Double Agent
Scared Cow - July 19, 2001 - Chris Jones

Disclaimer: The opinions expressed within this column are those of the participants and the moderator, and do not necessarily reflect those of the GIA. There is coarse language and potentially offensive material afoot. You got Pikmin in my Final Fantasy! You got Final Fantasy in my Pikmin! Don't say we didn't warn you.

Note to all those who sent in letters requesting we take down our "erroneous" Final Fantasy Tactics re-release story:

You may send in letters of apology at your own convenience.

Ok, that was cheap and petty, but somehow the alt text just didn't seem enough.

Onward.

Trite is good. We like trite.
Chris Christossonson,

I've actually had this come across before. People ask me what my website's about, I say "RPGs", and they say "what's that?" Here's the best I've come up with so far.

"Well, every game is different. Basically, there's a set story, and you advance the story by wandering around and fighting monsters, getting stronger, getting more skills and more stuff, and viewing cutscenes which bring the story further ahead."

Of course that sounds trite and doesn't do a bit of justice to any of it. But if you'd have to summarize The Lord of the Rings in one sentence ("Nine people have to throw an evil ring into a big volcano to defeat a huge bad guy before he destroys a few countries") it's just as stupid-sounding. You can *never* express what you like about something fairly complicated while summing up what it actually *is* in the same paragraph.

If I had a bit more space, I'd say something along the lines of this. "It's really interesting to feel like you actually have a hand in what people are doing and where they're going. Besides for the intellectual and (sometimes) physical challenge, it draws you in so you feel you really are the character (hence "role playing"). And the exploration factor gives you a great feel of the unknown. And since FF in particular has certain things that keep coming back (Chocobos, for instance) while having completely new worlds and characters, it's a great mix of familiarity and newness."

There you go.

--Cidolfas
http://www.ffcompendium.com/

It occurs to me that this question can really be asked at two levels: someone who knows almost nothing about video games asking what FF is, in which case you'd basically describe RPGs to them, and somebody who knows what RPGs are, but wants to know what makes FF so great. Of course, in either case, as Cidolfas points out, you're going to come up short, and in a lot of ways the question can't be answered, since everybody who enjoys the games likes them for subtly different reasons. And that's what's so great about this topic: everybody sent in what those reason are.

You are entering a dimension, not of time and space, but of chocobos...
Chris,

Alright, here's the first 'concise' description of Final Fantasy that came to mind.

The Final Fantasy gaming series is largely equivalent to the Twilight Zone TV series.

Here's how:

Each game is completely seperate from the other, as is each Twilight Zone episode. Each cast of characters is different and each story is different. There are a few minor similarities between games, as there are a few similarities between the shows; such as themes, and recurring characters (ex. Cid and Rod Serling for Final Fantasy and Twilight Zone, respectively, although with different narrative purposes altogether). One could play a Final Fantasy game alone without knowing anything else about the series the same as someone could watch one single Twilight Zone episode without knowing anything about the show.

Some episodes of the Twilight Zone are light-hearted and comical, albeit with a serious undertone. The same goes with some games in the Final Fantasy series. Some episodes of the Twilight Zone are altogether dark and often dreary, again the same as some installments of the Final Fantasy series. However, despite the independence of each episode/game, both series are best understood and appreciated when looked at from a total point of view, seeing/playing as much of the series as possible.

That's the simplest, most concise way I can explain it. I tried to think of a good analogy of the battle system, but I really couldn't, other than pinning it with each game being different. Because, when you consider it, from a nongamer's point of view, the Guardian Force System next to the Materia System next to the Job/Ability System are three VERY different gameplay devices that even I, a lifelong gamer, needed to actually experience to understand.

Mike Drucker

Hey, does this mean we get an episode of Final Fantasy starring William Shatner? Cool!

Ok, obscure joke. That aside, excellent analogy; you might also have mentioned that in both cases, it's one particular guy (Sakaguchi in FF's case, and Serling in the Twilight Zone's case) who set the creative vision for the series. (Remember, Serling didn't just star in the show, he produced it and wrote several of the best episodes.) The only question remaining if history will be as kind to FF as to Serling's work.

I love letters in the present tense
"What's Final Fantasy?"

This was going to be rocky. The new boyfriend hadn't played a console game since the original Legend of Zelda, and had never so much as heard of our sacred cow, the center of the entrenched RPG gamer's universe.

At the time I didn't have an answer; I'd been trying to explain this for 10 years or more to assorted unsympathetic ears with no success. So I thought I'd take the approach Square themselves is so often accused of these days, and just stuck in FFVIII for him so he could watch the opening cinema and be blown away by the evolution of videogaming in general. After all, it was either convert this innocent or offer to just be friends.

But round about "I'll be waiting. . . . " I realized that by showing him the pretty pictures, I wasn't showing him FF. How could I illustrate what my kind loved so dearly about this franchise with the increasingly laughable name? What could I say, or better yet, what snippet of gameplay could I show him that would distill it all into one digestible definition that would convert him or at the very least make him understand our obsession to some small degree?

It's easy enough to explain the turn-based, menu-driven combat even to a neophyte, yeah--although they may think it sounds hideously boring unless the first thing you show them is a no-Holy War battle with Omega Weapon or something. But it's difficult to just tell someone how we all felt when Rydia, all grown up, saved our asses from Golbez, when Gilgamesh gave us all his blessing and went kamikaze on our behalf, when Celes, with the tune of her opera aria twinkling, decided to leap to her death rather than face the post-apocalyptic World of Ruin, or when Aerith met her infamous end at the hands of one of the most effectively villainous bastards in gaming history.

I shut off the PSX just as Seifer was giving Squall his trademark scar. I thought for a moment as to the whereabouts of my SNES and disappeared into the other room. Shortly thereafter I returned with it, FFII, and my single surviving controller, which I pressed into his hands.

I couldn't tell him; I was going to have to show him.

~Zedelia, missionary (and that's nothing to do with bedroom preferences)

Honestly, I get a little uneasy around this kind of fanaticism, partly because I've been guilty of it myself. Don't get me wrong, I dearly love RPGs, FF in particular, but good as they are, do we really need to push them on others the way we do? And if so, why?

But more importantly, this kind of approach usually doesn't work for me in converting others. If you tell someone how absolutely amazing you think the game is and loan it to them, they'll play through it much more critically than if you merely mentioned it was a decent game. And I've never found that RPGs are that much of a social thing, unless you're playing with someone who's hanging around for other reasons than to watch a tiny sprite wander through a pixelated town. Of course, the boyfriend/girlfriend relationship works well for that purpose, so hopefully it worked out for you.

What the...?
What I'm trying to do here is piggyback some misc. FF stuff on top of my answer to answering the question "So, what the hell is Final Fantasy all about and why should I care?" I'll make it short... "It's pretty cool, go rent one why don't you."

Which brings me to the FFXI footage. The environments look really nice, good bit of topographical variation there guys, but when I saw the rest of it I raised an eyebrow and it stuck. I just looked in the mirror and it's still raised the next day.

The battles look... turn based? The damn critter just sat there while generic Joe took a swing at him, and the camera actually rotated during a spell? I was hoping to have direct control over my character... am I going to have to wait for the camera to stop gyrating for someone's summon animation before I can make an attack or heal myself? I'm none too pleased on first impression. They'd better do some innovative ATB stuff (multiple actions at the same time perhaps) and have some cool game systems if they want me to shell out for this thing. I was so much more excited about it before I saw this trailer.

Continuing to bitch, what the hell is up with the aesthetics? Is that scrubby looking dragon Bahamut's mentally deficient bastard cousin Lenny??? I fail to see any semblance of anything Final Fantasy here... the characters themselves look way too generic. I was hoping for Red Mages and Dragoons... instead the only classes represented were "dorkass with sword" and "fat guy". Bah.

Who knows how it will turn out though. Here's hoping it's better than the trailer. I think I really want more of a Seiken Densetsu/Secret of Mana online. We'll see how it turns out I guess.

Mosquiton

As our own Nich Maragos put it, welcome to Onimusha Online. My personal take is that what we've seen so far looks like a bad X-Box tech demo. Somehow FF 7-10 have managed to look like FFs, even in their 3D form, but nothing about this trailer - not the characters, monsters or environments - looked particularly like FF to me. They've still got a while to tighten this thing up, and we still haven't seen the plot or really much in the way of a battle system, so there's still room for hope. But between the generally crummy look of the trailer and the fact that it steals the thunder away from the recently released FFX, I do have to wonder about the wisdom of Square bringing this thing out right now, if they had any hand in it at all.

All hail the man with the big stick!
Hey, Chris,

Apparently, this exact question came up, asked by a professor, at a recent barbecue held by the Physics dept. here at Swarthmore College (the question was in fact spurred by the movie, apparently). My Physics-studying, _Final Fantasy_ playing friends tell me that one guy replied by saying (approximately): "Well, _Final Fantasy_ is all about sticks. You run around killing bad things with sticks, and you get bigger sticks to kill bigger bad things. Oh, and also as you kill bad things you yourself get bigger. The goal is to eventually be the biggest you can, have the biggest possible stick, and beat the biggest bad thing."

Guy in question should have watched me and brother beat Zeromus for the first time many years ago with a level 45 (at most) party. We were _nowhere_ near the biggest we could be then ;-).

---Vierran of House Guaranty

All I can say is that this guy has an unhealthy obsession with the size of his stick. Remember kids, it's not how big it is, it's what you do with it.

Why are you looking at me like that? What else could I have said, given that material?

Bob: This is bad. Very bad.
Perhaps I'm in the minority here, but ever since it was announced, I have never been terribly excited about Final Fantasy XI. I applaud Square for attempting to enter the world of MMORPG's, but I think it's a bad idea to try it with Final Fantasy. Especially with a game in the immediate series. If it were some sort of "gaiden" game, or simply "Final Fantasy Online," then it could be looked at as being outside of the series, like Final Fantasy Tactics or Mystic Quest. This way, if it failed, it could be pushed aside fairly easily. For a while, I decided to let it go and let Square develop whatever they could to please us. I was very happy with how FF9 turned out, am very excited about the direction FFX is taking, and was glad they released Chronicles (finally...). Then, today, I stumbled upon new pictures of Final Fantasy XI. Now, I don't want to be premature, but....this looks bad. Really bad. This game, so far, resembles the FF series almost less than The Spirits Within. Judging by the screens, the game looks like a 3D rip-off of Baldur's Gate, right down to the character designs and graphical styles. What is Square thinking? FFXI had better have some earth-shattering gameplay, because I'm really not liking what I'm seeing thus far. Here's looking toward FFXII...

--------------

AfroMan

Baldur's Gate wasn't what came to mind when I saw the shots, except in the generic feel of the environments and monsters. Meantime, I can't really get that upset about this not being an offshoot of the series - yeah, it might have made a little more sense, but it's been clear for a while now that most upcoming FFs will have an online component, and the series has rarely been about playing it safe and not taking risks. In a way, that's what makes the series so great in the first place: if Sakaguchi didn't have the guts to push the series to places it hadn't been before, it likely wouldn't be as good as it has been. Of course, now he's got to follow up on that by making this next installment worth playing.

Of course, that's it!
You wonder why people love Magus, WHY you ask. Well let me set the scene;

*enter one dark and erie room, the only thing seen is Chrono and your party*

*one by one torches are lit, circling a central*

*Your party tries to focus their attention*

*cue a single violin, high and distant*

*focus on a dark Vampire of a man, Magus*

Magus: Time to die

*cue the ultra-savvy Tango music*

*the fight begins*

You see its not that Magus is the typical RPG antisocial, dark, evil, but somehow end up on side of good person. Its that he's the only typical RPG antisocial, dark, evil, but somehow end up on side of good person that choreographs his own fights to catchy Latin beats.

Lates,

Calypso, the only guy who thinks Magus was the FIRST dude Livin La Viva Loca.

Could be, could be... and since I'm not a huge fan of that particular groove, it'd make sense that I'm not a big Magus person. If only he'd decided to do his fighting to, say, Joe Satriani or Garbage...

Thirty-two Three short letters about Final Fantasy
You couldn't describe Final Fantasy to any non-FF fan. All you could do is walk around like a chocobo, screaming "Kweh!", and hope they get the message. If they're interested, they'll smile and nod; if not, they'll call the cops.

Gunstarheroz


Final Fantasy is Square's cash cow.

-Fares


Unfortunately no one can be told what Final Fantasy is...you must play it for yourself.

~Cloud, unable to resist the temptation to make easy "Matrix" references.

We got near-duplicate submissions for at least two of the above letters, which leads me to one of two conclusions: either the audience is remarkably in tune with how each other think, or this column is only read by a few dozen people, who send in letters from different email addresses just to screw with my mind.

I'm thinking option two, at the moment...

Takes all kinds, I guess
Chris:

I've tried this before, and I have got converts, so I guess it works:

FF has 9 different games. You'll only be able to play it from 7 because the rest are all on consoles we never bothered with (FF6 for SNES was never released here). It's got good-looking guys and good-looking girls. Oh, and one of these has that Faye Wong song! I'm not telling you, you'll have to play all the games to see for yourself.

Seriously, friends played FF7 and 8 to find where "Eyes on Me" was. It doesn't tell much about the game, but it just gets people to play it.

DMJ

See, I would have thought most people would want to know which game she sang in so they could avoid the Faye Wong song, but I guess there might just have been some reason Square decided to put her in their game after all. Still, I just hope they don't follow this whole "popularity" thing to the unwholesome point of having Celine Dion sing their next song. Good god, something like that could drive a man to Dragon Quest as an RPG alternative.

Thanks be to Cid
Chris,

I wouldn't. There have been many times in the course of my life I've attempted to expound on the majesty of the Final Fantasy games and of RPGs in general, and I've always come up short. Trying to cram roughly 11 years of wonder and adventure into a few sentences isn't really something I'm capable of, and my deeply rooted fanatacism only widens the gulf. For me, at least, it's not something I'll ever be able to properly describe to the uninitiated (avoiding the m-word...). It's a shame, becuase I have tried in the past to do Our Lord's work (Our Lord being Thunder God Cid) and spread the faith to others. I've succeed with only one person, my younger brother, and that was due mostly to the fact that I started on him young, and that he was willing to play the games himself. To everyone else, I just shake my head and say "I'm sorry, there's no way I can." And the sad thing is, most people don't care enough to ask why.

Super Saiya-jin.

I wanted to print this letter because I thought the title was funny, but now that I'm looking at it again, not much comes to mind for a response. Lessee...

Not everybody likes FF, and that's ok. Deal with it, folks.

Yeah, that'll do.

Closing Comments:

Nothing more to say, is there? Go play the game of your choice, and send email tomorrow. That's all for now.

-Chris Jones, thinks there's a slight possibility the thing eating the Pikmin might have been a playable character

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