Final Fantasy Challenge: Final Fantasy IV Part 2: You Spoony Bard

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  Copyright SquareEnix

Spoilers from here on out. Just a warning.

It’s interesting how different the first half of the game is from the second. From the point of Tellah’s death onward, it seems like the game is less interested in changing up the party and more in actually building character dynamics. I can’t help but think that, maybe, the game would be a lot better if it didn’t have so many characters coming in and out of the party, with Cecil as the sole remaining member. Rydia, Kain, Rosa and Edge all wind up having a lot of good interactions with Cecil, but since many of them don’t become permanent members of the party until the second half, and Edge doesn’t show up at all until after the Tower of Babil, a lot of the best character growth comes from the back half of the game.

This isn’t necessarily bad, since the first half of the game gives us the story of Tellah, his life and how vengeance wreaks havoc upon the people searching for it, which allows for Cecil’s growth in the second half of the game, but it does mean that a lot of the characters feel really stagnant for a good chunk of the game. In the games I’ve played in the series, I haven’t seen a game try to do as much with as many characters as Final Fantasy IV has. Even VI, which has almost twice as many characters, does a better job of juggling them, their growth and interactions. Mostly because we get to control them when they’re not together. The game would be much worse without Sabin traveling to Doma to meet Cyan and fighting the Phantom Train. However, we don’t see Rydia’s off screen growth from grieving child to a powerful adult sorceress, and that limits what the game can give us.

Sure, the reason we have RPGs telling stories in the way they do is because of Final Fantasy VI, and to hold this game to the standard of a game that wouldn’t come out for three years after it isn’t fair, writing about them both 30 years later does mean I’m going to have a different perspective on things. In the end, I wound up growing to like the characters, even Cecil and Kain, but ultimately, I felt like the game never gave its scenes and characters enough time to really go. Everything happens at a breakneck pace, so we get a revelation about Cecil’s past in the Giant of Babil, a bit of Cecil’s reaction to it and that’s it. We have to move onto the next scene. Very few things really carry over from one scene to the next, making some of the character development a little disjointed. Still, it wasn’t bad, I liked the characters and the story, and how it wrapped up.

Except for Golbez. I’m torn, because I think bringing in Zemus as a sort of Emperor Palpatine to Golbez’s Darth Vader really diminishes what Golbez does and his ambitions. On the other, I hate Golbez and I really like Zemus. Zemus is a dark Lunarian sorcerer who decided he wasn’t going to wait to peacefully colonize a planet and decided to build a giant robot to fuck shit up. When that didn’t work for him, he had his minions build an extradimensional tower and connect his psyche to some sort of demon of pure hatred to empower himself. That’s metal as hell. Golbez is just Darth Vader. Like, honestly though, I think I wouldn’t mind Golbez if we ever get a win over him, but everything we do against him is just “heads I win, tails you lose” throughout the whole game. Seriously, you go to the king of the dwarves three times to tell him that you’ve failed. Like, Golbez as an ambitious conqueror from the moon would make for a great villain, and would be a lot better if he built the Giant of Babil and had empowered himself with Zeromus, but since we never win, even when we kill him in battle, he comes across as lame, so Zemus kind of saves the story in a way. Like, when you finally defeat him in battle, in what is one of the most unfair Final Fantasy fights I’ve done, he literally gets up and says “death has no hold over me” and steals the crystal while we’re in another room. He literally kidnaps Rosa at one point by throwing his cloak over her. It’s lame. He’s lame. He brings the story down until the end.

However, I will say, the dungeons in the second half a pretty cool. Even returning to the Tower of Babil is nice, since you don’t have to repeat most of old the floors, and the ones that you do were parts that weren’t visited the first time. Also, the fight against Rubicante was nice, and he had an interesting character, making him one of the more compelling villains, despite appearing maybe three times in the whole game. I liked his noble demon approach to things. I also liked that he healed me before the fight. The Giant of Babil was a bit of a let down as a dungeon, but it was a cool scenario, where a battle against a monstrous robot so large it can probably be seen from space is fighting against the Red Wings and the dwarf tank battalions. Then the party slips in and shuts it down from the inside. It’s really cool. The sidequests were fun, especially finding the Eidolon king and queen and travelling to the moon to fight Bahamut. The fight with Bahamut was actually pretty easy. The only dungeon I didn’t like was the final one, since it was 11 floors long, and kind of boring. Music was pretty sweet, though, not going to lie. I did like the ending, and the final sequence, with Rosa and Cecil getting married and becoming the rulers of Baron. That was a nice ending.

Ultimately, I was surprised that I didn’t like this as much as X. I was expecting this one to be near the top, but I just kind of thought it was okay. I also don’t think it’s a game I’m going to return to. If I want this kind of old school Final Fantasy, IX does everything it does, but better in every way. Still, it was worth it to experience, and I’m glad I’ve made some real progress in this Final Fantasy Challenge.

Final Fantasy Challenge: Final Fantasy IV Part I: So be it! Let my life fuel the spell that ends his!

Copyright SquareEnix

It’s been a while since we had one of these, isn’t it? I know I said I was going to do Final Fantasy I, but Final Fantasy I is boring, and I’ve played it before. The real point of this exercise is to play through all of the games I haven’t played before, so I decided to go with Final Fantasy IV, because I haven’t played any of it ever. Much like Metal Gear Solid 2, it’s a game I know a lot about, literally almost everything, but I have never played it before. Unlike MGS 2, it all comes together a lot better, and everything is still somewhat different than what I had expected. I’m playing on Steam, so I’m playing the less hard DS version, which is nice. I understand the best version is the PSP version, but I can’t get my PSP to work, so it wasn’t worth looking up.

So, Final Fantasy IV is an interesting game. It’s not the first time that the series has tried to be a serious action fantasy story, that honor goes to II, but it is a lot more coherent and workable. There’s a reason much of what we consider standard for JRPGs, especially in the 16 bit era, come from here. While VI is the game that takes the medium to new heights storytelling wise, and basically invents the idea of set pieces outside of dungeons for the series, IV is where they really start pushing the boundaries of what they want to say with the series and what they want to do with the genre. It also means shit gets weird and dark fast. Before the game even starts, we have Cecil, our hero, being angsty about committing a war crime and the game goes from there. My first mission in the whole game is to hunt down an Eidolon, then deliver a ring to the town of summoners, which burns the entire village to the ground. Holy shit. Within two hours, I’ve burned an entire city, orphaned a poor summoner girl and just fucked up everything. So, fuck it, right, time to rebel I guess.

From there, the game is a parade of just awful shit happening. People die, kids turn to stone, families are torn apart and kingdoms are fucking destroyed. Like, Aerith dying is dark and heartbreaking because it’s sudden, but Final Fantasy IV, 5 years earlier, was like “fuck it, we’re gonna kill some kids and you’re going to have to deal with it.” Like, there’s no way I can discuss this further, so I’m just putting the spoiler tag here, okay? Don’t go any further.

Seriously, last warning. Spoilers for everything up to the Dark Crystal of Earth.

Like, I know Tellah is the only one who dies permanently, but holy shit, the game really wants you to believe that Leviathan just ate Rydia. She’s 7, dude. Sure, she comes back, and that’s the part I’m at, but holy shit, dude. Palom and Parom is just terrifying. They don’t come back, either. Like, I know they get freed by the Elder, but they don’t rejoin the party or anything. They may as well be dead. Thanks to the game’s pacing, the game doesn’t give you a break, either. It’s just a misery train for Cecil the whole way through. Anytime he manages to succeed at something, it’s snatched away from him. Hell, Rosa was literally snatched away from him, like, with a cape. It was wild.

I have to say, while the game has seemingly random difficulty spikes, it does do a good job of building the encounters and dungeons around who Cecil is traveling with at the time. Magic is very important when Cecil is on his way to Mount Ordeals, so Cecil has Tellah, Palom and Parom. Once high damage needs to shine, well, Palom and Parom turn themselves into goddamn stone. Jesus. It is pretty smart though, and is similar to some stuff I saw while playing Hard mode in Final Fantasy VII Remake. I’ve got a Game Anatomy on that I wrote about 7 months ago that’s still being sat on I should upload. Anyway, as in that game, FF IV really wants the player to optimize the powers they have right then, based on who is in the group at the time. The game never expects the player to do anything that they can’t actually do. Except maybe in this fight against Golbez, but I’m assured that it’s kind of bullshit for everyone.

I have some thoughts on the characters I’ve seen so far. I mean, I haven’t met Edge or FuSoYa yet, but I’ve met most of the characters. I really like Tellah, he’s a badass old wizard man who sacrifices his life to get revenge on Golbez for killing his daughter. Hell yeah. I also like Rosa, since she’s been through some shit and still manages to keep her head on straight. Yang is cool, I guess, but he has no personality. I do like Edward. Like, he’s fucking worthless, but I like his story and how he grows into a prince worthy of his throne. Rydia has a good story with her trauma and overcoming it, but I think I would like to have seen her grow up or something. The twins are fine. They’re fine. I like Palom more, because he has attitude. The sister is a goody goody and kind of boring.

As for Cecil and Kain, well, I kind of don’t really like them. Cecil is okay, I don’t mind Leondardo-esque characters most of the time. Hell, I like Luke Skywalker more than Han Solo, but Cecil is just too much of a sad sack. Yes, I understand he goes through some shit, but we don’t get to see much else. It’s like he and Rosa are the same character, a basic RPG hero, but she gets all of the determination and he gets all of the angst. Like, he’s fine. It’s not like he’s Kain.

Jesus, Kain Highwind is lame. I love my edgy Dragoons, too. Estinien Wyrmblood is probably my favorite character from Heavensward and he’s the emo-ist of boys. The thing is, he has some depth to his edge. He’s not just all edge all the time, and we actually get to see the caring side we’re told so much about. As for Kain, it’s appropriate they got Liam O’Brien to play him, because he’s just all edge like Shadow the Hedgehog or Illidan Stormrage. He’s all “DARKNESS, NO PARENTS” all the time, and it’s not a joke. Like, he is cooler than Illidan, since Kain is a Dragoon and isn’t just an asshole who gets all of his sins forgiven because…, uh, I’m sure there was a good reason for Illidan to be forgiven for all of the slavery and murder he did.

Anyway, it’s an interesting game. The pacing needs some work, it’s a bit shot, since I’m maybe 60% of the way through the story and I’m only about 7 hours into the game. I know there’s a bit of grinding I need to do, I’m at it, and the boss fights really need some work. Too many counters, and a lot of them come out of nowhere, and there’s generally not a lot the player can do about it. It’s not like Final Fantasy X where each boss fight is a puzzle, this is more like a middle finger. It’s not all of them, so it’s kind of frustrating to reach a point, run into a difficulty spike and then bash my head into it until I stumble over the finish line. Often on accident.