The Blog is Dead (A.K.A. Last Thoughts)

Well, you may not have noticed this, but I haven't posted on this thing in more than six months. The reason is that the blog is basically dead. It is so dead that you probably won't even ever read this post, because you've gone on with your merry lives and have moved on to some other, brighter pasture in this realm known as cyberspace. Heck, this blog is so dead, advertisers are starting to take over the comment sections. I mean, really, what's up with that?

Just so you all know, starting in June I did go back and play through Final Fantasies V-X2. I no longer had any interest in writing down all my thoughts, so I just played straight through them all. I did experience several interesting things.

+ Final Fantasy VI is still one of the best games ever made.

+ Not only is FFVIII my favorite of the PSOne Final Fantasies, I'm beginning to think it could be my favorite in the series.

+ A second playthrough has not changed my low opinion of FFIX (and believe me, I did come in with an open mind and with hope that I would see why people are so wild about the game), but it did change my opinion of Tetra Master. I don't think the mini-game is as good as Triple Triad; mostly because at least the cards in Triple Triad could be redeemed for useful items, making playing the game worthwhile. I did enjoy Tetra Master more this time around, however, and actually took the time to get all the cards in this playthrough.

+ I FINALLY got Kimahri's Spirit Lance in FFX! Bloody stupid butterfly game....

+ It is *&#$ %^#@(!# impossible to get 100% completion on X-2 in one playthrough!!!

I had fun. I apologize that I was not ale to finish the blog. If anything, I just had a good time reliving the memories. Thanks for your support, and thanks for reading this last message, even though the blog is beyond dead.

So.. Uh... Yeah, Boco!

So, as you may have noticed, it's May 19th, and I haven't updated the blog yet. Uh... heh, heh, yeah. Don't worry, I am close to re-opening the blog. And this time, I can fully promise to go through the remaining 5.5 games without stopping. The trick will be starting and, honestly, Final Fantasy V is kind of boring, so starting again has been difficult. It will be done, however, that I can guarantee. Furthermore, I pledge that by June 15th, I'll have begun FFVI, which will be good, because once I get into the games I truly like the speed will pick up considerably. I will definitely advertise the blog's return once it actually does return - don't be surprised if I rush through V though...

So, again, I apologize for the inconvenience.

To Be Continued... Soon.

Just to let you all know, the Blog WILL soon be updated. In fact, I plan on not only continuing the quest, but following it through to its conclusion. The target date for the next update is around May 12th. Starting in May, however, I will regularly update the blog through at least August, and possibly longer.

Blogging Once More... Kind Of.

Hey everybody. Yes, I am still alive, and I have not given up this project. I had some medical issues towards the end of the summer, causing me to be away from my PlayStation for awhile. When I got back, school started up again, and since then, life has severely cut into my videogame playing time. Frickin life. I will eventually continue the quest and the blog, but that might not be for awhile. Heck, it might not even be until next summer. We shall see. Thanks for all the encouragment to continue, however. It means a lot to know that people out there have been enjoying this.

New Faces, Familiar Surroundings

Although it may not appear so at first glance, many of the innovations that led to the series arriving at the point it is at today began with Final Fantasy V. The game may appear to be nothing more than a rehash of old ideas, but those who look closely can see the early creation of some very familiar occurences.

The fifth installment of the classic role playing series starts off a tad more slowly than its predecessors. Until you reach the Wind Crystal, the game is nothing more than following simple instructions to move along the story. For example, even though there is a town to visit after acquiring a boat, it is of little use to veteran players at this point of the quest.

Speaking of veteran players, after playing through the past four Final Fantasies, FFV has lost much of its former lustre. Seeing the same ideas being put into place over and over again (i.e., Surprise! You acquired a boat from Pirates!) is beginning to get a little old, and I could care less if I never see another crystal again at this point.

There are some concepts, however, that do somewhat vary the gaming experience. The biggest example of this is the Job system, which essentially set the standard for how every ability since this installment would be acquired. Although this Job system does get its roots from III's original system, I would consider the two to be very, very different from each other. The Job system in III was unimaginative, and most of the jobs were useless. This changes in Final Fantasy V. Every character can change jobs at a whim, making it easier for every character to become adept at each occupation. And this time around, the game makes it worthwhile for the characters to try out each job with the biggest innovation by far in the series, Ability Points.

Ability Points have shown up in some form or another in every Final Fantasy since FFV. In their original appearance, they were used to raise the skill level each character had with each job. When a job level is raised, that character learns some kind of an ability, which can then be transferred from job to job. In other words, after gaining a level or so of White Magic, the character could switch to being a thief with the ability to cast Cure. If anything, there is not an RPG fan alive who would disagree with the fact that gaining these abilities for each character is a heck of a lot of fun.

The artwork is also different. The monster designs, for example, were done by Nomura, who later went on to draw much of the artwork for the post-SNES installments.

And, unfortunately, this is where I will have to stop for a short while. I realize that it may seem as if I have been distracted these past couple days. Unfortunately, something has come up, and I have been busier than expected the last few days. It also means that I have to go out of town through next Saturday, meaning the Blog will not be updated again until a week from Sunday.

Boco, The Wonder Chocobo!

Final Fantasy V begins with a lengthy sequence that does its best to insinuate that the game will actually have a story. Little does the player know that they are in for some disappointment.

The epic tale of valiance and honor in the face of danger begins with the King of Tycoon heading off on his dragon to figure out why the wind stopped. Apparently, he believes that this is the result of something happening to the Wind Crystal, meaning that, for the fourth time in five games, the plot once again revolves around finding these magical objects. Oddly enough, while the other people in the world notice that the wind has stopped, nobody other than the King of Tycoon really seems to concerned about this happening.

The opening sequence introduces some of the game's main characters. We see that Reina, Tycoon's princess, is rather worried about her father. In the original emulated version of the game, Reina's name was Lenna. I actually prefer Lenna to Reina, and I am a little sad that they changed the name. We also see an androgynous pirate captain (heck, all the characters were androgynous in those days. Edge was the only member of FFIV's final party whose hair did not go down to his shoulders or beyond. And then we also see some random old guy who, with orangish/brownish hair, has to be labelled "old guy" so that we know he is old.

It all comes to a head when a wandering traveller named Bartz (thankfully changed from the original "Butz") and his chocobo sidekick witness the crashing of a meteor. Think all this sounds discombobulated and unorganized? Yeah, me too, and the game's story really never improves past this point.

The chocobo sidekick, though, is by far one of the coolest characters to grace a Final Fantasy title. He is Boco, the Wonder Chocobo! Able to run faster than the wind (which is easy once the wind has stopped), more clever than any other Chocobo (thus far), and able to leap over randomly appearing pits as if it were no big deal, Boco truly makes Final Fantasy V. If the chocobo were not in this installment, I probably would not have been hooked the first time I played the game.

Boco also happens to be the first Chocobo in the series that is actually owned by anyone. While you do see a couple chocobo stables in III and IV, they appear to be no different from a ranch, where the birds are only being taken care of and nothing more. Boco is more like the average horse, faithfully aiding its master with intelligence and charm. No character before Bartz had a chocobo to roll around on, and this begins a transformation of sorts from the olden days to the more modern worlds of the later installments.

I suppose that Boco is also the first regular chocobo to figure prominently in the series. Sure, you got a prize for riding III's bird around the island. And in IV, the black chocobo was a necessary story feature. For the most part, however, the birds have been optional creatures that had little impact on the story. Even the black chocobo's usefulness ended after leaving the Magnetic Cavern. Boco, right from the very beginning, places the Chocobo in a new light. The beasts are now friendly companions, and Square was pointing out that they could have prominent effects on the game's story. This set in motion all the popular Chocobo mini-games now seen as common place among the series. Boco is also the name that Square has since given all of its major chocobos since Final Fantasy V appeared.

Sorry for the lack of updates over the past week. I have been extremely busy, and have not had much time to sit down and play.

The Series Takes a Step Backwards

I have heard it said that, in order to take a step forward, sometimes you just have to take a step backwards. While I do agree with this adage in some cases, I would find it to be a pretty pathetic excuse for the reason why Final Fantasy V is so different for the two games that preceeded and follow it. After finally hitting the nail on the head of what a console RPG should be in the fourth installment, Square inexplicably reverted to its old NES days in its programming of Final Fantasy V.

Before I go on, I should say that I do like Final Fantasy V. A lot. It would rank lower on my list of the Final Fantasy games than most of the other installments, but I do think that it is a fun game, and is indeed one worthy of the Final Fantasy moniker.

That said, the story is just plain terrible. The characters, for the most part, are extremely one-dimensional. After doing such an awesome job of building character depth in Final Fantasy IV, it just boggles my mind that in the installment that followed they would step away from this advancement and return to giving players characters about whom they have to reason to care. I cannot see how anybody could ever emotionally invest themselves to any of the game's five playable characters. I do not think that it can be done. The fifth installment's story is so bad that I would put it on par with the story from the very first game. It may be a little better than the original's tale, but not by much. The stories of Final Fantasies II, III, and IV may not have always been great, but they at least followed a clear, logical path that made sense and inspired the player's imagination. Here, the story is basically, "Oh crap. The wind stopped. We better do what those old guys did and go fight Exdeath."

While the story leaves much to be desired, if I had to rank the Final Fantasies based on gameplay, FF5 would be among the top three. The Job system is one of the greatest status building systems I have ever seen. Along the same lines, FFX-2 (another female-dominated game with a Job system) was a lot of fun to play, if only because of the way you developed the main characters' abilities. I have not met very many people who really liked FF5, but just about everyone I have talked with has admitted that the Job system was a pretty good idea. Besides being able to mix and match the various classes (an idea which later led to such systems as those found in FFVII, VIII, and X), the game rewarded you for mastering as many of the classes as you could by letting each character utilize all of the mastered abilities while in Bare mode. In other words, besides building up the characters, the game actually made it worthwhile to have each character gain each skill.

I am not positive, but I think seperate game crews (with a few exceptions) worked on the even and odd-numbered Final Fantasies. Therefore, the crew that created FFII also programmed FFIV, thus accounting for the similarities in the game's styles. The crew that made FFI then went on to do FFIII and FFV, which is why a lot of the graphics and themes are recurrent. I am not positive on this point, but it would make sense. After the lack of success of FFV, then, Square opted to concentrate more on story from here on out. I also think the reason we never got FFV was because it did so poorly in Japan. I am sure it sold well, based on its name alone, but I am also quite confident that the company received pretty poor feedback on this particular outing.

This is the last of the old breed of Final Fantasies, then, in which characters controlled everything regarding the characters, magic had to be purchased, and the game was more about the experience than the story. Thinking about it in those terms, FFV is a great exercise in nostalgia, as it returns to a time when video games were simpler. Even so, I for one am glad that the series moved in a completely different direction after this installment.