You have [2] games remaining

(Although, 1.5 games might be more accurate, since I’m about to finished the second I’ve just finished the second - of three - worlds in FF V, and after that, FF VI - see my previous post from May)

Sorry for the lack of real updates recently! Here’s part of the reason why: I’ve spent the last couple of weeks playing through FF VIII. Final play time was just short of 70 hours. Couldn’t be bothered to level up the characters outside my main party, or track down a couple of Level 7 Boss Cards, but other than that I did everything there was to do. Except play a no-level game and maximize my base stats using Devour/Boost items, but that’s for craz… dedicated fans. Yeah.

        Anyway! I’m not 100% sure what I should say about it, seeing as the game is a dozen years old by now. I can say that I didn’t care in the slightest about Squall and Rinoa’s relationship - sorry, was there development there? Because it seemed like someone just flipped a switch, and off they went. The thing about the orphanage and the memory erosion of the GFs was pretty silly, but whatever. And what the hell is up with NORG…?

        I admit, though, I have to really look for things to dislike about the game. I definitely had a lot of fun playing it, and the section with Squall commanding Balamb Garden into battle was awesome. Even though I selected “prepare for attack” first, since the game hinted you should ambush them, and later scolded me for not attacking first. But yeah, I never really appreciated the direction of these action-movie-esque scenes (being chased by the robot in Dollet, the fight between Gardens, or the reactor sequences in FF VII) as a kid, but now I’m impressed that the game manages to create a real sense of tension in jaded ole me. Not to mention things like Quistis’s declaration that “Seifer’s sentence was carried out in Galbadia,” and following Sephiroth’s trail through Shinra - the music and everything else just come together for an intense feeling of dread and foreboding.

        I especially liked the way the game’s systems feed back into each other. If you’ve played Persona 3 and 4, much as I love the games, the social link stuff is more or less totally separated from the dungeon crawling stuff. But in FF VIII, everything has a useful purpose. I originally thought that Triple Triad would be dumb or a waste of time, but then I found out what you could get from the rare cards, and so I set out to collect them. The Cactus Thorns you collected a hundred of from hunting Cactuars turn into Hundred Thorns, which can teach some ability called “Return Damage” or be converted into other stuff. Point is, the game rewards you in a lot of ways, and that’s a smart decision. Also, super twinkable, delivering ultimate min/max joy. Final boss casts Meteor? Good thing I only take 20 damage from each hit!

        Oh, I do want to mention the weird as hell part of the ending that comes right after you beat the final boss. It goes on for way too long, and it’s just… weird. If you’re ok with spoilers, watch the first 5 minutes of this video. I think they’re trying to make you think Squall was erased from existence? Not really sure whose bright idea that was.

        To tell you the truth, I actually almost finished FF VIII when I was a kid (roughly age 7). I’d made my way to the fourth disc, and then… my dad saved over my file when he was playing later that night. HOW COULD YOU DO THIS TO MEEEEEEEEEEE?! I swore revenge, and retaliated by ripping up some of his old socks with scissors. And never touched FF VIII again, until now. Do you think I secretly have bonus nostalgia for the game, even though I’d forgotten everything about the game except the section with the robot in Dollet? It was like I was playing the game for the first time, but maybe somewhere in my mind I knew I’d been there before. Liek wif Squall and da GFs amirite? But yeah, now I’ve actually finished the game, and it only took me 70 hours to undo the effects of his save file confusion.

        Thanks, Dad.

Loose Ends, etc.

Tying up some loose ends here with a lot of small things that don’t quite deserve entire posts of their own. This is all the miscellaneous stuff I’ve been doing in recent weeks, but haven’t really gotten around to posting about. So, without further ado…

Anime:

• Deadman Wonderland was alright, nothing spectacular though. The fights weren’t mindblowingly amazing, and the characters were pretty meh, so all in all it was your usual shonen stuff.
• Blue Exorcist lost my interest about halfway through, and I didn’t watch the rest. More averagey shonen stuff than Deadman Wonderland.
• The World God Only Knows season 2 kept the same level of quality as the first season - it was the kind of show that I’d start watching, and my brother would come over to watch it without knowing why. If you get the humour, you’ll really enjoy it.
• Steins;Gate is still running, and it’s some pretty sweet time-travel stuff. I recommended Chaos;Head last summer (that’s a really long post, I’m just reminding you it exists), and Steins;Gate is better overall, I think. Okabe, the mad scientist, is hilarious at all times (I AM MAD SCIENTIST, IS SO COOL. SUNUVABITCH.). There’s some heart-string-tugging, too. Definitely worth checking out.

        I also watched Summer Wars last week while waiting for EBGames to open and give me my copy of Catherine. It was kind of the anime equivalent of a Hollywood summer blockbuster - in other words, take the forgettable cash-grab junk and replace it with beautiful art and a fun little scrappy-kid-saves-the-world story that doesn’t overstay its welcome. Also, they do some neat future-esque computer stuff that is actually possible, which makes it more awesome somehow. I was really happy when the gamer kid lends his laptop to a guy and switches to a different virtual desktop on his desktop-cube.

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        I watched American Beauty a few weeks ago, and I’d definitely recommend watching it. I’m not sure what to say about it, really, because it doesn’t have any one core thesis, but it’s got a ton of little ideas worth thinking about and it’s open to a lot of interpretation. I don’t know a whole lot about any of the parts of film, but I can tell there’s a lot of artistry in it. If you’re going to watch a movie, you may as well watch this one instead of some dumb romantic comedy or popcorn-munching action movie.

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        I’ve started and nearly finished Breath of Fire: Dragon Quarter for the PS2, and I think it’s fantastic. I really think it’s one of the better jRPGs I’ve played in recent memory, though my backlog for those has tons of quality stuff waiting to be played. It takes a lot from roguelikes - you can restart the game and keep the equipment, money, and some of the experience you’ve gained, and the more restarts you’ve done, the more you unlock of the story. It’s a very quick, focused version of a jRPG - I’ll probably be pushing 30-40 hours by the time I finish my first time, but the game rates a “perfect” playthrough as 8 hours or less. It’s just really solid mechanics, all the time. There are a few little town areas, with basic utility NPCs, and one relatively short sidequest. Well, plus the Antz Colony passive sidequest.

        Now, allegedly FF XIII was an attempt to streamline the jRPG and cut out all the fat, but it felt very lacking. It felt empty, dull, pretty and flashy but with no substance. Dragon Quarter, on the other hand, is streamlined and constantly satisfying. To me, FF XIII felt like it gave me no reason to enjoy what I was doing - it never seemed like I was making any progress, or accomplishing anything useful. Dragon Quarter doesn’t have that problem, and for one reason or another it’s just an inherently more satisfying experience. It’s probably just a great combination of all the things it does well, against the things FF XIII did not. Anyway, I super enjoyed it.

        Also, I’m going to talk more about Catherine soon, but it’s going to get its own post. So wait for that.

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        I read Neil Gaiman’s American Gods during my vacation to PEI, Robert Sawyer’s Wonder, and Patrick Rothfuss’s Name of the Wind. All were excellent, and I recommend them wholeheartedly. I’m working on finishing Steven Erikson’s The Crippled God, and I started George R. R. Martin’s A Dance With Dragons and Frank Herbert’s Dune. I know I should finish one book before starting two new ones (at the same time!) but when I’ve got two houses and a car (where I’ve spent a lot of time lately) I need to have something to read all the time. Erikson is doing his thing, and I happen to love it. The HBO adaptation of Game of Thrones - which I haven’t mentioned yet, so know this: I love it, go watch it! - has changed my view of Martin’s work, and it’s better for it. Peter Dinklage’s voice behind Tyrion’s lines is just great. As for Dune, I’m enjoying it so far, but I’ll get back to you when I finish it.

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        I’m probably forgetting plenty of stuff, but I can’t really call to mind everything I’ve done recently. Maybe I’ve already posted about the books I read, too? I didn’t think I said much about my vacation because it would be boring to tell you about how I hung out with my friends. I’ve been catching up on things in my bookmarks and Read It Later lists, which is nice, but many of them weren’t quite worth posting about. I haven’t been working on my Grand Quest To Finish All The Final Fantasies, but whatever. Although, I did read The Final Fantasy VII Letters and alongside the Final Fantasy Things tumblr, it’s got me feeling better about the vast amounts of time I’ve spent on this. There’s a certain sense of beautiful community behind these jokes, and I kind of don’t regret spending 50-100 hours on each of these games. Maybe it isn’t time perfectly spent, but spent well enough. I can live with that.

You have [3] games remaining

There’s something I’ve been working on for a few years now, but I’ve never actually mentioned to anyone. A personal quest of mine, I guess. It’s not really a secret, I’ve just never bothered to explain it. I told someone yesterday, though, and I think he was impressed, so I feel like posting about it now.

        My goal is this: play every game in the main Final Fantasy series to completion. A dozen games right now, thirteen if you include FF X-2. I’ve finished some of the earlier NES titles in 20-30 hours, but the newer games are easily twice as long. More if you run around doing sidequests and finding secrets, which I tend to do. I’ll post my final times when I’m all done, but let’s just say I’ve put hundreds of hours into this series.

        At the moment, I have three games left to finish: Final Fantasy V, Final Fantasy VI, and Final Fantasy VIII. I’ve put a few hours into FF V already, but I haven’t started the other two at all. At a wild guess, I’d say 40 hours each for FF V and VI, but VIII could take a while longer than that depending on how much extra stuff I do. It’s looking good, though - I think I can finish before the end of the year, even if I get a job for the summer.

        I don’t know for sure when I started doing this. I think it was a little over a year ago that I told myself I’d actually finish them all, but it was a few years before that when I decided to collect all of the games. I still remember when I got each of the games, but the thing is - I rarely ever finished them. I actually did complete II, VII and IX before dedicating myself to it. But since last spring, I’ve finished FF I, III, IV, X, X-2, XII, and XIII. Most of those games only took 10-20 more hours to finish from when I’d stopped playing, which may sound ridiculous if you don’t play RPGs, but it means I was pretty close to the end.

Here are a few things I’ve learned so far:

• Basic plots can work, over and over again, as long as they’re well executed - you can make a dozen “go save the world” games, but if you make the player an integral part of the story and give them compelling short-term goals, they really won’t care (good examples: FF VII, FF X - bad examples: FF XII, FF XIII)
• When the player takes control of existing characters, choose your “protagonist” carefully - the player shouldn’t feel like someone else is doing all the important work, but making the protagonist a supporting character can make things really interesting (Yuna is the most important character in FF X, and it’s her job to save the world, yet Tidus is the protagonist and manages to be integral to the story anyway - Vaan is the protagonist in FF XII, but Ashe is the only character that really matters to the story, and you’re left feeling totally unimportant)
• Repetitive gameplay can be rescued by altering the feedback by a tiny bit - if the player has to fight 50 battles in order to get a single level up, they’ll feel like they’re making no progress, but if you give them stat boosts every 10 battles it’ll seem like they’re constantly getting stronger (FF II is great with this, while ability points in FF V and IX fill a similar role of constant feedback)
• It takes a lot of work to make a great character, but it pays off in the end, so don’t skimp on the supporting characters - every character needs their own personality (this means you need to write well enough to show it off), a unique look to complement that, and an interesting role in the gameplay (every game from FF IV to X has a… mostly great cast, but X-2, XII, and XIII have boring, underdeveloped, and relatively uninteresting characters - they’re very pretty, though!)

        There’s probably a lot more to be said than that, but I haven’t thought of it yet. You really need to compare individual games in order to notice this stuff, because the strong points of one game can shed light on the problems of another. So even though I’m almost done playing the games, I’m nowhere near finished thinking about them. I could easily write this much about Dissidia Final Fantasy, the fighting game that pits characters from across the series against each other. I intend to write a whole lot more about the stories and characters of FF XII and XIII.

        I mean, someone’s gotta do it.