Elimin8 03.11.10: The 8 Worst Final Fantasy Fails

Posted by Josh Boykin on 03.11.2010

From Yuffie Kisaragi and Final Fantasy Mystic Quest to Chocobo's Dungeon 2 and Chocobo's Racing, 411’s Josh Boykin counts down the Worst 8 Final Fantasy Fails in the latest edition of Elimin8!

Final Fantasy XIII came out on Tuesday! Huzzah! In honor of the release, we here at 411 Mania have decided to host a Final Fantasy theme week (as you've likely already noticed, or at least wondered so many of the articles are tailored to FF this week). This week's Elimin8 will be no different.

Final Fantasy's been known for its versatility and overall appeal, ranking as one of the most successful video-game franchises of all time. The characters, graphics, and soundtrack have always been spot-on, and the series has created all sorts of spin-offs in the process. But even the Final Fantasy series has taken its fair share of stumbles and falls...this week we have:


Elimin8: The Worst 8 Final Fantasy Fails


8. Chocobo's Dungeon 2



Dungeon crawlers burn time. That's what they're good for. You walk around in a dungeon and pick up items. Essentially the RPG-lite for a super-casual gamer, Chocobo's Dungeon 2 took the Final Fantasy franchise into kiddy territory by making everything cute, with varying effect. The Chocobo, per usual, was cute. The main human character was cute (like a baby; I'm no pedophile). The monsters were cute. And the game was boring.

The Problem: Dungeon crawlers are really, really boring. To take the Final Fantasy name and attach it to something as try as a randomly-generated dungeon crawler almost feels like a disservice. Pokemon can do it because nobody expects any real depth from Pokemon titles. But a Final Fantasy title needs to do something RIDICULOUSLY WELL to really merit being a Final Fantasy. If it's going to be funny, it needs to be a side-splitter. If it's going to be deep, it needs to keep me awake at night. If it's going to be a dungeon crawler, then...uh, well, I don't know how to make that stand out, I guess.

The Remedy: Please don't make Final Fantasy dungeon crawlers. I'm not saying that there's no place for the Chocobo in a solo title, but look closer to the direction of Final Fantasy Fables: Chocobo Tales. Chocobo Tales is a solid mini-game collection with challenge, humor, and plenty of cute to spare. Just don't make randomly-generated dungeon crawlers...they're a cheap way for a game company to try and make a buck off of a successful franchise, and it shows.


7. FFXIII's Tunnel Linearity



You can't slight SquareEnix for trying to be innovative in their titles, particularly with the Final Fantasy series. Their newest one, Final Fantasy XIII, tries to take the series in a new direction by focusing even more heavily on the story by making the gameplay very, very linear. And this has been the main complaint of most gamers who've played the game. And I know, it just came out, so to say that it's one of the series worst missteps might be a little soon. But once you've played 10-15 hours of this game, you see that this is a pretty blaring error in the series.

The Problem: When reviewers talk about the game being "linear," in XIII's case they're not talking about choosing whether or not your characters are good or bad. The beginning of XIII puts you on a map with two directions to go: forwards, or backwards. Like exploring a long tunnel, this style of progression goes through over half of the game, feeling much like the equivalent of a rail-shooter RPG. By taking out towns and the free-roaming world map, SquareEnix successfully streamlined the gameplay, but also detracted from the game's overall flow.

The Remedy: Revive the world map and free-roaming. Sure, it takes a little longer to get to different locations, and it's harder to exert control over the party and the party's actions when you have a free-roaming environment (they have switch your party members ridiculously often), but gamers get the feeling that they're actually in control of the game when they get to choose whether or not they want to level-grind on the world map. Even though I hate level-grinding.

(By the way, XIII is still a great game, regardless.)


6. Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: Advertisement for the GBA-GCN Link Cable



Crystal Chronicles itself wasn't a bad idea. A 4-player co-op game with a Celtic/Irish feel that was playful and a bit childish; they'd had much worse ideas (continue reading to find out). And then they decided that item management couldn't be handled with a pause menu if more than one player was involved...thus, the GBA/GameCube link cable was introduced. A 15-dollar cable with minimal usage, this particular peripheral's gimmick potential rolled into titles ranging from Pokemon to Mario Golf, but the requirement for multiplayer usage was stuck to Zelda: Four Swords Adventures, and Crystal Chronicles.

The Problem: How often do you run into other people who A) Own another Game Boy Advance, B) Own the GBA/GCN link cable, and C) Also happen to live near you? Answer: Rarely. My friends and I, all owning GBAs already, went out and bought cables for the sole purpose of playing Crystal Chronicles with each other. What happened to the friends who didn't own the game and still bought the cable? Well, it collected dust. And I imagine that many other people saw that particular story's unfortunate ending coming, and decided not to buy the cable for just that reason.

The Solution: Go with technology that doesn't make people buy tons of extra equipment. Crystal Chronicles was a good game in its own right, but not necessarily worth the extra money it cost for the link cables (or the GBA itself, if people didn't already own them). The GameCube was already a failing system compared to the market controlled by the Xbox Classic and PS2, so SquareEnix was taking a change by sending its game over to the smaller market-share. It made it even harder to garner sales once they took the "extra cable necessary" approach. Modern handhelds have wireless capabilities, so it may not be a problem that comes up anymore, but it certainly wouldn't be advantageous to require a PSP for a PS3 games...since pretty much nobody owns one of those anyway (except me).


5. Chocobo Racing



Oh, Chocobo, what terrible times you went through on the PS1. All the companies wanted a piece of the Mario Kart casual racing pie, and so plenty of franchise spin-off racers were developed. Some of the worst of these were Rockman: Battle and Chase (Megaman's Japanese name) and Bomberman: Fantasy Race, which were both terrible in the sense that both francises revolved around KILLING THINGS, leading the gamer to believe that there'd be no reason for MegaMan to hop in a car and race around a track with his arch-nemesis, Wily. Sure, Mario and Bowser might have bad blood, but at least they teamed up every so often...regardless, the Chocobo from Final Fantasy was used by Squaresoft to create a middle-of-the-road cart racer, one that only excelled in its mediocrity.

The Problem: If a company, particularly one with the clout of SquareEnix (Squaresoft at the time) is going to make a game in a crowded genre, they need to do something original. Chocobo Racing did nothing to change the racing genre, and didn't even really measure up to Mario Kart or the other racers. It was, like Chocobo's Dungeon 2, cute, but not much more than that.

The Remedy: Do something inventive, or don't do it at all. In the wake of the Chocobo Racing mini-game in Final Fantasy VII, Squaresoft could have created a racer that built on the concepts of that game, using custom jockeys and specially-bred Chocobos to appeal to racing audiences. But that would have made the game appeal to a niche, and prevented it from looking like Squaresoft was selling out. Which it most certainly was.


4. Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within



You know, sometimes people just aren't ready for forward motion...take the first Final Fantasy movie, Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within. It was a GORGEOUS film which starred what Square hoped would be the first "virtual actress," the character which played Dr. Aki Ross, the movie's heroine. Made to look as realistic as possible, FF: Spirits had a decent plot, a good soundtrack...but, alas, it was a box-office bust. Only making back $85 million of its $137 million dollar budget world-wide, that was, indeed, the global silver-screens Final Fantasy.

The Problem: Video-game movies are notorious for being terrible. Ever seen Super Mario Bros.? I sure hope not. And if you have, I'm sorry. In addition, back when Spirits was in the box office, video games weren't anywhere as close to mainstream culture as they are today. Still associated with adolescent boys and nerds (not to say that us nerds don't still constitute a large portion of the gaming public), Final Fantasy garnered the type of approbation associated with stereotypical Dungeons and Dragons players, making any movie that could have stemmed from the franchise, whether good or not, a hard movie to bet on.

The Remedy: Well, we've pretty much already overcome this problem. By catering games to wider audiences, and increasing the cinematic value already present in games (better graphics, cutscenes with full motion and GOOD voice acting), the general public has become more open to video-game related movies. Now we've got a Prince of Persia movie coming up with Jake Gyllenhaal. Who is noticeably NOT PERSIAN. But I guess that's neither here nor there.


3. FFVII Cameos in Ehrgeiz



Ehrgeiz was a PS1 fighter that was worked on as a joint effort between Squaresoft and Namco, two HUGE names in the gaming industry. The game that resulted became an action/RPG fusion that felt a lot like a wrestling game. And though it had a story of its own, Squaresoft and Namco wanted to make sure that the game would sell well, particularly in America. So they played off of the success of Final Fantasy VII and plugged Cloud, Tifa, Sephiroth, and other Final Fantasy characters into the game. They had no real business being there; they didn't even have their own endings in the fighter's story mode. But hey, stick Cloud on the cover of anything, and watch it sell like hotcakes (which must sell really well, as often as people talk about them).

The Problem: Inclusion of characters that have no business in a particular game is just a cheap way to bolster sales for a title and increase support for that game. Hell, it took me forever to convince myself that I hated Dissidia: Final Fantasy because both Cloud and Cecil are in it, and I love those two characters. And I hate Squall, and Dissidia gave me the chance to beat the hell out of him. But that's beside the point, I guess (digression #2).

The Remedy: Don't whore characters into places they don't belong, particularly when they're badasses like Cloud and Tifa. Given, people might have said this about the Kingdom Hearts series when it first came out; the idea of putting Cloud next to Mickey Mouse also sounded outlandish. But the story and gameplay that resulted from the Kingdom Hearts series was fantastically created to fuse the two worlds, while Ehrgeiz's Final Fantasy inclusion is the fighting equivalent of Sonic All-Stars Racing featuring Banjo-Kazooie: a combination there for almost no reason.


2. Final Fantasy: Mystic Quest



For those of you who played Final Fantasy for the NES and wanted another challenge, well, Squaresoft had something else in mind. After the executive board talked it over, they decided that RPGs weren't selling well in America because they were too hard. They felt that the American gamer needed to be coddled. So they gave us Final Fantasy: Mystic Quest, which should have come complete with a pacifier and bib. The game was "targeted at younger audiences," and budget-priced at $40, with an offer for a free strategy guide. Which wasn't necessary, because people didn't want to play it, strategy guide or otherwise.

The Problem: RPGs are appealing because you're PLAYING a GAME in which you get to take on an interesting ROLE. FF:MQ's Benjamin was bland, the four different "continents" you played on (named things like "Windia" and "Foresta") were bland, and the simple, bare-bones combat system didn't draw in new players, it just pushed away the people who were already playing RPGs. Generally products become more marketable because you enhance the original idea and market it for a new consumer; stripping it of the things that made it worthwhile is a great way to lose an audience entirely.

The Remedy: Do what's good, and you'll draw people in. The Field of Dreams "If you build it" mentality applies to gaming most assuredly; creating an attractive, functional, deep product draws in the masses and convinces more people to play, not the ability to get from start to finish without trouble, The gaming industry was still relatively new as far as American RPGs were concerned, and so it took a little bit of time for the RPG to get the mainstream approbation it needed to give the genre a strong hold in the market. But boy, did it happen when Squaresoft brought Final Fantasy VII to America.


1. Yuffie Kisaragi



For those of you not here for last week's Yuffie rant, let me provide you a recap:

Have you ever taken a long trip with someone you just met? Have you ever been annoyed almost to tears by that person? Or, better yet, have you ever met someone, had them join your group of friends, then turn around just to find out that THEY STOLE ALL YOUR MATERIA? Well, maybe you don't personally have any materia, but that's beside the point.Yuffie Kisaragi from Final Fantasy VII joins your party only to steal ALL of the items you use to power up your party in game. Later on you catch her and get your stuff back, but by that point you're so angry with you simply want to cleave her into pieces with Cloud's giant Buster Sword and get on with your life.

The Same Problem, Rehashed:: OHMYGODISTILLHATEYUFFIE. I don't think I'll ever be able to see her make a cameo in anything and actually enjoy it because, well, SHE STOLE MY SHIT. I sincerely hope that SquareEnix (and every other game developer, for that matter), never successfully creates a protagonist character as loathe-worthy as Yuffie Kasaragi. As mentioned in the comments last week, Cait Sith is another useless character, one who is forced to be in your party, but as least Cait Sith adds some potential fun to the battle with the dice-roll mechanic in its attacks, And Cait Sith is funny to look at. Yuffie is not. Yuffie is just infuriating.


Cait Sith. Funny to look at.

The Same Remedy as Last Week: At the end of the day, a game is about having an overall HAPPY experience, even if you're frustrated from time to time. But when a character becomes so bothersome that they're never used, the game developer has effectively taken a portion of the story and work that its created and thrown it away. Final Fantasy is the franchise that it is today because we as gamers have been exposed to so many new, exciting, mind-blowing things that, regardless of how frustrated or stunned or saddened we were by their occurrence, shaped our gaming expectations for new titles in positive ways. Yuffie becomes nothing but an annoyance that is an unfortunate dark spot in a great game. But I guess that they stuck with my "go big or go home" mentality from earlier numbers...if you're going to piss someone off on purpose, really piss them off.


And that was the Special Edition Final Fantasy Elimin8! Now you should check out our Twitter Links:

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Check back next Thursday for the next Elimin8. Any Final Fantasy fails I missed? What should I count down next week? Comment your suggestions, or send them to [e-mail]. See you next week!

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