Angry Title 12.04.06: Oh My God, They Killed Final Fantasy!

Posted by Damian Sarcuni on 12.04.2006

You bastards!

Welcome to Angry Title, which is sort of like Angry Gaming; it's just the tag team version. I am your hate master, Damian Sarcuni and joining me from across the nation (but still representing Brooklyn New Yawk) is none other than Jordan "Ogre" Williams of Working Title, the only column besides mine to bring the gaming industry down to earth WITH AUTHORITY. Stick around, because this is a fun one.


Oh My God, They Killed Final Fantasy!

Before we get on to the anti-SquareSoft nature of this column, let me explain how this works. Lately, Jordan and I have both noticed a tremendous amount of issues in the gaming world that are just plain wrong. At the rate things are going, we would have enough material to bitch about the industry for the next year. The problem is, by that time, all these references will be outdated and stale.

So, in order to save time and effort and just plain have fun, we have found a way to consolidate the hatred into a nice little game that we can't quite put a name on (they don't call it Working Title for nothing). The idea is simple. Jordan and I will write out two columns as usual but add in several references that correlate to a points system. Our goal (much like classic co-op arcade games) is to simply rack up as high a score as possible, followed by some form of a grading period where we'll rate just how bad we owned all of gaming and gamers alike.

Here is the chart:

Playstation 3 Crime and Rioting References.............2 points

Wii Remote Control Chaos References....................2 points

Zelda Fan Boy References .....................................1 point

Polygonal T & A References...................................1 point

Tomonobu Itagaki Sexual Harassment References...3 points


I would also like to point out that these articles get much better if you replace the term "point" with the term "shot of Jaggermeister". 411mania does not condone the irresponsible consumption of alcoholic beverages. Unfortunately I do, so have at it, bottoms up when you hear the [bell] and all that. Now then, on with the article!

I'm going to break taboo and let you all in on a little secret amongst the writers here at the game section. There's an inside joke for us that anyone who dares to denounce the Final Fantasy series in any way, shape or form, is immediately subject to a wave of hate mail from the general reader populous. The thing is, very few of us actually HATE Final Fantasy. Some are critical of it, and may denounce certain aspects of the series, but for most writers the games are generally fun to play and if they don't like one or two titles, they still recognize the success and appeal of the series overall.

Jordan took a big risk and called Final Fantasy VII overrated in his column. The amount of hate mail he received was ludicrous. I haven't seen anyone get that much heat since we left Itagaki alone in the copy room with a 14 year old intern [DING DING DING! Early start baby!]. To an extent, I agree with him. In my personal opinion, the game's storyline became far too confusing and deviated from the focus on Midgar which I also felt was one of the most brilliant scenarios ever put into the series. They didn't use the plot device to the fullest extent, and that's what kind of makes the game's legend just ridiculous as Bloodrayne's playboy pictures [DING! And it's only my 2nd paragraph].

Personally, not one but several Final Fantasy games rank as some of my all time favorites. I'm a multiple-time confessed FFXI Online addict and I damn near cried at the ending of Final Fantasy II for the Super Nintendo. Final Fantasy Tactics has one of the most underrated storylines of all time, and Final Fantasy III just screams for the unmade sequel that never showed up on the Nintendo 64. If the Square fans had whined as hard then as the Zelda fans do now, we might have actually seen the game's release [DING!] and this is where the beginning of the end happens.

From game to game, the Final Fantasy series has had several recurring themes and ever since Final Fantasy VII came out these themes have been killing the series faster than a frustrated newbie kills a Wii remote [DING DING! 2 points!]. We are going to focus on these themes, where they came from, and why they need to stop immediately. SquareEnix, we love you, but it's a tough love, and time for some intervention.


The Love Story



For those of you who never played FFVII (both of you) here's a brief recap of this particular theme in the game. While Final Fantasy III for the Super Nintendo was being created, producer Hironobu Sakaguchi's mother died. Because of his grief, he began thinking about the theme of life and how life appears in many things. He started to look at life mathematically and objectively, and from this was born the character of Aeris, the female love interest of Final Fantasy VII's hero. Aeris dies in FFVII, and the reason this blew players minds is because unlike other games, Aeris cannot be resurrected.

In many ways, Aeris is still in the game. She remains within the energy or "life stream" of the world, but you cannot bring her back to her normal human form. No matter how many secrets you unlock or what special techniques you use, Aeris never comes back, just like when people die in real life.

Gamers couldn't handle this any better than they can handle a Wii remote [DING DING!]. Demands for sequels and more scenarios involving Aeris poured in simply because people couldn't fathom a love story with an unhappy ending. It was then that SquareEnix realized just how much cash they could rake in using that theme. Final Fantasy VIII was one giant love story that went in the opposite direction of FFVII. Just as players couldn't keep Aeris and Cloud from being apart, they also couldn't keep Squall and Rinoa from being together. There was so much of an outcry for more romance that FFVIII shoved it down our gullets, whether we liked it or not. The love fest spilled over slightly into Final Fantasy IX, and then hit like a wave of rioting shoppers going for a PS3 in Final Fantasy X [DING DING! Don't hate, you know I'm right.].

Ah, Final Fantasy X, the love story so freaking big they needed 2 games to tell it. Here's the abridged version: Tidus loves Yuna. Yuna is real and Tidus isn't. After they go on an adventure, Tidus disappears because he isn't real. Yuna goes on another adventure to make Tidus real. Another happy ending ensues. Unfortunately, SquareEnix needed two games to tell the same story I just did in two lines, which meant more drawn out love scenes and plenty of confusing terms to explain exactly what was keeping Tidus and Yuna apart. This drawn out story, which put many of us to sleep faster than Majora's Mask [DING! Take it!] also happens to be the source of the next painful FF theme:


Girl Power



I've complained about feminist protagonists in the past and again, to be fair, Final Fantasy has handled powerful female characters pretty well for the most part. Terra and Celes of Final Fantasy III immediately spring to mind as two kick ass main characters that did not sacrifice their girlish ways even in the slightest throughout the entire story of the game, and its for this exact reason that Final Fantasy X is so damn hard to swallow, much like the leftover juices from a rousing game of Dead or Alive Beach Volleyball. [DING! I'm on a roll!]

In Final Fantasy X, a lot of emphasis is put on the character of Yuna because although she is not the main protagonist, it is she who is fated to wind up in the game's final conflict. It also stands to reason that she has so many protectors to assist her in her mission. The problem is that two years later, in X-2, Yuna suddenly has the ability to dual wield guns, sing like a pop star, and pretty much perform any other task her little pink heart desires. Her two girlfriends (one of whom is so butch in nature I can't stand it) have similar abilities except that they take a slightly more masculine approach to things, because as we all know, girls can do ANYTHING boys can do.

Now Final Fantasy XII has hit store shelves and already TV ads are advertising the obvious love story. FFXII looks EXACTLY like FFX in both graphics, construction, and character design. More importantly, the ads spit the same femi-nazi crap at us. "SHE will be the savior and stop the war!" Golly gee Mr. Wizard, what was it that Yuna was trying to do again? Oh yeah, the exact same thing!

Don't get me wrong, a strong female character is fine. However, I'm getting sick of FLAWLESS female characters and Final Fantasy is becoming littered with them. They really should be saving this crap for Itagaki's community service seminar on respecting women [DING DING DING!] rather than putting it in game after game, because quite frankly it was stale the first time. To put it another way: Yuffie, Tifa, Terra, Rydia, good, Yuna bad.


Magic 4 Dummies



It's hard to believe, but there are quite a few things about Final Fantasy's actual gameplay systems that leave something to be desired. The trouble all started around Final Fantasy VIII, where players had to waste more time pulling magic out of their enemies rather than actually fighting them. The response to this was Final Fantasy IX; in which players had to simply make due with some characters having the ability to cast magic and others having jack squat.

Then came Final Fantasy X, which once again managed to screw everything up royally. Introducing the sphere grid successfully made leveling up in the game one of the most confusing and mind numbing tasks of all time. The producer's claim that the sphere grid gives more interactivity to the player and allows them to customize their characters; even deviating from their original archetypes. With the Sphere grid, Yuna can be a physical powerhouse while a swordsman like Auron becomes a skilled healer. Granted, there is no point in any of this since most of the time characters can be switched out during battle, but more importantly the game just gets that much more confusing.

Look, RPG's are really simple. If there's a number, it's supposed to go up. If there's a monster, you kill it. I'm all for innovation but SquareEnix really messes with the system all for the sake of there own imagination. I won't even get into X-2, where magic takes a back seat to the Barbie Fashion Plate dream house that is the Garment Grid. Ugh, I bet Itagaki is still trying to find a way to get Rikku naked by removing all the dress spheres from the game. [DING DING DING! It was a long shot but I got it.]


Sequels

Some things really just need to be left alone. It's amazing to me how all the great Final Fantasy sagas with openings in their ending, like II, III, and Tactics, are all left to stand on their own while games like have sequels to their storylines. SquareEnix can't seem to make up its own mind as to whether or not Final Fantasy is truly final OR a fantasy. X-2 was awful, Dirge of Cerebus (Cerebrus, Cerebro, Cervantes, whatever!!!!) was awful and don't get me started on Tactics Advanced. That was no sequel that was penance.

Square just can't seem to get it right twice in a row, and they can't seem to figure out just what it is that is appealing to their fans. They don't realize that Midgar made Final Fantasy VII popular, and that not everyone who played FFX was a girl. Instead of giving us the epic storylines that make the games so great, Final Fantasy characters get their originality completely ripped off and replaced with either a new genre of game or painful interaction with Disney characters. No, I won't forgive Square for Kingdom Hearts anymore than the Palmdale police will forgive Wal-Mart for their musical chairs stunt. [DING DING!]


The Anger

Ok, we all know that Final Fantasy is an evolving series and it's a damn good one at that. However, it's not perfect, and for too long its flaws have been ignored and its strengths have been overanalyzed. The series that once stood for guaranteed RPG goodness now can result in any whacky number of deviations from a formula that always worked. Final Fantasy is dying and XII's marketing is proof enough that Square is running out of innovation. To do that, they need to go back to their roots, AGAIN, or they could always placate me and actually push Frontmission for a change. Either way, the series needs help, much like those poor, injured Wii remotes [DING DING!!]. Until next time, embrace the hatred and find Jordan a title. [Total: 23 Points]