Tag Archives: death

FGC #656 Double Dragon 2: The Revenge

The final revengeThis will be the final FGC entry.

… And, while I would love to have put together some grand retrospective of the 656 videogames covered on this blog project, I am going to forgo that. I’m just going to talk about an album I listened to five minutes before writing this.

Hey, it’s my blog, you get what you get. Why should that change now?

So I was just listening to the latest album from Ben Folds, What Matters Most. This is the first album I have bought in… God… probably a decade. Back in 1997 (or so), I purchased Ben Folds Five’s Whatever and Ever Amen as one of my first CDs (as opposed to cassette tapes, as was the style at the time), and loved it. From there, I purchased their stellar debut album (which was still available on Best Buy shelves after two years), and purchased every release thereafter. As a result, I strongly associate various Ben Folds albums with different epochs in my life: I remember listening to that Jackson Canary equally while playing Ocarina of Time or sitting on a marching band bus; and I remember 1999’s The Unauthorized Biography of Reinhold Messner being purchased simultaneously with Smash Bros and then somehow being integral to flirting with a cute brunette who also enjoyed Ben Folds. Rockin’ the Suburbs became synonymous with studying and walking around my college campus. Ben Folds Live was released when I was as poor as I have ever been in my life, so it was enjoyed through the crappy speakers of an equally crappy laptop. And by the time Way to Normal or the A Cappella albums were released, I was much more “established” and content in my own skin and lifestyle, and remember happily singing along in a car that was not likely to explode. I was even thrilled when there was a version of Lonely Avenue that came with a book! It was 2010! I could read it in my recently assembled library!

Point is that I have grown up with Ben Folds albums. I have gone from a gangly teen to a 40-year-old whateverthehellIam, and now I have a new album in my hands.

And I am shocked and dismayed at the fact that Ben Folds has also gotten older!

Jumping alongWhat Matters Most is Ben Folds’s first album of new content in eight years. Going even further than that, it may be his first “normal” album released as a solo artist since 2008. 2012 saw a Ben Folds Five album, 2010 was a collaboration with Nick Hornby, and 2015’s So There was so experimental, it involved a friggen’ concerto. By comparison, this is a simple ten track affair with one collaborative track and a complete lack of anything attempting to bite on Gershwin. And it’s good! It is a great album, and a return to the good ol’ days of sitting down with a Ben Folds album and absorbing the excellent compositions and clever lyrics.

And it is also 100% written by a rockstar that is getting up there in years.

The sixth track, Back to Anonymous, is the most obvious culprit here. While Folds claims that this is all about wearing masks during COVD, this is a song that sounds a lot more like something lamenting and lampooning the concept of going back to being a “normal person” after being a celebrity for some time. Mind you, it is difficult to take this completely seriously, as most regular folk that I know have not had guest spots on FX sitcoms, but c’est la vie. From there, we also have the title track, What Matters Most, which, if the melancholy of nostalgia was looking for a theme song, this would be a frontrunner. Clouds with Ellipses holds a similar tone, and the first cut, But Wait There’s More, certainly presents itself with the unusual statement of “I am back, and just as relevant as remembering Rudy Giuliani”. Kristine from the 7th Grade is an entire song bemoaning unhinged email forwards from former friends, which is maybe the most middle-aged thing you can bemoan. And we have Winslow Gardens, too, which does the adorable elder thing of creating a palindrome where the narrating young couple is observed by old people in the beginning, but the “young couple” is now old and talking about watching a younger couple by the end. Old people love reminding young people they will be old people soon!

Away we goAnd none of these songs are bad, as they are all remarkable. But they are not what I think of when I think of a Ben Folds song. This was the guy who sold me that first album with the one-two punch of Brick and Song for the Dumped, two songs that both are filled with an indescribable amount of young adult angst, but from two wildly different sources. I have always come to Ben Folds songs for the “stories” involved, and those sharp lyrics that weave tales of (young) lovers and situations that have been familiar to me. And, while “my old friend from junior high is now an anti-vax zealot” is definitely familiar to my modern mind, I much prefer the two most poppy songs from this album: Exhausting Lover and Paddleboat Breakup. Both contain the kind of ironic pep that could trace back to Ben Folds Five’s Underground, and both tell universal stories of struggling lovers and dashes past Cracker Barrel. A scant 20% of this album is what I think a Ben Folds album should be, and it is hard to feel anything but disappointed when the rest of the album seems to have been written by dude pushing toward 60. I want to hear about Zak & Sara having a wild love affair! Not Zak & Sara discussing their 401K options!

Clock Tower!I want the artist who has always been older than me to now be younger than me! I was a teenager, and listened to your music! I want you to still be the same artist creating the same art as when I was 14! I have changed tremendously in that time, but I want you to be eternally in your 20s! Get back to that! I can sweeten the pot and give you another twenty bucks…

And then I think about how much I have changed in a mere eight years…

As has been said elsewhere on the site, I started this blog almost by accident. A long time ago on a forum now dead (though technically revived in a new for[u]m), I made some funny posts about Kingdom Hearts. Since I have been on the internet practically as long as it has existed (well, at least since AOL existed), I have a healthy fear of my “content” being wiped out by capricious website owners. As a result, I decided to put my Kingdom Hearts ramblings on my own site. Given the majority of those posts were already completed when I put together the site, I started the Fustian Gaming Challenge as an excuse to write new content about random videogames. On June 15, 2015, I posted my first article about Double Dragon. It was written literally the night before, and I had absolutely zero “backlog” waiting for future articles. I planned to write each of these articles basically as quickly as I played the games, and I figured I would be bored with it before I hit eighty articles. Now, 654 FGC articles, a handful of Let’s Plays, a weekly streaming series, and a weirdly in-depth look at Mortal Kombat later, I am writing about Double Dragon 2 for the final FGC article.

And, dang, I do not even recognize the person that wrote that Double Dragon article eight years ago…

OuchI look at it, I read it, and… it’s not even 1,000 words? That seems short for me. And it carefully adheres to focusing on the Sega Master System version, which is a kind of aim that I dropped almost immediately. And while I forgive myself for still finding my footing with properly producing images and GIFs, I wince at that ending. I sound like a goddamned host for a cancelled G4 show. I wrote this whole thing. I proofed it, diced up the individual screenshots, and proofed it again when I posted it for all the world to see. But if you were to ask me what I was thinking when I wrote all that, I would tell you honestly that I now have no idea. The Goggle Bob that started the FGC is just as gone as the beat, old couch where I first typed out that screed.

And that should be a big duh. My life has changed in significant ways since 2015, and some changes I literally never would have imagined when I first started this humble blog. Full disclosure? After the upheaval that was every goddamned thing that happened in 2016, I am downright ashamed of some of the articles written during the tail end of the halcyon Obama years. That one about Star Wars being a cultural touchstone? Madness in the face of a world that would one day see a president actively calling for people to drink bleach. And my own “relationship status” has gone through significant mutations since I first joked about Alyssa Milano getting her start with the Double Dragon movie; and, suffice to say, that can change a man’s opinions on various parts of this world. And speaking of “the world”, the shape of the web has changed radically in the last eight years. Some of my earliest bits are gags about Buzzfeed lists or Cracked articles, and, at the time I organized those “lists”, it seemed like I had been reading articles like those for years. Now I cannot remember the last time I even visited Cracked…

And I guess remembering officially brings us to today’s game.

I am good at thisUnlike Double Dragon (1), Double Dragon 2: The Revenge was one of my first and only early NES games. Presumably because my parents loved violence in all forms, I was granted Double Dragon 2 for some holiday occasion (probably Memorial Day), and, as one of my few games, I played it for seventy continuous years (estimate). And not only did I play it alone, but I played it with my best friend and neighbor, Jimmy. He was a year younger than me, and we spent many an afternoon playing Double Dragon 2, getting our collective asses kicked, and then going outside to reenact scenes from the game by punching air-ninja as hard as we could. And, while we were never any good at the game (the jumping puzzles and gears of Level 7 often ended our journey prematurely), we had worked out a few tricks for situations like spin kicking rooftop opponents or shoving dudes out of a helicopter. But that didn’t matter! We enjoyed those afternoons playing the same opening levels over and over again, beating the same three dudes into a pulp, and aimlessly swinging chains around.

Playing Double Dragon 2 now inevitably reminds me of those ancient days. And the weird thing? Playing this game with an eight-year-old feels about as far away in my memory as starting a blog eight years ago. I am not nine anymore, and I am not 32 anymore. I had it somewhere in my head that I started Gogglebob.com “a short time ago”, but now it all feels so… distant.

So this is officially the last FGC article.

Look out, worldGogglebob.com isn’t going anywhere. Let’s Plays and Even Worse streaming will continue. Hell, I’ll even write about any Kingdom Hearts nonsense that comes down the pike. But the FGC as a recurring project is done. I will likely revisit the format for some releases (I do enjoy seeing numbers go up), but I am done with the endeavor as it technically existed. I have written 655(+) articles on the subject of “random” games, and I have grown past that. Or, at least, it feels wrong to claim the same moniker on something I started so long ago. I am not the same person as I was in 2015, and my ongoing preoccupations should reflect that.

Random ROB is officially going to retire.

So tune in next week for the brand new project!

… Which is going to be remarkably similar to the old project.

FGC #656 Double Dragon 2: The Revenge

  • System: We are exclusively talking about the Nintendo Entertainment System version today. The arcade version is a different animal that adheres closer to the standards of the original Double Dragon. This is the version with 800% more jumping puzzles.
  • Number of players: Two! Simultaneous! I wonder if my parents picked this up so I would have more friends.
  • Favorite Boss: The battle tank is not actually “fought”, but you must jump around it to fight people on it, so that kinda sorta feels like a boss fight. It is at least at the end of the level, and vaguely reminiscent of the Technodrome. Absolute worst boss fight goes to those two ninja that attack in 2-D at the end of Level 2, and then appear in 3-D as part of the final level (that is not just a final boss). Those monsters were never meant to be able to move diagonally.
  • The evil twinStart All Over: You must enter a secret code on the Game Over screen if you wish to continue. What’s more, there are three different codes for the three different chunks of level. What’s even more than that: the third and final code must be entered on the second player controller regardless of whether it is a single player game or not. Someone really didn’t want a Young Goggle Bob to beat this game…
  • Pick your poison: There are three difficulty levels, and it seems like the different options only impact enemy health and offense. However, more importantly, the three difficulty levels gate later levels in the game, so easy only allows playing up through Level 3, and hard is the only way to see the final stage. This only existed in the American version of Double Dragon II, so this is one of the era’s anti-rental measures. Or maybe someone just noticed it only takes a half hour to beat the game…
  • Story Time: Noted Lee girlfriend Marian is dead at the start of this game, and apparently your quest for revenge initiates some manner of soul swap that causes her to be revived. Sure! Whatever! This makes the plot slightly more interesting than your average rescue mission, but it also means 95% of the game is just punching dudes because you’re angry. So at least Double Dragon II: The Revenge has an appropriate title…
  • A sign of the times: Weapons disappear when their associated enemies are defeated, even if you are going to continue to stand in the same area for even more fights. This is likely some limited memory issue, and, combined with Mondo the Yellow Surfer Dude, you can really feel the 1988 of it all.
  • The strayest of observations: This is an extremely blue/purple game.
  • There he goesDid you know: If you beat your brother in Type B mode, you absorb his lives. Thus, every time I played this game solo, I started with two players in Type B mode, and walloped Jimmy Lee until I had double the lives. This seems wrong somehow, but you gotta do what you gotta do.
  • Goggle Bob Fact: Coincidentally, including every dang thing on this site, this is Published Article #999. The new project premiere will be #1,001. I really could have coordinated it to be #1,000, but I have compulsions about updating the Let’s Play.
  • Would I play again: Only for the excuse of nostalgia. This is not a particularly good or interesting game, and its many beat ‘em up quirks are better in other games that have been released in the last (nearly) 40 years. Double Dragon Neon did everything here better, and it is more immediately available on my Switch, too.

What’s next for Gogglebob.com? The FGC is now over. Come back next week for its extremely comparable replacement that will feature a certain musical Final Fantasy game. Now and forever, please look forward to it!

See you Space Cowboy

FGC #655 Final Fantasy 6: Part 6

Final Fantasy 6 is one of my favorite games, so we are going to have seven different articles about Final Fantasy 6 over the course of three weeks. This week, there will be articles on Monday-Wednesday-Friday, and then the finale next Wednesday (just to be confusing). The Wild Arms 3 Let’s Play will resume on July 17. Now we continue Final Fantasy 6 coverage with…

Let's danceI had it in my head that when I finished Final Fantasy 6 Pixel Remaster, I would write some grand denouement for Final Fantasy 6. It is one of my favorite games, I have loved it since I was a child, and there are pieces of it that have been lodged in my brain since sixth grade. I have read here and there that Miyazaki’s works have influenced practically all fantasy to come out of Japan since the 80’s (obviously including this game), but, in replaying FF6, I realized that my own tropes and ticks are probably influenced by this narrative more than anything else (other chief influences: Xenogears, Breath of Fire 2, Chrono Trigger… I would say that I need to write the story of a time traveling furry that turns out to be Jesus, but I am moderately certain that is just the plot to Xenoblade Chronicles 3). I cannot ignore the fact that Final Fantasy 6 is somehow a part of my soul, and some essay about “the ending” or a roundup summary of the cast cannot do this game justice. In short, if Final Fantasy 6 cannot be found in Heaven, the afterlife holds no appeal to me, and I will wander this blighted earth until the last 16-bit save battery burns out of existence.

So when here on the site, I usually end the article with a list of “bullet point” observations that may not have naturally fit into the larger essay. Since I know I cannot properly do Final Fantasy 6 justice with just one, focused topic, I am going to transcribe some random thoughts on Final Fantasy 6 upon completing its attendant pixel remaster. It is marginally a different game! We’ll cover that at some point.

But for now, we will start with how The Moogle Narrator is the somehow the best thing that ever happened. Somebody had the idea to have Mog “host” a few tutorials here and there, and we get an odd Imp for Gau’s tutorial. And, on a superficial level, this is just kind of a cool thing, as it engages the audience a little better than a simple “now here is what you have to do to make this work” tutorial. You are going to listen to a teddy bear about how switching parties works, right? I believe all tutorials should be delivered by moogles across all genres and franchises.

That said, using Mog to choose your scenario during the “split” after fighting Ultros is inspired. It would be incredibly easy to make this momentary portion of the game a list with selectable characters, or some variation on the character select screen with an elementary pointer. But no, in a “room” where you can only take something like twelve steps, you are Mog making the decision on what scenario to follow. You can play with equipment, use the nearby savepoint, or… I don’t know… pretend you are an omnipotent bat boy that controls the fates of Locke, Sabin, and Terra. There is absolutely no reason you must have a playable character for this choice, but the fact that you get to inhabit obvious cool guy Mog for this moment is amazing.

You can understand why that white-furred weirdo was all over the North American advertising…

Let's danceOn an extremely related note, the Maduin Flashback is tops. The lore dump of the history of Terra could be a simple series of text boxes, but actively “playing” the story as Terra’s father is an excellent way to get the audience to empathize with the espers. Up to this point in Final Fantasy 6, you had screaming maniac Pink Terra, a mysterious ice sculpture, a friendly old man, and magic-spewing demons to represent the esper population. Hanging with Maduin in his pastoral village highlights how these mystical creatures are normal dudes that grow cabbages just like us. They might have wings, but they have routine lives and are in no way deserving of having their lifeforces sucked out through tubes.

The fanboy in me wants it to go another way, but I also admire the restraint shown through this whole sequence. Maduin is the focal-esper of this story, and while his village mates all seem very nice and relatable, they do not have names. There are maybe three espers in this whole sequence that even get so much as a title! And, considering you will eventually have an itemized list of every chunk of esper remains you will ever find, you damn well know that the designers could have casually included a few big boys here. Some espers must be preserved in the World of Balance (Odin, for instance, hasn’t left his basement in a millennia), but literally every esper you find with Ramuh or in the Magitek Factory could have been namedropped during this sequence. And that’s ignoring all the old guard that appear in The World of Ruin. Bahamut could be chatting about how he is itching to get back to the other world and fight that guy with the dooming gaze, or random espers could be spreading gossip of the great Crusader being sealed by dragons long ago. But no, this sequence is about Maduin and his baby mama, so this obvious mark for a lore dump stays on the target of the story of Terra’s parents.

Considering “can an esper (or half esper) feel love” is central to Final Fantasy 6, the section where we get a definitive answer and an origin for a main character is essential. And it is terrific that this section is given the internal reverence it deserves.

Some things never changeAnd speaking of espers, the existence of magic in Final Fantasy 6 might be the most restraint there has ever been in the franchise. Terra has magic right from the start. Once you get her out of her death machine, Terra can use “magic” as her main skill, and she has fire and cure. From there, a new player may correctly assume that there is a greater spell list available, but it works just like Edgar’s tools or Sabin’s blitzes. You will earn greater skills as you go, and you can guess that she will have a more robust spell list by the finale. This is not unlike Final Fantasy 4, where everyone’s roles were very regimented, and Kain was never going to pick up White Magic in the same way that Rydia was never going to jump. Pretty normal that the magical girl (and, eventually, the magical general) would have magic spells while Locke or Cyan had to showcase their specialties in other ways. Everybody has their place in this party.

And then, after traipsing over half the world, seeing the infamous scenario split, acquiring a healthy chunk of your party, and finding the lost Terra up in a tower of liars, you get magic. You get the whole esper system, magic points are introduced, and now everyone can learn the Sleep spell with a little effort. While this is technically only a few hours into the adventure, a whole lot of story happens before this point. Everything feels well and firmly established, and the fact that your party now has infinite options for customization is incredible. Siren, where have you been all my (Locke’s) life!? And it is a seamless system, too. You don’t need a tutorial on filling in a new sphere grid or learning how to properly farm magic points in some disconnected mini game: you just get a new kind of experience point, and it will be automatically applied to the multiplication tables of magic. Easy peasy!

And this never happens in the whole of the franchise before or since, right? Final Fantasy 1 and 2 had whatever level of customization available right from the start. Final Fantasy 3 and 5 both had crystal jobs that were available in less time than it took to learn the characters’ names. FF4 had its regimented cast that rotated in and out according to the story. Final Fantasy 710 all had their “ability customization” explained and functioning inside of the game’s first hour (sometimes with the most blunt “pay attention now” tutorials in history), and 12 and 15 were the same way. Final Fantasy 13 found a good way to “delay” the system of the game to match story progression, but, despite the time that must be involved to get there, it is hard to say that happened at any point other than “after the prologue”. I am unfamiliar with the intricacies of the MMORPG entries, but I was able to get a job inside the free trial period I had for Final Fantasy 14…

Final Fantasy 6, though? The delay of the introduction of basic mechanics combines perfectly with the overarching story of a world that is taking baby steps back to a magical cataclysm (these may be ill-advised baby steps, but baby steps all the same). This is a move that really sells the “world without magic”, and all it takes is withholding the cure spell from the majority of your party until after a world tour.

Considering how well-regarded Final Fantasy 6 has been in the popular consciousness, it is marginally weird that Square never tried such a thing again…

Very scenicBut speaking of trying themes again, it turns out my favorite characters are The Figaro Brothers. In the fullness of time, I do not know how I feel about this. I have always liked Edgar, because I always headcanoned his sexual misconduct as a sort of false front for a noble dude (basically, he is Bruce Wayne’ing his Batman-ness; this is 100% canon in his dealings with the Empire [until they burn the place down]), and, well, I did make him provide my yearbook quote…

Nothing will ever happen to me
I assure you, the sheer uncoolness of this picture was meant to pair with the quote

And he pairs well with Sabin, who is not usually my favorite archetype (the strong guy), but it is hard to downplay how much Sabin works as a character during his side adventure back to Narshe. He got washed away from the party due to overzealously attacking an octopus, wound up trying and failing to save a kingdom, and then suplexed the physical embodiment of mortality before joining a wild child for an extremely long swim. It is obvious we get this extended characterization because Sabin is the only POV character available for this section, but it works. Sabin really is a good guy who gets into “whacky” situations, and is wholly unequipped for a world where he has to survive a genocide event after being asked to repair a stove. He’s… just kind of a cool guy, and we never get a similar bit of development for Setzer or the Thamasa crew.

Oh, and I’ve always found Tools and Blitz to be indispensable through a healthy 75% of the game. That always helps me like a character more. Stopping to pick up the Bum Rush is always my Falcon’s first destination.

ToastyBut with the last hundred years of hindsight (how long has it been since Final Fantasy 6 was released? Oh… that’s all? Felt like longer), I now feel marginally manipulated by my affection for Edgar and Sabin. A significant part of the reason I like them is that they actually get a story, and have a clear (but fairly quiet) arc where two long-estranged twins learn to accept that they are very different people, but with common values. And, while some of this story could use a little bit of polish (if I could change one silly thing about Final Fantasy 6, it would be that initial appearance, “Young” Sabin would not have the same sprite, and look more like his brother before he leaves to become a bear-man), it is presented well through flashbacks and current events (“Hey, Edgar, let me borrow that trick coin I know you have”) that occur at a measured pace throughout the story. Many 16-bit RPGs followed the pattern of “introduce character – present character’s issue – solve character’s issue at the end game” with nary a word about these topics between the featured plot events. Here, it feels like Edgar and Sabin have a long simmering relationship, and, like how Locke and Celes grow into something more, the twins reach a natural end organically (well, as organically as is possible in a game where you must stop to murder a group of six mice with swords every few steps). But all of that comes through because they are frequently featured. In fact, my adult playthrough (that sounds dirty) caught a big whiff of “this is a writer’s favorite character”.

And who is responsible for Edgar and Sabin? Apparently Soraya Saga lists those two knuckleheads on her resume to this day:

It's right there

And that’s the woman responsible for Xenogears and (a good chunk of) Xenosaga. And those are two narratives that I have… let’s say… overanalyzed a bit. So now I feel like I was tricked! She planted the Figaro seeds in my head, and now I care about a goddamned blue-haired space robot! Gah!

And it’s not like “king of a desert kingdom that has to disguise himself as a goofy thief to save his people” is an archetype ever seen again in any franchises… Rassin’ frassin…

Oh, and has anyone ever properly sussed out the solution to the Zozo-chainsaw puzzle? Or have we all been working off the same Nintendo Power guide since 1994?

Get 'emWhile we’re marginally on the subject of Blitzes, we must address how the Pixel Remaster changed how things work, and now there is never any risk.

All of Sabin’s Blitzes used to be high risk, high reward affairs that praised a player for having muscle memory in an RPG. Choosing to “blitz” meant you had to memorize a motion sequence from a menu beforehand, properly recall said motion, and then actually perform that sequence with no immediate feedback. If you were successful, the attack would work. If you failed, you would waste a turn, and receive zero explanation of where you went wrong. This seemed “fair”, as many of the blitzes simulated magical attacks that always had an MP cost. Sabin gets to use his own version of Fira on the monsters, but only if he can properly recall/recite in the heat of battle. And if you are no good at “fighting game motions”, you have eleven (or so) other characters that do not require that skill. It is a surprisingly effective method of marrying Sabin’s “years of training” narrative to actual gameplay conventions. If you trained with Ryu, you can Aura Cannon, too.

The Pixel Remaster has changed this system. Now you select a Blitz from a list of available moves, just like regular magic or any other skill. Now the sequence is displayed on screen. Now you get an immediate “incorrect buzzer” if you enter the wrong command, and you are asked to start again. Now the only way to get an “Incorrect Input” waste of a turn is if you very distinctly and deliberately enter the wrong input, are told you entered the wrong input, and then hit confirm anyway. So, in the end, you are getting all the rewards of a Blitz (high damage, no MP cost of any kind) but zero chance of getting it wrong and wasting a turn. I haven’t tested it extensively, but it appears the battle even freezes during “enter command” time regardless of Wait or Active battling. It couldn’t be easier!

And, brother, do I appreciate not experiencing Blitz Stress every battle. It’s awesome. But still! It feels like something was lost here.

Look awayAnd on a related note, Doomgaze’s spiked tile for an aerial battle in the World of Ruin is now visible on the world map. You want to fight the bat-skull? Just steer your airship into the gigantic swirl of black that FuSoYa could see from the moon. This change has now saved hours of my life.

Unfortunately, the Pixel Remaster has done nothing to circumvent the “required” waste of time of visiting the Auction House in two different worlds, and waiting through seventeen auctions for “cute” items that you cannot hope to win while you just want your goddamned Golem esper to appear on the docket. Take your mecha-chocobo elsewhere, screaming child, I am trying to save the world here.

Apropos of nothing, I would also like to state for the record that there is a minecart level in Final Fantasy 6. While I feel the presence of minecarts in videogames have been exaggerated over the years, this could be evidence they were a requirement for the 16-bit era…

Goggle Bob’s Partial List of Unanswered Questions That Do Not in Any Way Matter!

I don't understand· Ramuh distinctly notes that he fled the Magitek Factory, and your first magicite crystals are the friends he lost along the way. Ramuh also notes that he has been able to survive in Zozo because he looked like a human. So… were Kirin, Siren, and Cait Sith hunted and killed by the populace of Zozo? Wait! Siren is pretty human looking! And Cait Sith is just a cat. Did someone in Zozo kill a magical cat for no good reason? Or was it the empire? And can we get a prequel about Ramuh living in the liarest town that ever lied while he is telepathically communicating with moogles? There must be some good stories there.

· Did we have to get the Ultima Weapon so early? You don’t usually see a sword with HP-based variable effects until the end of a Final Fantasy, and never mind this is labeled as the ultimate weapon before the game even fakes its first “ending”. And finding it on the way to Esper Village even makes it thematically paired with approaching the ancient realm of war beasts. All that said, though, I have a hard time imagining Gestahl missed such an important artifact during his first trip. Bro was able to find the phoenix magicite all on his own! Of course he would be on the lookout for a blue laser sword while kidnapping a baby.

Excellent Stairs· What is the deal with Darill’s Tomb? I can understand Setzer setting up a maze to keep people away from one of the two airships on the planet, but it sure seems like a hassle anytime he wants to visit his old friend. An NPC claims that the crypt is ancient, but it is hard to determine if that is just window dressing for explaining the Growth Egg’s secret passage, or if this is legitimate world building. And is this place one giant dungeon meant to house one body? Or are the army of skeletons all the other corpses? Was Darill’s remains mutated into one of the monsters? Was she the Dullahan? Whatever is happening there, it had to be hell for Setzer to repair the Falcon in the first place.

I know that guy· What happened to all the magitek nonsense after Kefka took over the world? Like, okay, we already covered that Kefka hoovered up a lot of it into his private citadel, but you would think there would be a warlord or two stomping around with (literally) magic armor. I understand how the narrative didn’t “need” magitek anymore, because the whole point was that this was something that could get out of control, and Kefka proved it would destroy the world… But still! Magitek was cool! And it is a shame the only time we get to play with it after the intro is in a dreamscape meant to highlight Cyan’s mechanophobia. I would take a lost Magitek soldier as a hidden character over Umaro. Would finally explain what happened to Biggs…

Gogo is Gogo, and nothing around them makes a lick of sense. Zone Eater is a giant worm that only surfaces on a single island in the World of Ruin. Zone Eater is literally incapable of killing anyone (it uses gravity and freezing dust, and does not have an actual attack that can reduce HP by anything but a percentage), but will eat your party if you give it enough time. Inside of Zone Eater is an entire dungeon. Zone Eater’s Belly is filled with difficult monsters that are generally human-esque. Multi-armed dudes, shambling corpses, ninja: that kind of party. There are also weirdly dressed humans that seem to exist exclusively to kick people off of bridges. Then we’ve got a room with a mobile ceiling (maybe meant to simulate Zone Eater chewing? Or digesting?), followed by a quick chest-based obstacle course (are the “chests” supposed to be an anatomy pun?). There are treasures for warriors and pictomancers scattered about, and, of course, Gogo waits in the central-most chamber.

This has nothing to do with anythingAnd there is nothing else like this in Final Fantasy 6, nor is it ever remotely explained.

It would be the easiest thing in the world, right? Add a comment to any of the many Final Fantasy 6 rereleases that a circus troop got swallowed by the worm god. Or change Gogo’s airship dialogue to “I wonder if my worm buddies back at the worm cave are doing their wormiest”. Or, by the crystals, you could even make a quick change to Final Fantasy 5, and have Enemy-Gogo cast “be-wormed” on themselves. Conversely, while we have had a Gogo cameo or two in future games (is there a single bit of Final Fantasy Lore that is not referenced in Final Fantasy 14?), there was never a dang thing that explained The Worm Dimension.

Now, at this point, there have been interviews and alike that have confirmed that Gogo originally had a very different appearance/recruiting method. Apparently, there was going to be some nonsense where you would see a party member at a random bar out in the world, and the “joke” would be that your friend was hanging out without you, but, oh man, it was actually Gogo mimicking your buddy. The recruitment method would involve some level of luck, and you would have to already have that party member in your current gang, and then you would be able to confront the master mimic and reveal the ruse once and for all. While this is one of those ideas that sounds marginally cool (and is also a clearer reference to Gogo’s previous appearance), it is hard to ignore how it would be a complete pain in the ass to actually program and for the player to figure out what to do when. Dropping such a system was probably the right call.

So the most likely answer here is that Worm Daddy was probably just a mishmash of ideas that didn’t fit anywhere else. The Bridge Folk would fit right in in Zozo or the Mt. Zozo return, the collapsing ceiling is a classic dungeon trap that was likely orphaned in a game where the “instant kill” loss condition is not seen elsewhere, and even the “get eaten by an enemy” thing seems like a logical (albeit obstruse) inversion of the sneeze mechanic seen elsewhere in this world. So the most logical explanation here is simply that this was a developer’s graveyard, and Gogo simply became quing of the trash heap.

But what’s important is that Adlai Stevenson has never had anything to do with anything.

So scenicAlright, I think I’m ready to talk about the elephant rotting in Celes’s room: Let’s address the (potential) death of Cid Del Norte “Grandpa” Marguez.

There is a lot going on here.

First of all: Cid is supposed to die. No question, it is 100% clear that Cid dying is a perfectly normal part of the Final Fantasy 6 lifecycle, and Celes throwing herself off a cliff in despair is the exact right move at that point in the game.

Of course, I mean this from a “lowest point” drama perspective. It cannot be ignored that the whole thing is rather misogynistic (a grief stricken Strago joins a cult, Setzer turns to drinking, and Cyan pioneers the concept of being an internet weirdo; but none of the boys seem to even consider the ol’ suicidal “widow” route), and, while you can make the excuse that Celes always had the support network of an army behind her (even if that army included a moogle), the fact that this all seems to be intentionally related to Locke… Well, it ain’t great. Some more deft writing would have benefitted Celes, Cid, and Locke. More of an emphasis on how Celes distinctly regrets leaving things unsaid with Locke could have been a little more relatable than “where my man? I die now.” Similarly, Cid and Celes had exactly one interaction together in all the World of Balance, and Cid’s position at the time was “Huh? Celes?” like a dog that thought they heard their owner outside (and it is the mailperson every time). While he hastily explains their shared past before shoving the party into a minecart, the actual “present” relationship between Cid and Celes is practically nonexistent before the world goes sideways. And, again, this might have been remarkable with more focused writing (Celes immediately adopting Cid as literal family could have a couple of different motivations, but the text is just basically “You’re my grandpa now!” like Celes is a toddler), but the reality of it is trite and arguably too shallow for such a potentially deep character and moment.

But holy cow is the “game” portion of this fascinating.

Has anyone ever saved Cid on an initial playthrough? It seems vaguely impossible, as the deck is very stacked against Celes. Enterprising programmers have uncovered the exact mechanics of Cid’s life and death, and apparently not only must you fish the proper fishies, but Cid’s health decreases for every second Celes is puttering around. Couple this with the fact that the slow Death Fish are a lot more common than the yummy fish, and how you must speak to Cid and unload Death Fish to reset the pool at all… And, yeah, he doesn’t have a chance. FF6 Designer Yoshinori Kitase has stated that Cid is supposed to die, but the option of saving him was included so the player had some agency over the proceedings. So the obfuscation of mechanics for saving the old man is deliberate, and the difficulty included is calculated. Saving Cid is like… Well… It’s like trying to save a feeble old man with absolutely no help and a pile of potentially murderous fish. It’s thematically appropriate!

Cid isn't here, eitherBut, on a personal note, despite the fact that there is literally no reward for saving Cid in any capacity, I am incapable of not saving Cid. As of the advent of emulators, I used to savescum the best fish, but after a few decades, I now have it down to a science. I only kill Cid if I want to kill Cid. I am the master of Celes’s destiny. And on the rare occasions when I do want to see Celes taking a dive, I let Cid die, and then I reset from the previous save. I am pathologically incapable of moving on in this game knowing there is a yellow raincoat starting to smell back on Solitary Island.

I even know that Cid surviving is somehow sadder than if he just dies. Spending the entire length of The World of Ruin alone on an island with exploding squirrels sounds more like a waking Hell than anything Kefka could concoct. Does Celes even visit when she returns for that bird magicite on the beach? Does somebody else head the search party there? Our former general would really love to leave the airship, but she’s right in the middle of polishing Ragnarok, and… be a dear and go and see if there is anything left on the beach? Thanks. No, I don’t want to hear about the old man standing by the bed and weeping…

But… yeah, I think that’s where I’m going to end this. I could spend the next thousand words discussing the differences between Tonberry, Tonberries, and Master Tonberry, but… I think that’s just how Final Fantasy 6 is in my head. I understand why this game hit me so hard as a child: it is a good game (Gogo can customize his skills!) coupled with a story and concepts that could light my imagination aflame (Gogo is secretly Darill!). This is the game with the largest playable cast in mainline Final Fantasy history, and that seems apt: it is a gestalt of a bunch of weird little concepts and set pieces, and, while much of it is extremely shallow, it somehow unites into something more. When I was a toddler, I was excited to see the Voltron lions go-lion in a giant man with a blazing sword, and a decade later, I was excited to see how Strago, Locke, Mog, and Terra all combined into an amazing game.

So that’s my final word on Final Fantasy 6.

Next time on Final Fantasy 6: Psyche! Let’s read about reading.

Look out
Before “doink” was a household term

FGC #650 Haunting Starring Polterguy

Here comes the ghostIt is amazing how “eat the rich” can feel so right.

Today’s game is the marginally forgotten Sega Genesis title, Haunting Starring Polterguy. This was an Electronic Arts jaunt from 1993, and won a bit of acclaim at its release for being a very different kind of game. At a time when the consoles were dominated by furry platformers with attitude, Haunting Starring Polterguy was a distinctly humorous game with peculiar gameplay. You are a ghost, and it is your job to scare four different people by possessing a variety of objects that have been conveniently preprogrammed for potential scares. HsP definitely contains some annoying, contemporary “action game” conventions (there is a “Hell” level that is all dodging and jumping, and a completely unsuitable final boss), but, by and large, it is a unique experience that is still rare to this very day. We had… What? Geist? And that was mostly about being a first-person shooter in different forms? Haunting Starring Polterguy is one of the only titles to utilize such a universal concept in decades of gaming history despite the fact that playing as a spooky ghost trying to scare hapless humans is instantly recognizable. We have an entire holiday based on it! Two, if you include the works of Dickens!

And you know what else is another universal concept? Eat the rich. (Also a popular topic for Dickens.)

You are not a generic ghost in Haunting Starring Polterguy. You are, of course, the titular Polterguy. And Polterguy was not some born-dead apparition (eat it, Slimer), he was once a normal, living punk teenager who died thanks to a defective skateboard. And, since he blames this most bogus of deaths on the manufacturers of the board, he is going to haunt CEO Vito Sardini and his family until they run screaming from their home. And in much the same way that Polterguy is a very defined character (for a 90’s 16-bit title) the Sardinis are not just generic people in a house waiting for a spook ‘em up. The Sardinis are… Well, let’s look at Flo’s in-game biography…

Not an aunt

And if that was a little too subtle, how about we see what there is to say about her dear daughter…

Could one day be an aunt

The Sardinis are portrayed as three key things: vicious, selfish, and rich. And it is worth examining why those first two traits so quickly intersect with the third.

First of all, Haunting Starring Polterguy is a “children’s game” that does something far more brave than Grand Theft Auto: it involves children. Aside from fairly generic ghouls that seem to represent the basic concept of death, the four Sardinis are the only opponents Polterguy will ever face. And two of those Sardinis are kids! And, considering you are literally scaring them into homelessness, HsP does go out of its way to make prepubescent children creatures worthy of being tossed out on the street for their crimes. Tony and Mimi are presented as horrible little monsters in their own right, and, complete with unusual mentions of their love of various poisons, the basic concept here seems to be that the world would be better off without the Sardini family. Polterguy is a polter-guy while these rapscallions still live! That doesn’t seem right!

The garage is scaryBut why are Sardini children terrible? Well, obviously because they are rich. Papa Vito Sardini is just south of straight up being Mr. Monopoly as the very picture of capitalism with his suit and giant cigar, and Flo Sardini is the housewife that is assumed to be lambasting a cleaning staff just off screen. They are loaded, and their gigantic homes filled with wild excesses are monuments to their fortune. Hell, the warp from level 2 to level 3 is hidden in the “jacuzzi room”! There is no question that the Sardinis have grossly profited off suffering, and Polterguy is a not-living reminder that their money has been earned through causing literal death to others.

And it is amazing that I intrinsically understood this as a child.

I was roughly Tony Sardini’s age when Haunting Starring Polterguy was released. While I know I didn’t pick this one up on release day, I am estimating that my childhood memory of renting this game did occur when it was contemporary. And I will formally note that I do not consider myself to have been a smart child. Or teenager. Or young adult. Or… whatever I am right now. Adult? That doesn’t sound right… Regardless! I was not a gamer that ever picked up on subtext until roughly the release of Final Fantasy 13, so, back in the Final Fantasy 4 days, I was hopelessly drowning in a quagmire of the literal. But, luckily, there is nothing remotely subtle about the Sardinis. They are mean. They are rich. They are the enemy, and, should Polterguy fail in his mission to teach them a lesson, they will inevitably hurt more people. They are the bourgeois, and they must be stopped.

It's so hotAnd I got that. I understood that the rich were the enemy of a young, hip, teenager (who may or may not be alive). I was never cool/coordinated enough to be a skateboard champ, but I wanted to be a radical shredder. These “rich kids”? They were just as selfish and mean as the bullies at my school. And were the real bullies wealthy and privileged? Of course they were! One of my greatest enemies in primary school was the grandson of a superintendent. Kid was untouchable! I would have haunted his house in a second. And even as a dumb ten-year-old, I knew the reason he could get away with damn near anything was that his parents/grandparents were high enough on the food chain that none of my beloved teachers would ever so much as shoot an ornery glance in his direction. He was untouchable! And it was because of unearned wealth and power!

And, end of the day, when this is something that could be understood by a foolish child, it really raises the question of why “being rich” is something that is supposed to be aspirational.

We see it over and over again, right? We are told that “rich guy” is the smartest guy around, he has been so successful in everything, and then he’s put in a position where we can actively see the decisions he is making and the thoughts he is having, and it is clear we’re dealing with a charlatan. But then how was he so successful? Well, it is pretty easy to identify when someone has inherited billions of dollars, and how that could maybe purchase a few accolades and an entire public relations firm. And whether these braindead Scary Dancerbillionaires are aspiring to politics or simply owning a social media company, we do not need a Citizen Kane to be reminded that they are little more than monsters themselves. A wise writer once said of being rich, “In terms of cognitive impairment it’s probably like being kicked in the head by a horse every day”. And this fact is proven to us over and over again, generation through generation! It’s in our literature and parables going back centuries! We know it in our genetic code at this point that the rich would eat us all if given the tiniest opportunity!

So bite back.

Haunt that couch, Polterguy. When the revolution comes, you will be on the right side.

FGC #650 Haunting Starring Polterguy

  • System: Sega Genesis was technically the only place you could find Polterguy. However, there was an Electronic Arts collection released for the PSP. So EA Replay contains the most recent release of Polterguy… and that was 2006. Good luck finding this dead man now!
  • Scary SexyNumber of players: This is very much a single player game, but, inexplicably, there is a two-player mode. It is mostly an alternating adventure (player one haunts, dies, and then it is player two’s turn), but both players go head-to-head to race out of Hell and see who gets the next turn first. It is a shame that the simultaneous bits only occur in the dreary dungeon, as tandem haunting of the house might be fun. You could scare Sardinis into each other!
  • Optimum Run: And speaking of going to Hell: I literally cannot figure out if this game is meant to be… what’s the word that fits here… played without failure? Like… are you supposed to die? Or re-die? What I mean to say is that your health bar drains very quickly, and, considering “death” just means playing a different kind of level, it is difficult to determine whether “dying” is something that is supposed to happen routinely, or if there is some optimum way to scare everyone and always keep your health topped off. It certainly seems like the scares do not drop enough ectoplasm to keep Polterguy healthy, but maybe if you run all over the house and scare everyone in succession…
  • Cheat ‘em Up: Possibly as a concession to the above issue, there are level warps hidden in every stage. There is practically no way you would find these shortcuts on your own (less “run on top of some blocks to find the secret pipes” and more “haunt the garbage can in one specific room and press B C B B”), but they are quick and easy if you want to “continue” to a new stage. Or… just skip 75% of the game. That’s good, too.
  • Favorite Haunt: One of the doorways is enchanted to summon a skeleton cowboy with pistol blazing. Why is this doorway undead Western themed? Who knows!
  • Ride 'em cowboyAn End: The finale reveals that the family dog was some kind of malevolent force all along. Whether this entity is the reason the starring family is also malevolent is never explored, but you do have to fight the dog monster in a boss fight for which this gameplay system is woefully underequipped. But if you win, Polterguy is restored to life! And then he immediately dies again! Because that is funny! I guess!
  • Did you know? One of the most risqué haunts involves possessing a bath towel in the bathroom, and materializing a seemingly naked woman behind the towel. But when she removes the towel, it reveals she is a touch on the skinless side, and someone is going to be more than a little frightened by the Hellraiser lady walking around. Now that is something Nintendon’t do over on the Super Nintendo.
  • Would I play again: Maybe? This one is a fun curiosity, and really does have unique gameplay for the era. That said, Polterguy is not great at haunting my memory, and I am unlikely to pick it back up if it does not ever appear on a compilation again. So…. Fingers crossed for a Sega Genesis Mini III.

What’s next? Random ROB has chosen… Goat Simulator 3! Let’s watch a goat do all sorts of things. I guarantee it will be spicy! Please look forward to it!

That's all, ghouls

FGC #647 Final Fantasy 10

Let's blitz ballFinal Fantasy 10 was a brilliant deconstruction of its franchise. And that statement is firmly past tense because it was immediately undercut by capitalism.

For the current moment, let us consider Kefka Palazzo. Kefka was ultimately the final antagonist of Final Fantasy 6, and he plainly stated his goal during his decisive battle: destroy everything, and build a monument to nonexistence. Colorful metaphor about modern art aside, Kefka had plans to kill the party, every other person alive, and (given enough time) obliterate the entire planet while he was at it. All that would be left would be a black void, and even Kefka himself seemed to nihilistically seek his own end if it meant everything else went with him.

And then the heroes of Final Fantasy 6 defeated Kefka. The madman crumbled to dust, and his evil plans were no more. Afterwards, there was approximately a half hour of credits and airship flying, Terra decided to feel the wind in her hair, and then…. Nothing.

Final Fantasy 6 ends with a The End logo, and the world stops existing. The next Final Fantasy starts on another world. Any heroes, townsfolk, or even moogles from Final Fantasy 6 are not seen in the franchise again. There may be “side stories” and alike, but these all seem to take place with versions of Terra, Kefka, and others from epochs before the end of Final Fantasy 6 (you can tell because Kefka is, ya know, alive). If the world of Final Fantasy 6 exists in any conceivable form after the fall of Kefka, there is no evidence of it across any official media.

Kefka wanted to destroy the world of Final Fantasy 6. Shortly after Kefka “failed”, the world of Final Fantasy 6 was forever destroyed, obliterated by an uncaring power button.

And, after this was the norm for nearly fifteen years and a solid nine Final Fantasy titles (and at least one spinoff), Final Fantasy 10 decided to definitively comment on this strange phenomenon.

Where good games go to dieAs is stated from literally the beginning, Final Fantasy 10 is the story of Tidus. And, since you are holding the controller that keeps that story going, you are meant to be Tidus, too. Tidus is good at playing games in a technologically advanced world, but his life is turned upside down when a tragedy transports him to Spira. Spira is a much more rural, primitive spot, and something very foreign to our “modern” Tidus. Ultimately, everything you see of this world exactly matches to the time Tidus spends in this strange place. You experience every second of his journey there, and you know exactly what you know of Spira exclusively through his eyes and what he learns from others. Tidus only discovers new things about Spira if you choose to talk to more people or see more places in Spira. And even though Tidus has his own issues to work through, you wholly inhabit his view of this alien world, complete with leaving Spira exactly when he exits. You are a strange visitor from an advanced (and implied to be more enlightened/less superstitious) society, here to save the world with ideas that could only belong to an outsider. When your job is completed, everyone is going to miss you to the point of tears, but despite their protests, you literally disappear.

Hey, there is probably a reason the only characters you get to personally name in Final Fantasy 10 are Tidus and the aeons, the super-powered agents of Tidus’s “other” world. These characters are yours. Everyone else you are just visiting.

And this ties neatly into Final Fantasy 10’s concept of finality.

My good friendMagical memory whammies or whatever is happening aside, Tidus apparently comes from a world where the afterlife is an unknowable mystery. But Spira has a concrete answer to this age-old question: if you die with regrets, you are likely to either become a fiend, or live on as some manner of ageless zombie. A summoner may “send” the dead to the Farplane (a magical but firmly visitable place), but if some undead avoid this fate, they will stick around for literally eternity and continue to make a mess of things. At best, the living dead of Spira are perpetuating endless spirals of destruction, and at worst they are literally monsters. So, in short, a huge theme of Final Fantasy 10 is “don’t wear out your welcome”. You died, get over it, move on. If you stick around, you are going to hurt everybody still alive.

Thus, the true “end” for Spira’s story is when the party reaches the end of the pilgrimage, and Yuna and the rest of the party decide they are not going to feed the cycle anymore by rejecting Yunalesca, the jackass who got this ball of rubbish rolling. This makes slaying Sin a sort of coda, as the “important” ending has already happened. Change is now an inevitability. And this is further reinforced by Seymour, who had been a threatening antagonist throughout much of the quest, but now only represents the old world and old problems. Once he is deprived of his “immortal” cycle, he is little more than a speed bump. Beating a man you killed two times already is just as insignificant as that task should be. Similarly, the technical final battle isn’t the big damn boss fight of Braska’s Final Aeon, but a slow, aggravating slog through killing your Aeons. And that sucks! That whole sequence sucks, and “you just beat the Elite 4, now kill all your Pokémon” is as terrible as that sounds. But it is there. It is the last time you control this party, and it is miserable. And that is the whole, deliberate point: you are not supposed to keep being Yuna’s Pilgrimage Party. That is over now, and making it go on any longer will just bring heartache. Time to go, Tidus, your dream, your story is over. Time to hit that power button, player, the game is over now, too.

You have to leave this world behind. All of Spira, all of Final Fantasy 10 will end now and be gone forever, but you will live on. This adventure is over, but you will be better for it.

BOOMAnd this would have been the ideal moral for a Final Fantasy title that matched every Final Fantasy that came before 2001. Sure, Seymour, Kefka, Sephiroth, and every villain that wanted to destroy their world had technically won by virtue of dying and leaving behind a world no longer requiring a player to defend it, but outside of the meta-narrative of the player living on, these were games with happy endings. Yuna, Terra, and Cloud would live to see a happily ever after, and we were left with only our imaginations to guess what happened to these heroes after we left them alone. Did Terra truly find love in her new family? Did Cloud and Tifa decide to settle down? Did Yuna become a pop idol cross treasure hunter?

Oh yeah, we definitely know the answer to a few of those questions now…

Final Fantasy 10 was the first Final Fantasy to truly embrace the concept of being “final”. It was also the Final Fantasy released closest to Kingdom Hearts, a franchise that immediately revived the likes of Tidus, Wakka, and eventually even Auron (who is six kinds of dead before the game even started!). Final Fantasy 10-2 was teased as part of a trailer tacked onto the finale of FFX’s American release, and the Eternal Calm gave way to a game that all but obliterated any sort of finality in Final Fantasy 10. Shortly thereafter, every Final Fantasy retroactively jumped onto Dissidia and alike to be similarly eternal. Final Fantasy 10 started the trend, but by the time we could buy cell phone games featuring the offspring of the Final Fantasy 4 cast plowing through the same stupid dungeons over and over again, the message had become clear: there would never be an end to any Final Fantasy adventure ever again.

And, in much the same way Final Fantasy 10 asked us to accept that death is the natural end of all things, we must now accept that eternal life is the natural state of all brands.

Never understood that graphical choiceThere will never not be new Final Fantasy 10 media for the rest of our lives. Any given “HD rerelease” of FF10 will inevitably stoke the rumors of a Final Fantasy 10-3, and we may eventually see such a product “because the fans demand it”. In the meanwhile, Tidus will appear in any game that requires Final Fantasy cameos, and any of those “cameos” could be excuses to foist new pathos or backstory on our intrepid Blitzball player (depending on how serious anyone wants to be about a game where a clown can fight a tree). In 2001, it was reasonable to assume that Tidus’s story was one-and-done, and we would never see anything further to elucidate his limited life beyond the odd Ultimania release. Now? Now our grandkids are going to be learning that the third lizard that Tidus curb-stomped was secretly the fiend-reincarnation of the dude that founded the Yevon chapter of the Boy Scouts, and further information will be available on a cell phone-based lottery game released to promote Final Fantasy 19.

Final Fantasy 10 told a tale letting go, but it was released exactly when Squaresoft (soon to be Square Enix) needed to recoup some losses. It was released exactly when it was discovered you couldn’t just repurpose your Final Fantasy 5 sprites to be Final Fantasy 6 sprites in the high-definition(ish) world of next gen consoles. It was released exactly when the luxurious days of the Playstation were ending, and Grand Theft Auto 3 was about to be the hot new genre of choice. Final Fantasy 10 had the audacity to speak of finality when Squaresoft would never be able to make anything “final” ever again. In Final Fantasy’s near future, even apparent bombs like World of Final Fantasy would have to put in their time in the Meli-Melo gacha mines!

I have always liked this sceneAnd is that all bad? Well, truth be told, if I had the choice between Final Fantasy 10 having a more focused message, or being able to play Final Fantasy 10-2, I’d choose Final Fantasy 10-2 every time. Morals and lessons are all well and good, but Wakka can come out of Blitzball retirement anytime Square wants, because there is at least a 30% chance a game including him will be good (just so long as no one actually plays Blitzball). Finality in a videogame may be impossible for Square Enix nowadays, but the world doesn’t really need videogames to be final. We like videogames, SE, so feel free to keep churnin’ ‘em out.

But it does mean Final Fantasy 10’s message is forever marred by its masters. Playing Final Fantasy 10, and then immediately segueing to its sequel is not only now possible, but seemingly encouraged by releases that pair it with Final Fantasy 10-2 (and 10-2’s “six months later” teaser). Final Fantasy 10 was a game all about finales, but now it will never see its own finale.

Final Fantasy 10 wants you to learn to let go. Square Enix missed that lesson.

FGC #647 Final Fantasy 10

  • System: Playstation 2, Playstation 3, Playstation 4, Playstation 5. Probably an Xbox here or there. Gotta be a Nintendo Switch available, too. Oh, and the Steam/PC version apparently has time saving toggles for boosting exp and alike. Why isn’t that available on a console again?
  • Number of players: This is Tidus’s story. So one.
  • GOOOOOOOALLevel Up: After years of leveling systems in Final Fantasy titles trying unique things like Esper customization or learning skills from armor, Final Fantasy 10 finally eschewed the whole concept of traditional leveling and brought us the Sphere Grid. And it’s good! I like it! Unfortunately, it kicked off a wave of sphere grid-alikes in every JRPG from here to NIS, and… maybe not every videogame needs a complicated leveling system barring entry to just jumping in and enjoying slaying monsters. If I need a strategy guide to determine whether or not I am screwing up my “build” from the first minute…
  • Play Ball: I do not care for Blitzball. But, hey, I was never a big fan of Triple Triad in its time, either. Maybe one day I will find joy in math-ball.
  • Favorite Summon: Anima. Geez, Anima. You are the living (kinda) encapsulation of everything wrong with the beliefs of Yevon, a creature harnessing unending pain to punish monsters, and you have a cool, freaky venus-fly-trap-mummy thing going on. And you punch a lot! Here’s to you, Anima!
  • Videogame Fayth: The puzzle rooms in every religious temple in Final Fantasy 10 really raise some questions. Are the cloisters of trials exclusively there for summoners, or does the cleaning staff have to juggle a series of magical orbs every time they need to dust Bahamut’s remains? And is your average Yevon priest solving block puzzles as part of their seminary?
  • Did I mention I love Auron?Goggle Bob Fact: I have always considered myself fairly… Woke? My parents are liberal and raised me in a fairly progressive fashion, but I… kind of didn’t notice Wakka when I first played Final Fantasy 10 back during my freshman year of college. But now when I play the game? Holy crap is he racist! It is fantasy racism, but the fact that he is a religious zealot that takes every spare moment he can find to denigrate the Al Bhed is exceptionally concerning. And I did not observe it at all twenty years ago! I guess I wasn’t as “woke” as I thought back then. Maybe I still have more to learn now…
  • Did you know? Final Fantasy 10 was released in America on December 17, 2001. I think ROB tried to aim their randomness at this date. I am starting to suspect something is up with that robot.
  • Would I play again: Assuming I have hours and hours to kill, I would like to play Final Fantasy 10 again. That said, it might be another decade before I get back to number ten.

What’s next? Random ROB has chosen to take a few weeks off, as it is holiday time! Let’s aim for our annual winter celebration post next week! Please look forward to it!

This is hilarious
We’ll laugh about this later