Final Fantasy Challenge: Final Fantasy V Part III. “The laws of the universe mean nothing!”

Copyright Square Enix

At some point near the end of the game, while fighting Necrophobe and Gilgamesh had his big long speech about the party, I just said “I love this game.” While I’m a little disappointed in the final boss oscillating between being a pushover and just wiping me out, I ultimately found that this was one of my favorite Final Fantasy titles ever. It’s up there with VII and IX as the A-Tier games in the series. Now that I have completed it, I can say that I have completed every single mainline Final Fantasy game. All I have left for this project are games I held off for the end because I’d played them all before (except for XII, because I’d had the Zodiac Age for a year and hadn’t touched it), so I can confidently say that this will remain as one of my favorite games in the series, ever. It’s not quite on the top of the A-Tier list, that’s Final Fantasy XVI, but it’s definitely fighting it out with IX. I do think VII might edge it out a bit, but we’ll see. Obviously, spoilers for the endgame are going to follow.

The merged world was really cool. First, it was fun to see how the worlds merged together, how well it all fit together and where things “should” have been the whole time. It’s pretty interesting, especially with the foreshadowing we had before, such as the Sealed Tome split between the two worlds, the sealed basement in Castle of Bal and all of the kingdoms in Galuf’s World seemingly missing their towns. I mean, towns probably should have been built in the 1000 years since the split, but I get why the developers didn’t do that.

I liked all of the dungeons in the merged world, save for the Fork Tower. I normally like split dungeons, but the physical side was a huge pain in the ass. They had that Counter Knight guy who would just fuck up Faris or Bartz whenever they attacked him. I kept running into those guys, so I’d just get merc’d every time I fought them. Too much of a pain in the ass for me. Also, the Omniscient, the mage boss, was more lame than cool for a magic duel. I just kept Reflect up and he couldn’t do anything. The Minotaur wasn’t so bad, but he he did a bunch of damage. What’s funny is that I could have gone and picked up a bunch of the Sealed Weapons and made my life easier, but I thought you had to get all of the tablets first. I will say, going back and getting all of the Sealed Weapons before I did the final one for me, the Great Sea Trench, did make things easier. I just gave Krile the Sage Staff and she just killed everything down there. Hell, I actually meant to recast float (because of the possession ability one of the Unknown monsters has), hit teleport instead, and I didn’t have a problem going back through the dungeon. I was like “oh shit, more free AP.” Managed to max out Berserker for Bartz there.

Istory Falls and Pyramid of Moore weren’t really anything to write home about, but the Pyramid was crazy hard without Lenna. It kind of sucked, because I wound up having Lenna be a few levels behind for the rest of the game, although that did save my ass when I got caught with a Level 5 Death near the end of the game. Allowed her to run away. Even though the last few dungeons might have felt basic, I do like that each of them connected to their element and felt unique. The Great Sea Trench being connected to the kingdom of the dwarves and being in an underwater volcano was cool. The Pyramid had tons of traps and everything, like you’d expect a pyramid to have. The only one that didn’t have an impression on me was Istory Falls. It was just a water dungeon. I do like that it was all technically optional, I could have plunged into the Interdimensional Rift any time I wanted, but I do like that the first two set up things later, and that after you complete the Island Shrine, you can tackle the rest of the dungeons in any order. I actually didn’t know I had missed a tablet, because for some reason I thought the Fork Tower was one, but nope, I was wrong. That was the last one I did.

The Interdimensional Rift isn’t my favorite final dungeon, but it’s up there. Kefka’s Tower, Northern Cave and Sky Fortress Bahamut have it beat, but this one was really good. I do like that it’s combination of all of the important places of the tablets and Exdeath. Also, the final one just kind of being in space was cool. A lot of the bosses were complete pushovers thanks to the fact I had Spellblade and Rapid Fire, meaning I could easily throw around 40,000 damage a turn, and nothing had more than 60,000 a fight. Which probably explains why all of them can just hit like a fucking truck. This game would be hard if it wasn’t so easy to abuse.

The only guy I really struggled against was Neo Exdeath. I beat Exdeath’s first form like it wasn’t even there, but Neo Exdeath continually kicked my ass. I tried a strategy I saw online, though, when I found out that the bottom one was weak to Break and the back one could be one shot. I was told Zantezuken didn’t actually hit, but I accidentally hit Odin instead of Bahmaut and Odin fucking cut that part in half, so there we go. Then Bartz Break Bladed the bottom part and it was just a matter of healing and clean up after that. Shame I killed him before I could raise Faris, and I got the less good ending.

I do think the story in the final third is not bad. Like I said, this isn’t the most narrative driven game in the series, but it is more than the Famicom games, and it gets more involved as it goes on. Exdeath surviving as a splinter to sneak into the merged world was brillaint. Also, him becoming a tree again at the end of the game is also very cool. We get some examinations of the characters, but they are fairly limited. It’s not as great, but like I said in the last one, at least there’s no meat left on the bone by the end. Of course, I also started Final Fantasy VI already and the contrast in narrative and character just from the first two hours I’ve played so far is stark. Still, it’s why VI is S-Tier.

By the end, I had turned my team into absolute killers. I wound up going after both superbosses, and Shinryu was the easiest. I just had to get a chance to go, because the first two times I fought him, he just hit me with Tidal Wave and killed me. However, I used the Golem/Berserk combo and Flare Bladed him to death with Bartz and Faris while Lenna kept summoning Golem and Krile did her best to keep everyone hasted. Omega was a challenge. All it took was for me to get Thundaga Blade up on Bartz and Faris, but surviving the set up was a challenge, since Blaster just killed someone and he had tons of other moves to fuck people up. I tried a Reflect strategy at first, but that’s what caused him to use Blaster. So, I switched to a haste strategy, and he did kill Lenna and Krile, but by then, Bartz and Faris had their Thudaga Blades up, and it was time for them to go. 16 hits at 40000-5000 damage each was more than enough. So, I have finally beaten some super bosses. It’s just Omega and Shinryu, but I did it.

I do like that Omega is just out there walking around. He looks funny on the field, especially after the Omegascape Raids in Final Fantasy XIV, and him just kind of being an asshole. I wish we had more Alpha. Shinryu was kind of just a big dragon, so whatever.

Ultimately, I loved this game. I’ve enjoyed all of these games, even II for what it was, and I’m glad I’m back in the swing of things. I am going to take a break after VI, mostly to play Shinobi and Doom: the Dark Ages, but I’ll hopefully be back to VII and VIII Remastered soon after. I’ll probably do a write up of XVI soon, because I found my notes already. I think I’ll wait until my friend finishes, since I’m kind of playing along with him as he streams.

Final Fantasy Challenge: Final Fantasy V Part 2. “Enough expository banter! Now we fight like men! And ladies! And ladies who dress like men!”

I’ve heard that quote more than once before I played this game. I have done all of the Hildebrand quests up through Endwalker. I just now realized he’s talking about Faris. She’s a lady who dresses like a man. This is something I really like about the game, even though it hints pretty well at her being a woman before the reveal, I do like that the Wind Crystal Job sprites for Faris have her in more masculine clothing than Lenna. There are hints, such as her having the same color armor for Knight as Lenna while Bartz has the same color as Galuf. Krile has the same color as her grandfather and Bartz, but, you don’t have Krile until you have all of the Jobs (other than Mimic) and it makes sense for her to have similar sprites as Galuf considering she inherits his abilities. Also, after the jump, it’s spoiler territory. I also talk about endgame spoilers for other games in the series, including XVI, VIII and IX and parts of Shadowbringers, so be wary.

So, the second world of Final Fantasy V kind of made up for some of the complaints I had about Bartz’s world. This game still isn’t a narrative tour-de-force like VI or even IV is, but it definitely stepped up in terms of storytelling and developing characters. It’s interesting because now that I’ve played pretty much every other game in the series other than XIII, one of the criticisms I have is that the story tends to fall off in the second half, but not so here. This is where we actually got some real character moments for some of our guys. Galuf, of course, gets the lion’s share, with Krile getting a lot even before she joins the party, but Bartz, Lenna and Faris get a lot more than they had in Bartz’s world. It’s still not a lot, but Bartz’s angst about his father does explain his sort of lackadaisical and easy-going demeanor. He doesn’t want to feel the sadness he went through losing his parents, so he just sort of ignores it, but it manifests in different ways. It’s part of why he’s afraid of heights, for instance. Lenna and Faris get to explore a bit more about their history, after watching their father sacrifice himself to save them and defeat Exdeath. Finally, we get Exdeath.

So, I love Exdeath. Nearly every time he comes on the screen, it’s after doing something horrible and I wind up shouting “Exdeath! You asshole!” It’s great. What’s interesting is that he’s kind of the opposite of what I like when it comes to Final Fantasy villains. I love very human, very relatable villains. Emet-Selch, Vayne Solidor, Shinra, Kefka Palazzo, Kuja and Garland, and a lot of Final Fantasy XIV villains are some really good fantasy video game villains largely because they feel like things bad people in real life would do or be. Sure, many of them have super powers, are wizards or literally turn into gods (or in Kuja’s case, summons the universal embodiment of death), but even when Kefka is literally the god of magic, his apathy and despair feels very human. He got what he wanted and it’s terrible, so the rest of the world will suffer. Exdeath, meanwhile, is just a complete asshole. No redeeming qualities. He’s not even funny like Kefka is. I mean, his actions are hilariously terrible, but he’s not cracking jokes or anything, he’s just so awful that its comical. He’s not even a person, he’s an evil tree. He wants power to destroy everything. He should be down there with, like, Ultimecia in terms of villains I think are lame as hell, but nope, Exdeath rules. He has so much charisma, so much presence combined with zero redeeming features. He’s a very flat character who wants nothing but destruction and it rules. He shows up, chews the scenery, probably blows it all up, kills a bunch of people and just mocks you. The only thing I didn’t like was what he did to my boy Gilgamesh.

So, I have to admit, I was really excited for Gilgamesh. I’ve seen this guy in several other games, but never his initial appearance, but he’s great here. I wanted to see my boy Greg so bad and he didn’t deliver. Cowardly, arrogant and wielding so many dumb weapons while thinking he’s the smartest guy on the planet is hilarious. Plus, hearing Battle on the Big Bridge as it was originally intended was so good. Hell, the whole Battle at Big Bridge is one of my favorite sequences in the game, especially with him running away. I just forgot the steal the Genji Armor from him before he got launched into Final Fantasy VIII. The first time I got to fight ol’ Gilgamesh, I couldn’t help myself and cried out “GREG” with delight to see one of my favorites in his first real appearance.

So, the last thing to talk about is, of course, Galuf’s death. Now, I think Cid’s death in XVI might be the strongest party death in the series, but that one is kind of unfair because it’s so emotionally moving and it’s in full 4k with Ralph Ineson, Ben Starr and Susannah Fielding doing voice work. So, I always considered Tellah’s self-righteous sacrifice against Golbez to be the best, thanks to the story-gameplay integration. However, Galuf’s sacrifice is even better. It has the similar story-gameplay integration, only this time, it’s a noble sacrifice, so Galuf can save the next generation and his granddaughter. He takes on Exdeath on his own entirely at 0 hit points. I just threw comet after comet at Exdeath until he finally died, since Galuf was already dead anyway. I love that after, they tried everything to save him, Curaga, a Phoenix Down and an Elixir, but nothing saved him because it’s not running out of hit points that kills you. God, he just refused to go out. Of course, Exdeath isn’t so easily defeated, he managed to turn himself into a splinter to resurrect himself after he merged worlds, so it wasn’t the end, but Galuf saved the party. He should be commended.

Ultimately, this one is shaping up to be one of my favorite Final Fantasy titles, I think. I think it will fight with IX in that spot. It doesn’t beat out XII, XIV and XVI, and I think that VI and VII will remain in their spots as second and fifth respectively, but it’s still an A-rank game.

Final Fantasy Challenge: Final Fantasy V: Knights Do it Two-Handed

All the good quotes are in the second half of the game. I just beat a major milestone, but I don’t want to spoil it in the opening paragraph. Anyway, yeah, we’re back to doing games in bunches now, rather than just writing it all up in one go, since we’re done with the NES/Famicom titles. After all, the games are trying for more complex narratives now, so this one will likely get at least one more post. Maybe three. I’m really liking this one, even if the narrative isn’t quite as strong as IV’s was. I still kind of like the story more. So, anyway, spoilers after the break

So, I have completed all of Bartz’s world, learned of Exdeath’s resurrection and did a few things on Galuf’s world. I was actually kind of surprised at how little I knew about this game’s story. I know about only one thing in the future and I think I knew that Lenna and Faris were sisters and that’s about it. I’m not even sure I knew about the different worlds or not. It is interesting how similar the worlds actually are, and I have become aware of the third world map, so I have some theories about what that means, but I’ll hold them until the next post. Anyway, the short story is, as I said in the previous paragraph, I really like this game a lot. I found myself actually just grinding when I had a small amount of free time in between two things in my real life, and I don’t normally do that. However, the Job system has really gotten me going. I wish it were more in-depth like the one in Final Fantasy Tactics, but I kind of understand why they don’t want you to have Rapid Fire, Dual Wield and Flare Blade all at once. I might be able to pull that off with a Mimic, though, as long as I don’t have Attack or Item. Hmmm.

Anyway, the Job system is one of the things that really makes this work. I’m jumping from Job to Job way more than I did with III, not just to build characters, but just to experience different party makeups and strategies. The game doesn’t penalize me for changing out Jobs, even in the middle of a dungeon, so when I mastered White Mage on Galuf, I switched him to Red Mage to help build up Doublecast just to make sure the AP didn’t get wasted for him. I did that in the middle of a dungeon, with no penalty. Did the same for Lenna when she mastered Black Mage and I’ll probably have to do that with Faris when she finishes off Ranger, although I don’t have the knives to switch her to Ninja yet, since Bartz is using them. It’s a thinker about what I’m going to do next, and I love it. I love seeing how I’m going to build the characters into huge badasses in the future, and I like that eventually, once you’ve got them built up, you just switch over to Freelancer where they have all of their abilities and a pair of powers. It’s very cool.

My only issue is that you can’t really get in depth with it like Final Fantasy Tactics. Sure, Tactics has its own issues with Jobs and it’s not quite as easy to jump from Job to Job there, plus Job requirements (although considering it’s a tactics game rather than a regular RPG, requirements are understandable for the genre), but I do wish I could have more than two abilities. Like I said, I get it, having Rapid Fire, Dual Wield and Spellblade all at once is a lot, especially if you’re wielding Knight Swords or something instead of Knives, but man, it would be cool to rock up to Exdeath and fuck him up.

Now, the narrative is one of the things that is the most important for me, and I have to say, I’m finding I really like the one found here, even if it’s not as complex or ambitious as others in the series. Obviously, it’s a more complicated, more complex story than anything we got in the Famicom games, but it is a step down in terms of complexity and character development from IV. The characters aren’t quite as deep, the story is a lot more light hearted and the narrative is way more whimsical. Ironically, despite IX being something of a throwback to IV when compared to VII and VIII, it’s tone is actually closer in comparison to V and IV is closer in tone to VII and VIII. Yet, for some reason, I really like it more. Bartz doesn’t have a lot of character, but I like him way more than Cecil, who is a bit of a wet blanket, and we don’t have a Kain anywhere, which is nice. Faris and Lenna are fun and sweet respectively and Galuf is a big jolly guy. I do think his amnesia was a little weak as a character trait. It worked great at the ship graveyard, foreshadowing who he really was, and Krile, but there wasn’t any pathos to follow up on it, and then later when the werewolf sacrificed himself, it was kind of like “oh, this should have been sad, but we don’t know who he is.”

Still, I kind of don’t care as much. The game isn’t shooting to be crazy complicated. It wants to be a fun journey, so the characters don’t have a lot of personality they’re not living up to. I love X, but Wakka and Lulu especially have these potential character arcs, especially in regards to their relationship, that the game doesn’t really explore. People often just write off Wakka as racist, too (even though his bigotry is religious based, not based on ethnicity, but bigotry is stupid and irrational anyway), and it’s largely because his arc of understanding the Al-Bhed and coming to terms with the failings of his own religion are largely, but not entirely, left on the cutting room floor. This isn’t a thing in V. The characters may not be incredibly complex, but the also don’t leave anything on the table, so to speak. Faris and Lenna have their drama, Bartz has his insecurities and Galuf has his conflict with Exdeath and amnesia, but they also get resolved and their character arcs complete. It’s not a lot, but it is all there, so I can appreciate that.

On the other hand, it is lacking a lot of the emotional exploration it should have, which is something the later games are going to do much better at. I know this because V is the only game I hadn’t ever played, and I’ve beaten every other game now besides this, Tactics and XIII. Part of what works so well for X is Yuna’s story (she is one of my favorite protagonists now, up there with Cloud, Ashe, and the rest of the XII protagonists, and Clive) explores her emotions and fears about performing the summoning of the Final Aeon. Her relationship with Tidus, doomed as it is (even if he were a real boy. Let’s face it, he’s a dumb jock and she’s an honor’s student, they weren’t going to work out no matter what) is at the heart of wanting to see more, to do more. It’s great. V doesn’t have anything like that, at least in the beginning. It’s got cool dungeons and great set pieces and it’s a fun adventure, but it’s also not really doing a lot. That doesn’t matter though, it’s not trying to be XVI or Tactics. It wants to be the fun adventure and it succeeds at that, and that’s fine.

Final Fantasy Challenge: Final Fantasy XIV Dawntrail. “If bloodshed will save my subjects, then I will become history’s most brutal queen.”

I didn’t actually finish 7.3, but I’m not far from the first dungeon and what I saw of the story so far led me to write this early. I don’t think there’s going to be some twist at the last minute that will ruin anything, so I think I’m good. Honestly, I needed to write this. It’s purgation. Anyway spoilers through 7.3.

I loved Dawntrail. There is no but coming. I have negative criticisms of the story and some of the gameplay choices, yes, but I’m not here to bury Dawntrail. It has many praises to sing, and I think that’s important, but before I begin, I want to talk about stories.

Stories, especially in an interactive medium, are difficult to tell. They require you to take a bunch of events and bend them together in a way that is emotionally resonating and narratively satisfying. The end, when a story is done well, is generally the most memorable and emotionally resonant part. Despite what people pick up from their middle and early high school English classes about story structure, the climax does not take place in the middle, but the end of the story. It is the last bit of action before everything wraps up, the climactic finale. It is Luke destroying the Death Star, Macbeth dying on his own terms in the fight against MacDuff despite knowing MacDuff is the man not of woman born, it is Thanos snapping his finger and it is Jon Moxley tapping out as “Hangman” Adam Page hangs him over the top rope with a chain. These are all the climaxes of the story, and one might note, the end of all of them. One is literally the final act of a wrestling match. It is generally the part people remember the most. A pithy quote, a cool action sequence, an important moment earlier during the rising action is also likely to rank up there as well, but the climax is where it all comes together. It’s a little bit different in a printed medium, and sometimes film and television, where the climax can stretch out for some time; technically, the climax of Infinity War continues until everyone fades from existence, but the Snap is the important part.

Conversely, the part people dislike the most is the beginning. I have said, many times, that I hate exposition. It’s long, it’s easy to make tedious and, quite frankly, it’s boring to write. I don’t like it as the audience and I really hate it as writer, but it is just as important as the climax. It is where the characters are introduced, the stakes laid out and the plot given form. It takes a while to get going, and when something is brand new, it’s going to take longer than a sequel, where the characters and world are already known. It’s a lot easier to jump into the action, so to speak.

The biggest issue Dawntrail has is that it’s the Exposition of a new story. It’s not just a sequel, it’s starting over from a new beginning, and a lot of the growing pains for the game are going to come from that. Endwalker finished an entire 10 year story arc in extremely climactic fashion, to the point that none of it can be followed up on. A new story needed to be done, and threading that needle is going to be difficult. The truth is, Dawntrail does thread that needle quite deftly, but it does have stumbles and issues as well. It’s also unapologetically still Final Fantasy XIV, with all of the baggage that comes along with that (some of which is significant, although at this point, I think we need to understand that Square isn’t going to give more money to the cash cow and this is just how the game is going to be).

So, to start, I do recognize that it has some foibles. First, I can understand if someone doesn’t like Wuk Lamat. I did, I loved her, but she’s very Naruto coded and she has a lot of lines where she shouts someone’s name. Sena Bryer did a great job, which is obvious in the patch quests and earlier parts of the story, but I’m not going to pretend shouting “SPHENE” isn’t annoying. Anyway, Ayaka Shimoyamada had the same issues in Japanese, so it really is more like Thancred shouting “MY TURN” than anything else. I’m not going to comment on why people chose to harass Sena Bryer while they took Peter Bramhil’s performance as a meme, but I know why people did and I do not approve. I wouldn’t approve of harassing any VA, but I know why it happened this time. That said, Wuk Lamat is also a big, dumb wannabe hero and you have to spend the whole game being Gandalf to her Frodo and it takes three-quarters of the game to get there. Then Vrtra shows up and fucks things up, but it is still three-quarters of the way into the game. I get it, that can be frustrating, wanting to be the big hero and instead, the story is about shepherding the new generation.

I also get not liking that as a story. It doesn’t always thread the needle, and there’s also Urqopacha’s first half, which is just inexcusable. Come on, I’ll agree with any hater on that, especially since I think it’s the more beautiful of the first two starting zones. I want a JRPG set in fantasy Mexico because of it, but I also don’t want to spend four hours doing a fucking trading deal. Anyway, I lost the plot for a second. I understand feeling like the Warrior of Light gets left behind for this new kid. It’s important to note that she doesn’t, the Warrior of Light is the main character. Wuk Lamat is a deuteragonist with the Warrior of Light, but the story isn’t actually about her. It’s about the Warrior of Light stepping up and embracing the new story. Jesse Cox made the observation that the Warrior becomes Ardbert, but I disagree. She’s not Ardbert in this story, she’s become Louisoix. She is here to shepherd the new generation, now that she is fully free from her past self as a member of the Convocation. Jesse Cox said he thinks it’s going to be a Spider-Verse (an Azem-Verse, he said) and I agree, because the Warrior of Light’s destiny is to grow beyond the world. If there’s anything that this whole project has taught me, it’s that. The Warrior of Light, whether it’s Terra Branford, Cloud Strife, Clive Rosfield, Ramza Beoulve or Ariadne Nighteye, they have to grow beyond their own world.

Dawntrail does a good job with this, but it’s a complicated story. It doesn’t always make things work the way it should. Wuk Lamat really does get too much screen time at certain points and the first half is too long before we get anywhere. I wouldn’t say that it’s poorly paced, all of it makes sense and comes back, but it is a slow start.

Anyway, I’m tired of fandom grievances, but I needed to say my piece. The patch quests are some of the saddest, darkest things I’ve seen in a Final Fantasy game. Zarool Ja is just a bastard. That part where Galool Ja sees his own father reject him is one of the saddest things I’ve ever seen in a video game. I didn’t cry like I did at certain parts in Final Fantasy XVI or Endwalker (or even when Otis fucking died in this, we’ll talk about that), but I think it’s the saddest thing I’ve ever seen in a game. It’s just heart wrenching to see this sweet 10-year-old boy see his father say no to him. The Golool Ja model doesn’t have a lot of face movement, even for this game, but the scene did such a good job of selling how much it broke the poor kid to see that. Like, was someone processing a real issue? It was one of the most “real world” bad things I’ve seen in a game, and part of the reason I didn’t cry is because, intentionally, there is no emotional purgation. It just hurts. There’s no “oh this is sad, isn’t it?” moment, it’s just “fuck you, sometimes parents are assholes. There is no resolution.” Like, god damn. It was fucking dark as Hell. The patch quests aren’t shying away. I needed a break after Geode because it’s just like “that’s how it goes, fuck you.”

Anyway, the regular story also had some great moments. Vrtra showing up with Koana going full anime protagonist is one of my favorite bits, and what made me realize what this whole story is about. Also, the story arc we got for not just Koana and Wuk Lamat, but also Bakool Ja Ja. A big two-headed asshole with a funny name became a two of my favorite characters. Yeah, he’s two people, and I love that the Mystic still remains kind of an asshole no matter what happens. Also, the game reached deep into the old lore about the mamool ja and the two-headed ones and turned it into a story about eugenics and how hate can destroy a community. Can destroy a family. God, Dawntrail has a lot of shitty dads. Unless they’re Wuk Lamat’s dad, either, they’re just an asshole. I’m glad at least Koana’s parents didn’t abandon him like he thought, because shit.

However, the last half of the story is an insane thrill ride. Like, it’s just crazy that there’s this whole cyberpunk real from the Ninth that is here to harvest the life force of all of the reflections to power their undead fake afterlife. Like, holy shit, that’s some dark shit. However, when we get to Otis? God damn. Yeah, I get it, he’s a full character reference to Steiner (and we get to kill the full character reference to Beatrix in 7.2 and it’s sad too), but his character was so well done and his death made me tear up like this was Endwalker all over again. It wasn’t, you know, the moment where I realized it would all end with just Ariadne and the twins, but damn, it was emotional.

Dawntrail had some issues, but the growing pains were worth it for some of the best moments in the series. Either the Final Fantasy XIV series, or Final Fantasy, take your pick.

Final Fantasy Challenge: Final Fantasy III. “Our treasure’s yours! Follow me, and behold the dwarven moonwalk! Come, come!”

Two of these in one week? Am I a machine? Or am I just trying to get things done before I go back to work tomorrow? It’s the second. It will be a time before I do V, which is the next on the list, but it hopefully won’t be two years before I get to it. Of course, I’ll also finish 7.3 this week, so I’d like to have a Final Fantasy Challenge on Dawntrail. Spoilers, I really liked Dawntrail and I thought the story was really well done. I also think that a lot of people’s thoughts on the story are factually wrong. Like, I get it if you don’t like Wuk Lamat and genuinely don’t like the story, but I saw people say that Erenville or Krile didn’t get any character development (or that Wuk Lamat didn’t, and that’s as silly as when people say Jill didn’t in XVI) and that’s ridiculous. I also understand it’s not what people wanted, so I can get not liking that too, that’s a fair cop. Anyway, I’ll talk about all of that when I do my Dawntrail Final Fantasy Challenge.

Final Fantasy III is easily my favorite of the Famicom/NES era Final Fantasies. I came into this not sure what to expect, because my only experience with it was with the 3D Remake in college, and those DS 3D Remakes were brutal and I wasn’t interested in the NES grind life by the time I reached my early 20s. At 39, I’m definitely not about that grind life anymore, which is why I’m glad the Pixel Remasters let me turn off encounters. Anyway, I came into this with lower expectations than I did with I, which I had previously beaten. I did expect it to be better than II, but I didn’t know if it would be better than I, expanded Job system or no. However, I walked away surprised. The pieces for Final Fantasy still don’t quite come together right until IV, but the fit the most here until then. Final Fantasy III is a lot of experimentation, but it’s also a lot of iteration on what worked in I and II, wrapped up in a final challenge to end the NES/Famicom days. I think, if this were back in 1990 (and we lived in an alternate universe where we got the NES Final Fantasy III) I might hate this game, but like with II, the Pixel Remaster made a lot of changes to draw out the best of this game.

So, once again, Fenris, Dusk, Aethereon and Morrigan ride out as the Warriors of Light to save the day. Only this version of them have an expanded backstory, young orphans who stumbled into a cave. Chosen by the Crystal, either by destiny or their pure hearts, they go out to restore the elemental Crystals and stop whoever is causing the crystals to go dark before the world is lost in a Wave of Darkness, not unlike the Wave of Light the Warriors of Darkness saved the world from in the past. The story starts on a floating continent, then takes them to the surface world, under the water and finally, into another dimension itself. It’s unlike any other NES RPG I’ve ever played, with four full world maps, tons of dungeons, multiple kingdoms and even a city as a dungeon. I’ve never seen anything like that in an 8-bit game before.

The biggest downside to this game, to start with the negatives, is that it is a game with some serious difficulty spikes. Salamander was the biggest one, but Xande at the top of the Crystal Tower was a huge difference in power versus all of the encounters in the Crystal Tower and all of the bosses in Eureka. I thought Eureka was going to be a hard, optional superdungeon, but nope, it’s easier than the final dungeon. It’s basically required to beat the game, because damn were the bosses in the Crystal Tower and the World of Darkness hard. And none of them had anything on the Cloud of Darkness. She just blasts with Particle Beam every round. Every round. I beat her on my first try, but basically by baiting her into a loop where I’d heal everyone back to full. It didn’t work every time, but that’s why I have Elixirs. Also shurikens. Should have bought more.

The Job System also is a bit of a disappointment. I don’t know why I expected something like we got from V and Tactics (something I might to a Challenge post on, we’ll see), but the Job System is just one ability. Only the Bard gets new powers as it levels up, and the Bard sucks. I never used it. I never used the Ranger, Evoker or Summoner either. I bought all of the Summons and gave them to my Sages when Aethereon and Morrigan unlocked them. The game definitely wanted you to jump Jobs at certain points, and that was kind of frustrating. Salamander was the first gate, which I was only able to win by turning Dusk and Aethereon into Red Mages, so they’d have ice magic and ice shields to take less damage from Blaze, which Salamander would just spam at me. The only issue was, I didn’t know that spell slots don’t restore if you jump from a noncaster class to a caster class, so Dusk had no spell slots. Aethereon killed him, while dying, by himself. There was no indication for this, and it sucked. The other times the game was like “hey, you need to be all of these Jobs” was a lot better signposted. A guy straight up tells you that only Dragoons can beat Garuda and you get a bunch of free Dragoon equipment. Also, the second two dungeons with splitting enemies, they tell you that splitting enemies split when hit with normal attacks, so use magic and Dark Knight abilities. However, they don’t tell you that in the first dungeon with it, and that leads me to my final complaint.

Sometimes you just can’t get gear for a Job and what gear you can equip isn’t clear. You literally cannot get any Dark Knight gear until after you get the Invincible, because Dark Knights can only equip Dark Swords and heavy armor after a certain level. No idea why. Also, nobody sells a Hat until way later in the game. Geomancer never gets much equipment, but there are tons of Bard harps. No one wants to use them though. Also, Evoker, just what the fuck is that thing? Terrible class, just awful. Honestly, the Water Crystal classes are just a disappointment outside of the combat ones. Actually, that’s just true in general. There are five good caster Jobs: Black Mage, White Mage, Magus, Devout and Sage. Magus is just Black Mage plus, Devout is White Mage plus and Sage is just “the best mage.” Of course, you get it with Ninja, which is also “the best Warrior” so I don’t really count Sage in this.

However, all of those things aside, the game is excellent. The story isn’t quite as deep nor does it try to be as complex as what they did with II, but I do think the story is better here. Mostly because while the game is still pushed forward by the NPCs, and our PCs barely have any lines of their own (and most of them are just from the first hero) the PCs are treated a bit more complexly than they are in II. It may sound weird, but the heroes have to do more complicated things in order to save the world, and to complete specific dungeons, and the NPCs acknowledge this. They don’t exactly have growing character arcs in relationship to your PCs, but the game acknowledges them and treats them with a level of existence that isn’t really in II. In II, Firion, Maria and Guy were acknowledged by the NPCs, but they all felt flat, as did their relationships with the other people. However, this has Princess Sara falling in love with your first hero, Cid constantly doing what he can to help you, Alus treating you as a hero. I don’t know, maybe it’s because at the end, the game brings them all back and they show what good you’ve done in the world instead of just fucking dying.

Honestly, II tries to be so dark that it’s kind of hard to latch on, especially when characters just fucking die because. That doesn’t happen here. Even Desch is like “nope, I’m fine,” which normally I’d think would be stupid, but I actually thought it was kind of charming this time. I don’t know, it’s hard to put properly into words, but I think that II’s story tries so hard to be dark and serious fantasy Star Wars, while this is, like I before it, a crazy D&D campaign with all sorts of wacky hijinks and a lot of fun between characters.

Also, like, issues with the Job system aside, when it did work, the Job system sang. There’s a dungeon where you have to Mini, so you need to go back to being mages. I made Fenris a Geomancer, because it fit with him just being a big huge guy who fucks people up, and Dusk became a Red Mage again, and it was really cool. There’s a previous Mini dungeon where I probably should have made Fenris and Dusk Red Mages, but I didn’t, but it would have worked there. Plus, when the Jobs are good, they feel good. In the second enemy splitting dungeon, I had Dusk as the Dark Knight, Fenris as a Viking (and Aether and Mori stayed as they were) and I just kept having people attack Fenris, and since he was a Viking, they did minimal damage. It was like being an actual tank, while everyone else fucked people up. It felt bad ass as hell. Once I had more Dark Knight gear, I did another enemy splitting dungeon with both Dusk and Fenris as Dark Knights, and they tore it apart. Also, once you get Sage and Ninja, you just feel like you’ve earned it. It’s like you’ve reached the pinnacle of adventuring achievement. Everyone was dual wielding, Fenris had Excalibur and Ragnarok, Aethereon had all of the most powerful spells, and could summon most of the summons (I gave Morrigan Ifrit and Leviathan because it fit her) and Dusk was throwing stars and cutting fools up with the Masamune every round. Hell yeah, it was cool.

Anyway, this one surprised me. I’m glad it came out better than I expected. I moves down the list and III goes up. I’m glad to see that. I will say, if this were the DS or NES/Famicom version, I don’t think it would be that high. Then again, I wouldn’t have finished II if it were any other version, because it’s just frustrating otherwise.

Final Fantasy Challenge: Final Fantasy II. “Guy Speak Beaver”

I honestly thought this one might be the one to trip me up when I started this all the way back in 2018. And, since it’s been almost exactly two years since I did one of these, it kind of did, but I’m back and I’m here to talk about the most controversial game in the series, and really give my thoughts about it, because I have a lot of thoughts. That said, I will be doing an Endwalker Final Fantasy Challenge at some point. I liked Endwalker, had a slow beginning, but it was good. I love Wuk Lamat, and I’m someone who hates Naruto (the show and comic, but especially the character). I’ll probably write it after 7.3 wraps up, because it does feel like the patch quests, much like Stormblood before it, makes for a more complete story. Heavensward felt that way too, honestly. I’ll also be adding Final Fantasy XVI, which I’ll do later, probably after I complete everything else. I’ll just play it on Final Fantasy mode. Also, I have a few essays trapped on my computer somewhere, but I’ve just not posted them. I don’t know if I will or not.

Final Fantasy II is a very frustrating game. At first, I thought the haters were wrong, and this was actually a real jump over Final Fantasy I. I liked Final Fantasy I, but the story is pretty minimal. There aren’t any real characters and the game is very straight forward. You keep going to new places, buy upgrades and go to new dungeons. Very little backtracking, very little characterization and everything is very straight forward and linear. No real way to get lost. This was not the case for Final Fantasy II. Right from the start, you’re introduced to Princess Hilda, who has more personality than any character in Final Fantasy I and she won’t let you join the rebellion, so you have to prove yourself and find her boyfriend, who fucking dies in a basement, killed by the Empire.

It’s amazing, one of the first thing the game does is set you up for adventure, but in a way that’s different. Hilda, despite fighting a desperate war for survival, is unwilling to sacrifice civilians and won’t let you join. She changes her mind when Firion and team prove themselves, but still, it’s an interesting way to start the game, a complete subversion from just showing up with the powerful Elemental Crystals and the king telling the heroes to save his daughter. The story continues, with a rotating cast, each with more personality than would be expected from a game in 1988. Minwu reminded me of Ryu Hyabusa from the NES Ninja Gaiden games and I liked several of the other 4th characters, Leila and Ricard being my favorite.

At first, too, the gameplay seems pretty cool. Since I was playing the Pixel Remaster version, I was under the impression they’d fixed a lot of the wonky elements of the previous releases. That meant compensatory HP, so I wouldn’t have to attack my party members just so they’d have enough HP, no negative experience, so I wouldn’t lose EXP if I did something different for a round or fought a lower level monster and experience for spells and weapons being more clearly defined. I thought I could build my own classes, with Firion as a Paladin, focusing on White Magic and protection, Maria as a Black Mage focusing on spellcraft and Guy as a sort of Eldtrich Knight, splitting between party buffs and just murdering the fuck out of people with an axe. At the beginning, that’s what I had. By the middle, though, I realized that I had made a huge mistake.

The level up mechanics of this game are so fucking frustrating. It’s hard to really articulate them in words, because a guttural growl with your eyes closed and fists clenched that grows into a primal scream is a much more apt way to describe leveling up your characters. I’ll try, though. I thought I liked it until I got to the Desert Coliseum, or maybe the Dreadnought, where I realized my stat growths seemed arbitrary and my spell and weapon growths seemed to slow entirely. It was around there I began to look up how to level up spells, finding that it wasn’t just based on how many times you cast the spell, but also the relation of the caster’s power versus the power of the monster it is being cast upon. I’m not sure the exact formula, and it is not nearly as bad in the Pixel Remaster (and again, there’s no negative EXP for casting it on enemies who are too weak), but it felt extremely frustrating to try and level up certain spells only to find out that actually, I’m not getting any experience, or what I am getting is so miniscule that I’m not going to register it. It was apparently the same for weapons.

This is where it gets really, really frustrating, because the game has a very high encounter rate. Like, extremely high. In the Jade Passage, third floor, I counted the number of times I got into a fight in that one map, and it was 13 times, not counting the King Behemoth in a chest. Maybe fourteen. There was one fight I wasn’t sure if I counted or not. Honestly, the Pixel Remaster version is easy enough that this wouldn’t be a problem, but in every dungeon, I reached a point where I just wasn’t getting any experience anymore. Or again, it was so low that it wasn’t worth the time it took to go through the battles. As such, I never got any spell above 9, and that was Cure, because I was using it on my party. Hell, I understand why people tell you to just attack your party to level up, because they’re always strong enough to get experience. When I was in the Mysidian Tower, we’d stopped getting weapon experience. Then Ricard got charmed in a fight, stabbed Maria to death and when we finished the fight, he leveled up his spears. Stupid. Even with the Pixel Remaster, it’s still stupid. I’m sure there are ways to mitigate all of this and the Pixel Remaster has areas where you can easily level everything up to 16 in a few hours, but it’s not worth the grind. Honestly, I got so frustrated with several dungeons, I just turned off encounters. There were just too many, and for most places, it wasn’t worth the hassle. Seriously, when I was lost trying to find the Masamune, I found a video of a guy getting it on the Pixel Remaster. It’s less than two minutes long and he does seven fights.

Also, I never understood how stat growth worked. Sometimes it just seemed arbitrary. I went through a whole section, from one level up screen to the next to test this, having Maria do nothing but cast Black Magic. Every round. I was leveling Drain at the time, so it helped. She didn’t raise her Intelligence, just got the compensatory HP both times. I had Guy go ham on some guys never using anything but his two axes (because by the end, everyone was a dual wielding buff caster, except Leon who just killed people with an axe and sword) and his evasion went up. Hell, one time in Pandaemonium, I had Maria casting only Black Magic, but on one of the chest bosses, I had her cast Protect and her Spirit went up. That was the only White Magic she’d cast recently. I don’t know if there’s a screen that shows my EXP or not, but everything seemed arbitrary and it wasn’t’ fun.

Honestly, because of what the Pixel Remaster gives, a lot of this wouldn’t be so bad, just frustrating. However, these are the worst dungeons ever. There’s a section in Cyclone where you go off the beaten path to get some chests, which means going on a different route, and on that route, there’s an electrified floor guarding a ladder up to the next level. All that’s past that are a bunch of dead end monster closets. That’s it. Big open room, saw it when I went to go fight the Emperor and went back to see what I missed. Nothing but monster closets. There are so many goddamn monster closets in this game. Just a dead end room where you’re teleported to the middle of the room and have to walk back. In other versions of the game, they had an increased encounter rate, which isn’t in the Pixel Remaster, but still, it’s stupid. You also have to check, because some of those rooms are treasure rooms. They generally aren’t, but a large enough minority are, so you have to check them. The dungeons were too big, they had too many encounters, eventually by the end of the dungeon, the encounters stopped giving EXP and then you get to a boss who doesn’t even have cool mechanics. Long, pointless side paths that lead to a dead end, or long treks to get a single chest that has a potion or Hellfire, or huge, open rooms with literally nothing in them, but the way to the next floor. The dungeons were designed by a sadist and I hate them. I went into the Jade Passage and Pandaemonium with 99 Potions, 99 Ethers and 99 Hi-Potions. By the end, I had 0 Potions, 30 something Ethers and 17 Hi-Potions because I wanted to save MP. Ironically, though, Pandaemonium was my favorite dungeon. Literally traveling to Hell to fight the Emperor and a bunch of powerful demons like Astaroth and Beelzebub was cool.

The story is pretty good, for 1988 NES games, I will give it that. Guy, Firion and Maria have no real personality, and so much of the game is told through the fourth party member. Minwu, Josef, Gordon, Ricard, Leila and Leon all have stories and personality, but the PCs do not. Also, like, most of them fucking die. Fully half of your fourth members die, and two of them saving you. Josef went out like a boss, too, I’ll give him that. Ricard just kind of…dies I guess and then Leon joins you because he was there at the beginning and we need to square that circle. Kind of lame that he never gives an explanation for why he joined the Empire. I figured he was the Dark Knight right away, even before Maria recognizes his voice, but I thought he’d be mind controlled or something. Nah, just joined, I guess. He never really shows remorse except for the end, either. He should, because what the Empire does is fucked up, man. It’s dark as hell. It’s not like, Final Fantasy XVI or Stormblood bad or anything, but whole towns get wiped out by the Emperor, they blow the shit out of people with the Dreadnought, they kill civilians and the Emperor is literally summoning creatures from Hell. Also, when you kill him, he goes to Hell and gets more powerful. You have to go to Hell and kill him again. Holy shit, that part is epic.

I get what they were going for. I really do wish it worked, but it didn’t. Honestly, I get why the people went on to make the Romancing SaGa games after this. I didn’t really like my time with the remake of 2 (mostly because they suddenly jumped forward 95 years and all of my characters died, so I lost interest), but I did appreciate they handled the level up system better. Hell, I’ve played a lot of Oblivion and Skyrim, I’m not bad at these. I didn’t have issues with the original Oblivion release (and made myself unstoppable when I played the Remaster), so I can deal with these kinds of “level up what you do” systems, but this is the worst way to do it. I’m glad they learned from their mistakes and made SaGa better, and went back to the Job System for III. Which, speaking of, III is downloaded and I’m ready for Fenris, Morrigan, Dusk and Aethereon to ride again.