It almost pains me to say this, but as far as Final
Fantasy fans go, I cant rank myself in the top tier. I’ve hardly played any of the games, many of
which are time honored classics like IV, VI and VII. Even more painful, I have to admit, is that I
have never even beaten a game ive attempted (Kingdom Hearts spin off series
aside). As a gamer, that makes me very
sad. Because despite my greenness, I really
do like the Final Fantasy franchise.
Their worlds are so imaginative and beyond huge and they have stories
and a cast to match that majesty and ambitious undertaking. I always look forward to hearing tales of the
next game (the main entries are always pretty lengthy in wait times). And this year, I’m hoping one of my chief Christmas
gifts is the long awaited Final Fantasy XV, which is due out next week. With this in mind, I’ve decided to dedicate
this weeks Top 5 to the small moments in my life where Final Fantasy was at the
forefront. One or two may be directly
related to game play. For the most part,
these are the stories, scenes and overall feels that made me continue to admire
one of the greatest RPG Video Game series of all time.
#5-Cloud and
Squall, back to back for the first time
Final Fantasy VII was the first time I had ever heard of
the Final Fantasy franchise (more on that in a couple of entries). VII coming out a couple years later definitely
caught my interest. While the games lead
protagonist is a bit…not that great, it would be years before I tried Final
Fantasy VIII and learned that myself.
Until then, Squall looked like such a bad ass with that costume and his
Gunblade (still a weapon I want to actually exist). Skip ahead to Kingdom Hearts, which
successfully did the impossible and married Disney and Final Fantasy
together. This meant that heroes from
across the FF pantheon could appear together on screen…and that meant a very
cool moment where Cloud Strife and Squall Leonhart, my first two heroes of the
series, were back to back, swords drawn and ready to kick some ass. I love the adventures of Sora, Donald and
Goofy. But for one moment, I wish I could
have been playing this team ups battle.
#4-Final Fantasy
VIII’s Intro
While I never finished it up, Final Fantasy VIII was my
first official attempt at tackling a Final Fantasy title (and before anyone
asks, a friend was nice enough to loan it to me and he didn’t have VII. Sometimes you just have to settle). My reaction to what I played was pretty
mixed. But my reaction to that intro
scene is still one word, “whoa”. Not
only were the CG incredible for a PS1 title, but it was one of the most
perfectly crafted scenes in any video game.
You’ve got the choir, the orchestra, the vivid vision of battles,
beautiful women and witches going through glass windows. In a way, it almost set the game up to be a
bit of a let down cause of the turn based system in the game. I wanted to play that opening battle between
Squall and Seifer they way they were on screen, not take turns trading blows. The rest of the game may have been a mixed
bag. But when that final piano note
plays and the “Final Fantasy VIII” logo appeared, you knew this was it, you
were in a real Final Fantasy game and it was time to play.
#3-The Spirits
Within is a LETDOWN
2001 should have been a big year for Movies based on
Video Games. In an issue of Gamepro, I learned
about the release of a Tomb Raider AND a Final Fantasy movie. Tomb Raider was meh. Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within though…wasn’t
as good as I really hoped it would be. In
fact, I think I was in denial about how bad it was for years. I mean, the animation was good and it had the
Final Fantasy name so I had to cut it some slack, right? Oh how naieve I was back then.
You can find my review for the movie here (http://gundamanimeblog.blogspot.com/2015/10/final-fantasy-spirits-within.html) But
this is my sum up, “Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within was built up as an epic
game changer and it really could have been.
If it had tried to be more like the games than inspired it than a
generic American scifi film, it could’ve been the start of something really big
and revolutionary for video game adaptations.
But sadly it will just go down in history as a very pretty but less than
stellar film.”
#2-The First Final
Fantasy VII Commercial aka THE BEGINNING
I don’t know what I was doing when this little promo just
popped up. But this was the beginning,
my introduction to the universe of Final Fantasy. In one, 30 second commercial, a dramatic
narrarator talked about evil empires, the lifestream, showed us glimpses of
Cloud, Jenova and Sephiroth. I had no idea
what to make of it, but at that moment I hated not having a Playstation. Thinking about it back then, I wonder if I could
have understood how an RPG worked. I
also wonder if the narrarator also knew that, since “press the reset button”
should only be done if you’ve saved all of your progress. This wasn’t a simple action game, this was
much deeper than that. And I wanted to learn
all about it.
#1-Versus becomes
XV
E3 2012. Square announced
that it would be making a big announcement about their long in development title,
Final Fantasy Versus XIII, a PS3 exclusive spin off of Final Fantasy XIII. The trailer played and the CG cutscenes
looked as good as ever. I wanted to play
this game, always had. But much like
Kingdom Heart 3, I wondered if it was ever going to see the light of day. The action ended, and the title came on, “Final
Fantasy Versus XIII.” Ok…but wait, there
was one more surprise. BOOM, the title
exploded and reformed…into “FINAL FANTASY XV”.
My first reaction was, “WHY DIDN’T YOU JUST CALL IT THAT IN THE FIRST
PLACE?!!!!” After I calmed down, I got
hyped again, especially when I heard this gorgeous looking game would be available
on Xbox systems (I had upped from Playstation to Xbox back in college to play
Halo). A solid release date hadn’t been
set yet. But that didn’t matter. With “XV” slapped to the title now,
production was going to go into overdrive to get done. I can only hope it was worth 10 years of
waiting.
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