clergymen (in fact the entire church hierarchy is revealed to be evil, if you're wondering about the potentially 'objectionable religious content') and awakening demonic forces.

Ramza defeats the truly inhuman evil, of course.  But in doing so he is branded a heretic by the church.  His story is suppressed by King Delita, with the one surviving historian with knowledge of the truth burnt at the stake.

After the ending credits, there is an epilogue.



A story that ends with an ellipsis, the final weight of a man's ambition crushing within that silence.  The contrast between the dry sweep of foregone history and the truth of all the blood and tears needed to fulfill that outcome.  It was Final Fantasy Tactics that made me understand those things, and that's really not bad for a game I picked up because I had nothing else better to do that day.

Final Fantasy VIII: A Story Retrospective

[If you're wondering what this blog post series is about, read the introduction.  The first section of this article deals with the opening of the game; the second is marked as containing spoilers for the rest of the game.]

The difference between the way I approached Final Fantasy VII and  Final Fantasy VIII.was similar to the difference between FFIV and FFVI.  I stumbled into the former games and anticipated the latter.

Except in the time between FFVI and FFVIII, a revolution had started picking up steam: the Internet.  I no longer stared at print ads in torn gaming magazines.  Instead I downloaded grainy videos (no YouTube yet!) and stared at screenshots from Japanese websites searched up through Alta Vista.  Information was free but not yet easy to find, and that made every new tidbit all the more enticing.

And when release day finally came - oh, the excitement!

The Opening

As much as it pains me to admit, I have to be honest here: FFVIII's introductory movie has not aged well.

 

Start with overwrought choral music and continue with some meaningless blather in white text over a field of flowers.  Add in dramatic shots of characters we have no reason to care about (that woman in the blue dress, she sure does like to turn around a lot) rendered in badly dated CG.  At least the sword fight is cool.  Well, kind of cool.

I'll repeat: this introduction does not hold up well.  But it's important to put it into context, and the truth is that this opening was amazing for its time.  Compare this movie to FFVII's introduction, and the advances are stark: increased environmental detail, realistic human figures, naturalistic movement.  One might celebrate FFVIII for its graphical advances, if nothing else.

But the truth is technology progresses and is soon taken for granted, and whatever qualities are needed to make a lasting impression, well... FFVIII's opening doesn't have them.

The Rest of the Story


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The main plot of Final Fantasy VIII has something to do with sorceresses, 'time kompression', and, uh, flying gardening schools (I think I have that right).  Okay, sure, it's nonsensical, but that's not what the game is really about.  Check out the logo:

That's right, Final Fantasy VIII is really a love story!  Sure, roll your eyes all you want (and mine may half-roll in sympathy), but the shy and introverted twenty one year old version of me was still much enamored by notions of romance and true love, and perhaps present-day me wants to believe in those ideals more than he'd like to admit.

Ahem.  Anyway... given how badly the opening aged, it's surprising how well some of the romance between Squall (the moody hero) and Rinoa (the plucky heroine) holds up.  For example, here's their first meeting:


If you don't fall a little bit in love with Rinoa at 1:05, when she makes that face at the couple that they've bumped into, then you're... probably normal.   Still, it's amazing how well the game captures so much about Squall and Rinoa in such a short amount of time.  There's no voices, so all the viewer has to go on is body language and facial expressions, and that's more than enough.

From a purely storytelling perspective, that's where Final Fantasy VIII really succeeds.  In truth the characters are pretty forgettable... but while playing the game, one can't help but be drawn into their world because their mannerisms and movements and little tics all seem real and, well, human.

To emphasize my point, let me name the four other playable characters in the game and a few of their personality quirks:

• Quistis: quiet, reserved
• Zell: senseless, energetic
• Irvine: extroverted, over-confident
• Selphie: friendly, temperamental

Now watch the ending - no, not the whole thing, just the bit from 9:50 to 12:40 - and see if you can pick out who those four characters are.


It's not that hard, is it?

In the end, for all of the game's many, many, many flaws, I can't help but applaud it for being the first to be able to successfully communicate so much with so little.  Final Fantasy VIII paved the way for increasingly complex and subtle characterizations in future games in the series.

Final Fantasy VII: A Story Retrospective

[If you're wondering what this blog post series is about, read the introduction.  The first section of this article deals with the opening of the game; the second is marked as containing spoilers for the rest of the game.]

There was a time when I thought I'd never play Final Fantasy VII.  The game was released back when I was a broke college student, and the thought of buying a fancy Playstation to play it was less than a dream; it was a laughable impossibility.

Fortunately I was stuck in the Boston area one long and boring summer, and a kind friend (thanks Charlie!) lent me his Playstation and his entire library of games.  Aww yeah!  This is how I felt:



The Opening

Final Fantasy VII was the first game in the series for many people, and I'm sure that this opening is as memorable for them as it is for me.


Okay, that statement is a bit tongue-in-cheek, since I have a pretty good memory.

The opening does have its good points.  I like the way the camera starts out with a close-up on Aerith's face before zooming out to reveal the vastness of Midgard City, only to zoom back in to the train where the action starts.  It's a neat way to identify an important character that you don't meet until later in the game, while simultaneously giving a fine sense scale: things are happening all over the city, and the train ambush is just one small piece.

Other cool things?  The way the opening seamlessly melds the introductory movie into player-controlled action is neat, giving FFVII a propulsive start that immediately invests the player into the world.  Oh, and for some reason the kick the soldier gives at 2:08 in the video always cracks me up.

Interestingly, now that I've listed the positives of the opening, I find myself feeling far more favorable towards it than I did before.  I guess the problem is that the negatives are so overwhelming that they leak into the rest of the game and leave an incredibly bad taste in my mouth.  What are these negatives?  The establishment of Aerith and Cloud as the main protagonists.

The Rest of the Story


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If you'd like to know the plot of FFVII, I invite you to read the Wikipedia entry so I don't have to explain it to you.  The story is convoluted and tangled and frankly illogical; trying to make sense of it is like trying to brush my daughter's hair in the morning.  The general gist?  A bad guy - Sephiroth - wants to blow up the world.  The good guys want to stop him.  Hijinks ensue.

This is admittedly a glib explanation - after all, almost every Final Fantasy plot can be summarized in the same way - but I can't find myself caring too much.  Why?  Because, as I said above: I disliked the two main protagonists.

Cloud is a soldier - sorry, SOLDIER - with amnesia.   This gives him license to act like an asshole towards everyone else.  For some unknown reason, everyone else is okay with this.  Meanwhile, Aerith is a magical elf-like girl with magical Powers.  She is nice to everyone she meets.  Cloud likes her.

There's not much more to their characterizations, and as a result they feel less like characters than precisely calibrated gears carefully constructed to Make The Plot Go.  So when this moment - apparently a seminal one for thousands of gamers all over the world - happens halfway through the game...


... I found myself caring... kinda... well, not really.  It didn't feel particularly surprising or emotional.  It just felt like another piece of plot.

I think that issue is the heart of my problem with Final Fantasy VII.  It's a game built around a plot, and not its characters.  As I've learned, when it comes to story, the latter is almost always more important the former.

With all that said, FFVII does make one great choice, but I'll come to that after making one more complaint.

There's another female character, Tifa, present in the game.  Tifa is opinionated and temperamental, and she literally punches bad guys in the face.  She is awesome (although maybe I'm biased because I like opinionated and temperamental women), and sadly she has a crush on Cloud.  And so after Aerith's death, her role is reduced to pining after Cloud and hoping that he'll stop sulking and maybe notice her one day and... AHHHHHHHHH.  Tifa, you're better than he is.

 Okay - thanks for letting me get that out of my system.  Now I'll talk about this guy.



Sephiroth is one of the great villains in video game lore.  His look, his attitude, his actions, his final boss music - everything about him is so ominous and well-designed that it's easy to forget that the real reason he's so memorable is because he's so present in the story.  Unlike Zeromus and Kefka from FFIV and FFVI, Sephiroth is a visible character throughout the game.  Players witness his backstory and turn to evil; they see him actively thwart their plans; they are never allowed to forget that he is the key antagonist that they must defeat.  Sephiroth is like a wave that crests ever higher in a player's mind, and the satisfaction that you feel when you finally get to do this (skip to 1:00)...


... is both earned and very real.

One last note: I'm obviously extremely critical of Final Fantasy VII's story.  But I have to say, the game itself was a hell of a lot of fun to play!

Final Fantasy VI: A Story Retrospective

[If you're wondering what this blog post series is about, read the introduction.  The first section of this article deals with the opening of the game; the second is marked as containing spoilers for the rest of the game.]

Final Fantasy IV may have been the Final Fantasy that I played, but Final Fantasy VI (initially known as Final Fantasy III in the West) was the first Final Fantasy I anticipated.  I read (and re-read and re-re-read) previews in gaming magazines, studied the advertisements (featuring a moogle with attitude), and counted down the days until the game's release.  And then on October 11th, 1994, that day finally came...

The Opening

Final Fantasy IV was adventurous high fantasy, and I popped the Final Fantasy VI cartridge into my SNES expecting the same: brave knights, colorful spells, adventurous music.

This is the opening I saw instead.



From the opening narration with its dirge-like bells, to the beautiful and haunting credits music (skip to 2:30 in the video to hear it) - it was apparent that FFVI had a different, weightier substance to it compared to FFIV.  And truth be told, as a teenager I was both perplexed and a little disappointed in the change.

Still, games were hard to come by in the era before Steam.  And so I soldiered on.


The Rest of the Story


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Another difference between FFIV and FFVI: the former is clearly the story of Cecil, the dark knight-turned-paladin.  FFVI has no main character, instead offering the player fourteen choices (some of which need to be discovered), including:

• the half-Esper Terra, who starts the game under the control of the evil Empire
• the twin royals Edgar and Sabin, who once flipped a coin to determine who would rule their kingdom
• Celes, a disgraced former imperial general 
• the mercenary ninja Shadow
• the brooding knight Cyan, whose family and homeland were devastated by the Empire
• Relm, an orphan girl with incredible artistic skills
• a yeti named Umaro

 The first half of the game has fixed parties that explore the various histories of these characters and how they come to fight the Empire.  How does such a story play out?  Well, if FFIV is an epic novel, then FFVI is a short story collection, and that suited me just fine.  The "stories" have a fine balance of mood and characterization, ensuring that no one bit grows too tired or overstays its welcome.

Oh, and there's also a relatively famous opera scene (here's an orchestrated version with live voices - my favorite part starts around 4:55).



Naturally, the opera scene ends with a monster octopus falling from the rafters.

Eventually the stories all converge.  With Emperor Gestahl on the verge of gaining control of the three goddess-statues that are the source of all magic in the world, the player characters come up with a final desperate plan to stop him.  And they nearly succeed!  Except...

... in one of the greatest twists of FF lore, the Emperor's mad jester Kefka assassinates the Emperor and usurps the goddesses' abilities.  Wielding near-limitless power and unburdened by sanity, Kefka promptly raises oceans and crumbles mountains and wrecks the entire planet.

Fade to black...

When the game continues, the player's once magnificent cast of characters is reduced to one: Celes.  Lost on a remote island, Celes spends her days taking care of a sick friend.  Day after day the player scrambles around the beach catching fish, witness to both Celes's outer cheeriness in support of her friend, and her growing inner despair.  This balance tilts more and more as the friend's condition worsens.

One thing that video games do well as a medium is this: they force a sense of culpability upon the player.  Celes is not the only person failing to save her friend; the player is as well.  And so the impact is greater on the day that the friend finally and inevitably dies.

With nothing left to live for, Celes throws herself into the ocean to drown.

Instead she washes up on the mainland, a memento of Locke's miraculously appearing next to her.  With hope restored that she may yet find a reason to live, she resolves to find her missing friends.

And from that point on, the player is set upon a wildly open-ended quest to discover what has become of the missing party.  The analogy to a short story collection is once again appropriate, except now the stories all share a similar journey: that of learning what it means to live and be defiant in the face of heartbreak and despair.

This is FFVI's central theme, one exemplified by the party's ultimate fight against Kefka, who has become the embodiment of unreasoning chaos.  "Why do people insist on creating things that will inevitably be destroyed?" he asks.  "Why do people cling to life, knowing that they must someday die? ...Knowing that none of it will have meant anything once they do?"


I don't have a grand and all-encompassing answer to these questions.  I don't think there is one.  But, like the characters in FFVI, I've discovered that there are millions of little things - a friend's greeting, a stranger's kindness, my daughter's laughter - that lighten my heart each and every day.  And so far that's enough.

Final Fantasy IV: A Story Retrospective

[If you're wondering what this blog post series is about, read the introduction.  The first section of this article deals with the opening of the game; the second is marked as containing spoilers for the rest of the game.]

Final Fantasy IV (initially known as Final Fantasy II in the West) was the first Final Fantasy I ever played, and as such it has a special place in my heart.  But even without the nostalgia factor, I suspect that I would hold Final Fantasy IV in high regard.

The Opening

Some background: I've always been an ardent book reader.  By my teenage years, I was devouring fantasy series as fast as I could: Terry Brooks, David Eddings, Robert Jordan, Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman.  These novels had a comfortable cadence about them, always starting with a gentle introduction into the main characters' simple lives before ramping up the action in a exhilarating fashion (and the excitement curve was always concave up).

The opening of Final Fantasy IV was different.



It begins in darkness with the theme of the Red Wings, its implacable military beat a good marker for what is to come.  We are immediately dropped into the midst of the story: Cecil, the dark knight commander of the Red Wings, is returning from a successful mission.  His king has ordered him to retrieve the Water Crystal from a peaceful neighboring kingdom.  He has done so - but at the cost of some lives, and the morality of his actions are beginning to weigh on him.

Upon returning home, he and his friend Kain dare to question his king.  The king, shocked, banishes them both for their temerity.  And as they depart the castle, this theme begins to play.



I remember feeling my heart stir as I listened to this music.  It held promises of valor and glory, nobility and hope.  A belief that what was broken could be made whole if one was brave and true.

These are things I believed in when I was young, and perhaps still do today.  That a game could express it all in fifteen minutes or so of game playing time - that is still a wonder of my childhood.

A quick note before I leave this opening behind: I almost definitely experienced in media res before playing this game, but FFIV is still the example that comes first to mind when I think about the concept.



The Rest of the Story


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SPOILER WARNING
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The rest of the story plays out as one might expect: a surreal mix of grandeur, inexplicability, and utter lunacy.  I'll spotlight some memorable moments, but first a summary of other plot points that have stuck in my mind:

• Cecil must overcome his past in a personal trial by facing his darker self.  This fight is interesting in that you can defeat it by refusing to fight, signifying acceptance and growth.  Naturally I beat my dark self into submission.  WITH MY FISTS.
• Kain betrays you not once, but twice.  The first time he's mind controlled; the second time, he does so out of jealousy.  Still, in the end he rises to his better nature and fights on the side of the angels.  Kain is awesome.
• The main villain is someone named Golbez, who commands the Four Elemental Fiends (more on them below).  He's actually Cecil's brother.  At some point it's revealed that he, too, is being mind controlled by a creature called Zeromus.  Zeromus is on the moon.  Cecil and Golbez are descended from moon people.  They all fly to the moon on a Lunar Whale.

Uh, yeah.  Sometimes suspension of disbelief requires flat out ignorance of the more nonsensical bits - but if that's what it takes to appreciate the better moments, I'm fine with it.

 Speaking of "better moments" here are two of them:

The Four Fiends

The early parts of the game are pretty easy.  I remember thinking that the game would be no sweat, even when I was surprised by a boss while advancing towards the Cave of Trials.  He called himself Scarmiglione, and I shrugged off his pre-battle threats, assuming that he would be no more challenge than any other fight up until then.

Then this music started playing.
 

Scarmiglione kicked my butt once, twice, a billion times.  Finally defeating him was a moment of utter triumph.

Over the course of the game, you face off against three more elemental fiends, each of them just as difficult as the one before.  I remember feeling distinct relief after slaying the last one - Rubicant, the Fiend of Fire - knowing that I would never have to face them again.

Then this happens.


The exhausted horror I felt when I realized I had to face all four fiends, one after the other, was honest and real.  I'm still amazed at how effectively FFIV built up this moment.

Zeromus

So the end of the game is near, and now we're all on the moon and ready to face down Zeromus.  And naturally he kills you all with hardly a thought.

This is what happens next (skip forward to 3:09 or so).


The Prologue music, all the way back from the beginning from the game starts to play.  Back on earth, all the friends you've made throughout your exhaustive journey pray for your salvation.  One by one you and your companions stand.  And then the final battle truly begins...

Cheesy?  Unrealistic?  You bet!  And yet there is an undeniable pleasure in a tale with such symmetric roundness, one that closes the loop and brings everything full circle.  Not all stories need to end in such a way; in fact there are many that shouldn't.  All I can say is that Final Fantasy IV left me feeling satisfied with the adventure I had been told.

The Final Fantasy Series: A Story Retrospective

I don't play video games nearly as much as I used to, but one series that still holds a special place in my heart is Final Fantasy.  It's true that the games have had their ups and downs, but the overall quality is still very respectable, especially for a series that I've played for over twenty years.  And the latest entry to be released in the West, Final Fantasy Type-0, looks absolutely killer.

I'll be doing a series covering all the Final Fantasy games that I've played, starting from Final Fantasy IV (known as Final Fantasy II when first released in America) all the way to Final Fantasy Type-0.  The slight twist is that I'll be writing about the games from a storytelling perspective.  The posts will have spoilers, of course, but each entry will be split into two sections: the first discussing the opening of the game (which should be fair game for spoilers), and then a marked section discussing the rest.

I'm already humming the opening music of Final Fantasy IV...