Jeremy -

You said that Amarant is unintereesting; that he is "A rebel character who tags along with the party just because he wants to prove himself to the game's hero." That's what makes him interesting - he's not trying to prove himself to Zidane; he wants Zidane to prove himself to Amarant.

If you actually pay attention to Amarant's "one-liners," you'll find that he's a loner because, as far as he knows, the only way to use one's power is to go it alone and so free yourself from having to assist and depend on others.

When he meets Zidane - an obviously strong person who is somehow saaving the world as part of a team. He takes this as an affront to his very view of the nature of life: the strong can do what they want, and associating with anyone weaker that yourself will hurt you both. Amarant tags along with the group to find out how they can make the "team" thing work - and, eventually, becomes part of the team himself.

That's what makes Amarant such an intriguing character. He believes in his philosphy of life so strongly that he joins the group to test its validity, and ends up disproving it (Note his comment in Zidane's "self-doubt" scene. "None of us can do this alone."), but gradually, so we can see the change ocurring in him.

Hope you're happy. -

Shale, who also thought thak Kuja was a good villain.

Jeremy

Well I was reading your reply to Cidolfas' letter last night concerning Kuja and his ultimate role within FF9. Your comment on how he was simply a puppet kind of stuck me in a certain way, in that I thought Kuja wasn't ment to be seen as a "villian" but instead some sort of a tragic victim of circumstance, who, no matter what he tried to accomplish, was blind to the fact that he really wasn't in a postion of power to begin with in the first place. Maybe....just maybe he is too be seen as a sort of dillusional character living in his own world with no grip on reality. Therein lies the tragedy. What I'm saying is that a villian doesn't have to be seen as a bad guy who's only role is to be a thorn in the side of the hero. They all usually have some kind of motive for their malevolence and I think the writers do a great job as getting this across, as they did with Sephiroth and even Kefka, which I'll explain in a minute. Anyway I think this argument wou! ld go a long way in explaining why people are becoming so dissatisfied with villians these days. The gamer should learn to distinguish between a true villian, and someone who was just screwed over. If you can't tell the difference, you probably won't get much out of the villian. Perhaps I'm reading into it too deeply but it is just a thought.

And for the record, I thought everyone would like to know that Kefka was also a victim of circumstance, and not inherently evil as everyone is making out to be. The more hardcore FF fans will remember exploring the Vector inn and talking with the man inside, whereupon he relates to the player that Kefka was actually Cid's first experimental Magitek Knight, something went horribly wrong and "something in Kefka's mind snapped that day" I'm not making this up. Sorry to burst your bubble, all you Kefka fan's out there, but when it comes down to it, I guess you could say he might be comparable to Kuja, if my idea above has any relevance.

chaoticmagus, who thinks Xenogears should have been called "Neon Genesis Evangelion"

Jeremy,

You know what would be really ass-kicking? Final Fantasy Tactics Legos.

~Ian P.

In response to AWJ's letter about FF5... you need to realize that most of the people who said FF5 was a horrible RPG also throught FF4's death defying characters, giant mechanical whale, and overdramatic dialogue made it the best RPG of all time. As a result, their opinion doesn't matter. ;)

On a more serious note, FF5 was probably my favorite of the SNES FFs. Yes, if you did screw up with your decisions on skill choices you were more or less screwed, however you had a heck of a lot of fun in the process. I personally chose my skills by which made the characters look the coolest. So what if Lenna was worthless as a Dancer. At least she looked cute while doing it. Picking classes for our hero Bartz (or Butz or whatever) was a bit more dificult since he looked like a friggen moron as just about everything, but ah well.

-Neil

Being one who feels compelled to collect the character designs that companies put out for their RPG, I've started to notice a strange thing. Most RPGs, being from Japan, seem to make use of anime-style character designs as a preferred illustrative style. Being an anime fan myself, I rather enjoy this. But there's a black sheep in the fold, and it's name is......Final Fantasy.

For some reason, Square seems adamant about not mixing the FF series with anime/manga-style designs at all. FF7 came close, having a sort of feel that was a mixture between 'illustration' and 'anime', but it wasn't full-out anime, such as, say, the Breath of Fire series. My question is simply "Why?" Do they feel as though anime-designs will turn off American audiences? But yet, they insist on 'beating around the bush', making characters that look somewhat 'anime-influenced', such as FF9. And to top it off, they claim Amano as the character designer, when, as far as I've seen, they design the characters whatever way they want without his illustrations. One needs only to look at his art of Rinoa and the actual Rinoa as appearing in FF8 to see this. Also, while I enjoy his art, I don't feel it's effective in design for a video game. The 'concrete' illustrations of artists such as Tetsuya Nomura accomplish the task of setting a definate look for the characters and world better than the ambiguous art of Amano. But whoever the artist, FF seems to actually TRY to distance itself from anime-style artistry.

Square seems not only to dislike the idea of making an anime-FF game, but also to continue using an artist with an ambiguous (though still good) style, whose drawings they seem to ignore when actually digitizing the characters. Are they trying to define FF as being 'counterculture', or do they just have a couple 'Save 25% on Amano' coupons they need to use up? Do you see the designs of anime as a possibility in Final Fantasy's future?

- tenken

Dear Square,

I have heard from theGIA.com that you are considering re-releasing Final Fantasy 4 and Chrono Trigger in the US as Playstation(1) games. Speaking as a gamer who has long wished to re-live the great experiences that each of these games brought to me in the past, I can promise that if you choose to re-release them, I (and many of my friends) will buy copies of both.

Honestly, my life has been shaped by the experiences I've had in the past, and Square's old SNES games are no small part of that. The choices I've made in recent years concerning university studies and career path are partially due to these games. I know that sounds like blatant over-important fanboy-ism, but regardless, they were defining moments for me, and thosands of others. The road to my current job in Silicon Valley I can trace back to these games, along with a few others. They are valuable to us, and we'd love to have some of that back again.

And if that reason isn't enough, take a look at eBay, and see the money people are willing to shell out for USED CT and FF4 SNES cartridges. That money could be yours!

Sincerely,

Dave Marsee

I don't understand why some people find it so hard to understand why the FFVIII characters and Squall in particular, weren't liked. RPGs, Role Playing Games. What roles do gamers want to play? Someone who's full of angst, who's disfunctional and has an antisocial personality? Someone who needs therapy?

They want to play someone who doesn't have the problems they have in their own lives. Someone who can smite their problems with a massive sword until they go away. Someone with problems that don't have to be worked out in a mature and rational manner. They want to escape their lives, not live out their life in a "fantasy" setting.

The entire point of RPGs is a fun escapism when life gets too hard, when there are no parties to go to, when finals get to tough. I am one who enjoys level building to become powerful and blaze through everything in my way. I can't do that in Real Life. In that respect I again prefer FFIX over FFVIII, it's just more fantasy to think you get "points" from monsters to get stronger.

SSJPabs,

who shouted "I want the SEXIE DWARVE!" whenever FFIX got boring, and it was all okay again

So, what happened with the Name Game contest? Who won? What were the answers? Details, man, DETAILS!

-CaspianX (And while we're at it, is ANYONE working on the GIA Message Boards?)

A few notes...

Vivi's kids - it's perfectly possible that once they found out how Kuja made them, the black mages could manufacture some more of their kind. (probably fixing that little short-lifespan problem too) All they need is a little mist and the knowledge. Why do you think the black mages took so much interest in hatching that chocobo egg? It could partially be because like Bobby Corwen the chocobo, they also came from eggs.

Kuja - hm, disappointing really. Definitely the worst villian the series has seen so far, but still of a high enough caliber to give you a challenge and I know I hated him a few times, mostly because of his goddam arrogance.

Neclord - anyone else have flashbacks to the Time Devourer in Chrono Cross? This guy came out of NOWHERE, and you don't even kill him! (he changes his mind about killing you and runs off.) On the other hand, he's damn tough. (took me about 4 or 5 tries to kill him, and my levels were in the mid-fifties) One time while fighting him, he used Blue Shockwave, Firaga and something-Cross before I had a chance to even make my first move! Shame about the Yoda quote - that had me in stitches thinking of the sheer stupidity of putting that quote there. Final bosses that attack with Status Ailments (Exdeath, Neclord) are definitely harder than than those who just have raw power (Kefka, Ultimecia) The exceptions are Zeromus (raw power, but HARD) and Sephy (uses status ailments, but easy) And coincidently, the raw power bosses are from games 4, 6, and 8, while the status bosses are from games 5, 7 and 9. It's another odd/even pattern!

Oh, and the end sequence ticked me off. What's with having subtitles at the bottom of the screen? You often can't tell who's talking! Does Fratley say he doesn't want to lose Freya, or is it the other way round? Good otherwise though.

Kett Shee

"No cloud, nor squall shall keep me from you." - ???

Hey Jeremy!

Your mile-long response to the letter about story comlexity got me thinking (and I do nowhere near enough of that these days, so thank you).

What also works well in books, especially fantasy novels, is a long journey to somewhere, especially with a small party. During these journeys, anything can happen that might temporarily divert the party from its original goal, and there is ample time for character development and the building of relationships between party members. That's one thing that could be used more in RPGs too : that's why I liked the "chase-Sephiroth-clause" as Cidolfas called it, so much. It gave the party an excuse to be on the move, and all the diversional fetch quests had at least some character development in them. (Red XIII's past, Cait Sith's betrayal, Barrett's past, etc.)

On that same note, I think FFVII is a great example of how a game's plot can be slowly but surely divulged to the player. Sure, you have hour-long explanations (like Cloud's in Kalm), but they're presented really well, and are very understandable thanks to the methodical pace they have (I could almost hear Cloud painstakingly piece together the story, beginning to end). And what wasn't immediately clear was intentionally left ambiguous, and with enough background info to create your own theories, spawning months of enjoyable debate on the internet!

In conclusion, I think that FFVII's pacing was very good, and other developers (or even Square itself) could take it as an example.

Sir Farren, feeling free to disagree

- Toaster Thief

Hey man.

I'm enjoying this Final Fantasy IX stuff that's going around. You love it or you hate it. I think I should speak my mind.

=)

You know from our talks over the past two years or so (although not recently) on IRC that I dislike Final Fantasy VII and VIII. So I obviously went in with a nebulous mind when I bought FFIX and started to play it. But hell Jeremy, it is really good. It's my second favorite Final Fantasy of all time, second to only FFVI. But dude... Tales of Destiny and both Wild Arms games? You can't beat those. We both know that. =) Later man.

-Colin "QuickMan" Moriarty

JS,

As I was showing the ending of FF9 to a friend, a thought occurred to me: why is it that heroes never really have anything interesting to say to bad guys? It always seems the best lines are reserved to the bad guys and all the hero can say to an almost-omnipotent evil is "I want to live!" or "Prepare to die!" or something weak like that. Sure, I guess it'd be hard to trash-talk a boss that personifies death, but they gotta at least try, right? Think FF6-9, or really any other RPG out there. Has any of them featured heroes that mocked the last boss? Wouldn't it be better if they did?

Just a thought.

-Red Raven

Since you recounted something I'd said last night, I thought I'd write in to set the record straight, and say a few other things to boot. When I was talking about how dull story problems come from fantasy, I actually did mean "fantasy"--dwarves, airships, wizards, the whole thing. It's similar to the way comic books right now are stagnating because of an overreliance on superhero stories, though there are hundreds of other things you could write about.

On the other hand, I *also* agree with what you said I'd noted. There are better ways to tell a story than to take the form "boy goes out on world-spanning quest to rid the world of evil," as I was trying to get across in my Persona vault. And it's not even really a problem of trying to stretch the plot to fill 45 hours. There are plenty of other things you could do in that time.

Why not go the Odysseus route and tell the story of one man trying to find his lost love? No party members, no cute sidekicks, just one guy and his fully realized quest. Or an RPG where, instead of amassing an army, you start out as a general or admiral with hundreds or thousands of men under your command? Let me tell you, even when the military leader is only one part of a much larger scale war, if you make that leader charismatic enough I assure you he can hold the story for that long. How about an RPG where, instead of digging up ancient technology, you play the inventor of that ancient technology in that ancient world, and you're going around trying to discover the ideas and equipment you need to finish, while grappling with the problem of whether you should be making this thing at all. Manhattan Project RPG, anyone?

And that's what I came up with off the top of my head, in the space of half an hour. All of these ideas, and more, are one hundred percent setting-independent. A developer could breathe new life into RPGs by putting any of them in a fantasy setting, or by putting an old idea into a new and interesting setting, or even by putting ... a *new* idea into a *new* setting. Anything would work. So why is nothing being done?

--Nich Maragos

nichm@thegia.com

Jeremy,

I Think the word you were looking for in yesterday's letter from Douggie was "depth". Novelists have to ramble on for pages about locations and action sequences because the novel format isn't visual. So unless we all want to start playing Zork again, I'm not too dissas fied with having to run a few fetch/side quests. I think developers are making headway in adding little story features and mini games. The stage combat sequence in FFIX for example. I must have re-fought that battle about 40 times just because it was so much fun. I don't really see a problem with these sorts of plot elements as long as they stay fresh throughout the entire game.I think there is a direct proportionality between games that are visually stunning, and the number of fetch quests you have to do.

~Eidoswetsuit, spent 3 hours flying the Yggdrasil around in Xenogears for no good reason. Except it was fun.