1288: Final Fantasies

I’ve been thinking a lot about the Final Fantasy series recently, prompted in part by the impending release of the third Final Fantasy XIII game Lightning Returns, which is actually looking rather spiffy. It’s a series that, as I’ve noted a few times before, I’ve followed from VII onwards, though I later went back and educated myself on earlier installments in the series.

As such, here’s a few thoughts on each mainline entry.

FINAL FANTASY I: Generic as hell, right down to the monsters ripped straight from the D&D Monster Manual and its high fantasy setting. Minimal plot, incomprehensible plot twist right at the end. Worth playing to see the series’ origins, but feels very grindy these days.

FINAL FANTASY II: Very interesting, particularly when you compare it to other JRPGs around at the time. Not only was it an early example of a Final Fantasy game focusing on plot, its mechanics were kind of cool. Okay, they had their problems, too, but indirectly Final Fantasy II set the template for the “use it to improve it” skill system seen in, among other things, the Elder Scrolls series.

FINAL FANTASY III: By now, the pattern of odd-numbered Final Fantasy games focusing on mechanics and even-numbered ones focusing on plot was set in place. Final Fantasy III had minimal plot, even in its later 3D remake, but it’s a game worth playing to see the genesis of the Job system that made frequent reappearances throughout both the mainline series and its numerous spinoffs.

FINAL FANTASY IV: Heavy on the plot, light on the mechanics. In Final Fantasy IV, you’re stuck with whatever party members the plot dictates you have at any one point, with minimal customisation. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, though; it allows you to focus on the plot which, while basic and clichéd these days, was impressive, epic stuff back when it first came out, and noteworthy for having characters with distinct personalities.

FINAL FANTASY V: I must confess to never having finished this one, but it has one of the best implementations of the Job system of the whole series, allowing you to blend abilities from two different Jobs, assuming you’ve already learned some from the Job you’re not actively equipped with. Once again, it’s an odd-numbered Final Fantasy so the plot is somewhat disposable, but again, the mechanics are the reason to explore this game.

FINAL FANTASY VI: For many, the best Final Fantasy but again, I must confess to never having beaten this, and somehow never having had the ending spoiled for me. VI gives a good balance between the predefined characters of IV and the customisation of V by having distinctive characters whom you could teach spells to. The plot, meanwhile, was excellent, if arguably overly ambitious for the technology it had available to tell it.

FINAL FANTASY VII: I’ll always have a soft spot for this one, what with it being the reason I like JRPGs as much as I do today. I haven’t played it for probably a good ten years or so, but I’m open to the idea of revisiting it at some point. Those awful field screen character models bugged me even back then, though; I believe the PC version allows you to mod them.

FINAL FANTASY VIII: Much-maligned, but this is one of my favourites of the series. A touching love story coupled with some world-shattering silliness, with one of the best final encounters of all time — even if the finale itself was somewhat nonsensical.

FINAL FANTASY IX: One of the best battle themes in the series, though the child-like characters looked a little strange after the realistically proportioned people in VIII. IX has a ton of series fanservice, as it was the series’ swansong on PS1.

FINAL FANTASY X: The change to PS2 and full 3D was very jarring to me, especially when combined with the move to a fully turn-based system. Said turn-based system was great, though, particularly the way you could manipulate the turn order to your advantage. This mechanic would later be seen in a whole bunch of other JRPGs — Trails in the Sky is one that springs to mind — so it proved to be massively influential. Also noteworthy for having a cool level-up system that made for highly customisable characters… and for having a terrible conversion to PAL consoles, with ugly black borders at the top and bottom of the screen and a frame rate significantly slower than the NTSC (Japan and US) versions.

FINAL FANTASY X-2: Gloriously camp, and delightful as a result. Final Fantasy X-2 may have taken place in the same world as X, but it had a completely different character. X was melancholy throughout; X-2 was rambunctious and joyful. This ultimately wasn’t to everyone’s taste, but the game certainly didn’t suffer as a result. A non-linear structure combined with a fantastic implementation of the Job system made Final Fantasy X-2’s small party of three immensely customisable, and there was a ton of stuff to do in the game, much of it optional. Highly recommended.

FINAL FANTASY XI: The first of the two MMOs in the series, Final Fantasy XI is noteworthy for being one of the first games of its type to actually make an effort with narrative progression alongside the otherwise relatively straightforward MMO gameplay. There was a story, there were bosses, there was even a final boss. Subsequent expansions continued the stories into ever more exciting encounters, but you had better be ready to invest a lot of time — the game had one of the slowest rates of levelling of any MMO, and though this was marginally improved over time, it’s still painfully slow and dependent on playing in parties.

FINAL FANTASY XII: XII took a bunch of ideas from the MMO XI and transplanted them into a single player game. It was the biggest shift the mainline Final Fantasy series — many fans don’t count Final Fantasy XI due to its online nature — had seen for a long time, since it abandoned the old-school turn-based or active time battle systems in favour of a quasi real-time system somewhat akin to that seen in a Western RPG like the later Dragon Age. In fact, Dragon Age pinched a few ideas from Final Fantasy XII itself, such as being able to program the game’s AI to respond to specific circumstances.

FINAL FANTASY XIII: The first HD Final Fantasy divided opinion significantly. I really liked it, but others didn’t appreciate the streamlined first 20 hours or so, in which you have a bunch of options locked off as you’re forced by the game to familiarise yourself with specific party setups with limited — but still some — customisation. The battle system shifted from micromanagement to switching character classes on the fly, and was very fast-paced. When the game opened up very late on, there was a ton of side content to do, and you could go back and do more after you’d beaten the final boss. Whatever you think of the game, though, it’s hard to deny the fact it’s one of the most beautiful games you’ll ever see on any platform.

FINAL FANTASY XIII-2: Many of the criticisms against Final Fantasy XIII were addressed with XIII-2, but the previous game had built up such an inexplicable bank of ill-will that many people never even bothered with it. The time-travelling story was convoluted and hard to follow, but the non-linear game structure provided a lot of interesting things to do. There were also some actual puzzles in the game, which the series hadn’t seen for quite some time.

Lightning Returns: FINAL FANTASY XIII: Details are relatively thin on the ground for this upcoming new entry in the series too because everyone’s so angry about the fact that Lightning has jiggly boobs, but it sounds like it’s going to be more “actiony,” but provide you with a number of different means of tackling various situations. An open world section is also promised, along with some Final Fantasy X-2-style dress-up funtimes that I’m looking forward to very much.

FINAL FANTASY XIV: The second massively multiplayer incarnation of the series was reportedly awful, but I never played it.

FINAL FANTASY XIV: A Realm Reborn: The second incarnation of the second massively multiplayer incarnation of the series is simply marvellous, however, and I’m looking forward to playing it when it releases later in August. It takes the good things about Final Fantasy XI — the Final Fantasy-like presentation, the music, the diverse characters, the implementation of a plot into a massively multiplayer game — and throws out the grindy stuff in favour of a wide variety of stuff to do, friendly to both solo and group players, and a number of mechanics inspired by other successful MMOs such as Guild Wars 2.

FINAL FANTASY XV: Details are scant on this one as yet, but early videos look pretty spectacular. Will it be a next-gen system seller? Who knows? I’m certainly looking forward to finding out.