Initial Stream: 12/1/20
00:00 – We start this video with a short video of its own called “What I did on my Thanksgiving Vacation”. Long story short: you can unlock a bunch of stuff by beating the final boss after completing all intervention questions (and I still had one undone when we did that on the previous stream), and I sorted much of that new content while nobody was looking. There were three whole dungeons featuring reused assets (complete with recolored bosses) that were tackled and defeated between streams. That unlocks a fourth “reused” dungeon, and we pick things up at the culmination of that quest. And our final boss for that area is…
6:00 – Mr. Xenogears, aka XG. A full discussion on the Xeno franchise’s ownership and its plots naturally follows. I consider myself something of an expert on the subject.
Also, since I didn’t actually wind up summoning XG during the stream, here’s the lil’ big guy in action. I have to assume that “Little Walking Head” XG was originally designed to be a more present part of the plot. Either that or someone really wanted to toss a headmaster in here.
22:00 – So XG is the final “secret” boss of the original content for World of Final Fantasy. The Maxima upgrade offers some new content, and that’s going to be the majority of these last four parts. There’s a full explanation of that here (in the video), but, long story short, there was a mobile World of Final Fantasy game, Meli-Melo, and, while it appears to have been a failure (it was discontinued almost exactly a year after launch), my understanding is that a lot of the “new” assets from that game got recycled into the Maxima upgrade. Never waste a pixel, Square-Enix! So we’re going to see the new, Maxima-based intervention quests, starting with Cecil trying to cure a friend of desert fever. It’s not the friend you think!
32:00 – Zack time. I guess he died? If you check his in-game biography, it distinctly notes that he is basically a zombie reanimated by mako in this world. Don’t worry, he’ll get better. This is a happy dimension.
40:00 – See? He’s better now. And Serah, sister of Lightning, fights Shiva while we play with wikis. fanboymaster, I just checked, and apparently your edit will only be preserved on this video.
45:00 – Discussion of the upcoming Saga Frontier remake. TLDL: they better do something about the overt implication that a blood transfusion can give you immortality/gay.
What actually happened in the plot:
At the culmination of the “first” ending (maybe second?) Wynne is appointed the new guardian of the world, while Lann and Reynn are sucked into another dimension. Now, the “extra” ending reveals that Wynne receives two “twin mirages” from Enna Kros (god), which allows her to summon little duplicates of her adopted twin siblings. Thus, all post-game content is apparently Wynne having adventures with Lann/Reynn golems. It’s not weird at all!
• XG (Xenogears) is defeated in a presumably non-canon bonus battle (or maybe it’s in another dimension).
• Cecil secures a restorative flower for a sick Kain by defeating Yojimbo.
• Zack reawakens in Castle Figaro’s basement as a berserker, and, after fighting the heroes, flies off with Bahamut (who was coincidentally trying to take a nap in that same basement).
• Serah fights Shiva-Ixion, her fiancee’s summon-cycle, for the right to decorate her for Snow’s birthday (seriously). Zack is dropped off nearby by Bahamut, who cured Zack of his mako poisoning (possibly accidentally). Wynne followed Bahamut/Zack here, and identifies Serah as having some unknown, but super important destiny. Zack asks out Serah. Zack with a C does not play Serah with an H’s favorite song.
Maxima Content Part 2: This is Why I didn’t Stream the Other Dungeons
Initial Stream: 12/1/20
1:00 – The rules of the Ultimate Dungeon suck! Apparently there are distinct warps that occasionally take you back to the start of the place, and random floors may have random rules that severely limit your options. And, of course, this dungeon is going to be nothing but reused assets. Bah! Let’s just discuss a Playstation Superman game and collectors being annoying.
8:30 – I don’t know east from west. I’m going to blame Shantae for this.
14:50 – “Nobody fucks with Dr. Brainshit.”
20:00 – Kary/Marilith is our first boss of the area while we talk about Amalgam comics. I too miss Lobo the Duck.
30:00 – Time to refuel after a discussion of Devil May Cry 3, and then on to part two (of four) of the dungeon.
49:20 – “I envy your optimism”… by the way, this dungeon takes forever. We’re not even a full third of the way done with this nonsense yet.
50:00 – CaliScrub arrives… he missed the best, giant-robot based part.
54:00 – The Kraken Boss fight. We already did this one, as two of the ol’ Final Fantasy 1 fiends already appear as part of the mandatory plot. This Kraken is like forty levels more powerful, though, so at least it isn’t as easy as before. Wee?
56:00 – Minecraft human trafficking is described as we wrap up this section.
What actually happened in the plot: Nothing. Wynne is venturing through The Ultimate Dungeon toward whatever is down there. We’re about 40% through that.
Maxima Content Part 3: The Ultimate Slog
Initial Stream: 12/1/20
00:00 – I couldn’t remember the details on the stream, but here’s the full rundown on the economy of what was apparently Planet Zoo. I will never look at warthogs the same way again.
7:00 – Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity is discussed, which I believe means we have successfully gone full circle on discussing a separate game during the World of Final Fantasy Stream. Long story short, everyone in Hyrule should already have fish.
Also, this bit occurs during a “no item floor” in the dungeon proper. These dungeon rules are truly random (they’re not tied to particular floors, and may change between dungeon visits), and losing the ability to use potions between battles in a game where you can’t even cast cure outside of a fight is a little… terrible. This means that “no item floors” make a little more of an impact than, say, “extra damage” or literally any other random effect.
15:00 – Lich appears. You can’t use Raise/Phoenix Down on an opponent, but you can use an elixir. Guess how Lich goes down.
25:00 – There is just so much Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity discussion here. We will never stream that game.
31:00 – Tiamat, and we already beat her, too. Kind of a wet fart of a way to finish the first 80% of this dungeon.
37:00 – The ultimate section of the ultimate dungeon begins as fanboymaster explains the name switch between Kary/Marilith.
42:00 – Please enjoy watching me engage in ice Sliding dumbassery for five pointless minutes.
50:00 – Florida leadership is discussed on the way to the ultimate boss of this ultimate area… but we stop just shy of the battle itself. Sorry!
What actually happened in the plot: Still nothing. We’re about 95% of the way through this dungeon as of this update. Incidentally, it is noted in the in-game encyclopedia that these adventures are technically canon for Wynne… just we’re well past the actual “end” of the game, so it’s pretty safe to claim none of this will ever be referenced by anything.
Maxima Content Part 4: The End
Initial Stream: 12/1/20 (mostly)
00:00 – Starting off by taking the bold stance that Hitler was not right as we finally approach the final boss of this area. The boss fight is partially expected, partially a surprise. It’s a battle against Garland (Chaos or Garland would be anticipated after the four fiends), but also all four of the fiends simultaneously. Given each of those fiends was an individual (and not easy) boss battle on the way here, this could get dicey.
9:00 – Playstation 4/5 Spider-Man says “defund the police”.
13:00 – Game Over! I had a choice between healing one stack or reviving the other, and I chose wrong, as a powerful, party-wide attack was apparently coming. I came surprisingly close to winning this fight… but nope.
15:00 – Rather than bang my head against that wall again, we try the next secret boss battle, a fight with Enna Kros. As I learn here, it sucks because this trio of bosses can revive themselves repeatedly. And ol’ Enna doesn’t really have any combat animations, so this is the most… lazy of the new Maxima content (and I’m saying that after two hours of a recycled dungeon).
29:00 – Game over again! Same exact reason, too! I have learned nothing!
31:00 – Super Boss #3 requires an airship-based scavenger hunt. And it’s clear right off that this “hunt” is going to take forever, so we pretty much sizzle out with our final World of Final Fantasy stream.
35:00 – And now I avenge myself upon my losses. This section of the video is just highlights of me playing by myself, narrated by myself, because I wasn’t going to drag the stream team through another series of fights that could potentially take forever. I’m not that cruel!
Immortal Dark Dragon is first, and he’s from the anime movie that was produced to promote that mobile game. He’s apparently on the same inter-dimensional team as this game’s main antagonist, but is otherwise wholly new to this title. Fighting him necessitates finding switches across the world, then standing up to a dude that patterns his attacks after Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Arcade Game’s Shredder
38:00 – Garland and the gang all over again. The secret to my success this time is to kill Lich, use water to take out Tiamat and Kary/Marilith simultaneously, and then focus on dropping Kraken. Sorry, can’t kill Kary last. Garland has a bunch of elemental weaknesses after all his buddies are down, so, once again, I was really close to winning the last time.
41:00 – Enna Kros is a pain, with nine extra lives, and still those cheap animations. I’m not certain if this fight would be easier if you focus on exclusively killing one opponent nine times, or spread the death around. Regardless, at the very least you can game the “weakness aiming” by unstacking whenever targeted, so there is a bit of a trick to the battle. However, even if you know what to do, this battle takes forever, and took me personally about forty minutes with the internal speed up feature.
43:00 – And defeating all of those super bosses unlocks the right to fight a super hard version of the original final boss of Final Fantasy Maxima. It’s the same fight, just with absurd attack/HP stats. Beat that final-final boss, and you get to see the all new, secret “teaser” ending for World of Final Fantasy/ Presumptive Trailer for World of Final Fantasy 2. Or, considering how much this whole setup/content is biting on Kingdom Hearts, let’s say World of Final Fantasy 2/418 Days: A Missing Piece 1.8.
46:00 – Oh yeah, you can fish with Final Fantasy 15’s Noctis. Thanks for watching!
What actually happened in the plot: Wynne conquered Garland, an “Anti-Champion” created at the same time as Warrior of Light, deep in the Ultimate Dungeon. She also repelled Immortal Dark Dragon, a threat from another dimension (again, DLC super bosses or not, in-game datalogs confirm these events as canon). After that, a version of Diablos from another dimension attacks her world, but she defeats him with the aid of Tama and Odin. However, more interesting than the fight is that that Diablos seems to be linked to a mysterious figure in a cloak bearing two Mirage-keeper gauntlets and an odd preoccupation with searching for his “sis”. What does it all mean? Guess we’ll find out some day…
Next time on World of Final Fantasy: A sober look at a funny game.
Spider-Man: The Video Game is important precisely because it is forgettable.
The beat ‘em up genre featured some of the biggest names of the time. Many people were first exposed to The X-Men not through a comic book, but through an arcade game (and we’re still trying to figure out why Dazzler isn’t more popular…). Mike Haggar was just a mayor who rarely wore a shirt, but the humble beat ‘em up made him a mainstay of gaming for 
And if you’re saying that Spider-Man: The Video Game (featuring Clint Barton) would do well today because of the popularity of its attached property: congratulations! You’re right! And if we had The Avengers palling around on the big screen back in 1992, then this mediocre beat ‘em up would likely be just as popular as the likes of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles or The Simpsons. And that would carry it forward to the future: some company (I guess Disney Interactive? Or… Capcom? Nintendo is publishing Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3? Maybe them?) would find it profitable enough to hit Sega up for its old code, and we’d see this arcade title ported to a virtual console or two. Or maybe it would have already happened, and we’d be able to buy it on Xbox Live because it was a promotion for Spider-Man: That One Where The Lizard Looks Like a Ninja Turtle. Or maybe it would have been enough of an arcade hit that it got ported to the Sega Genesis. Or Sega Saturn. Or Sega Dreamcast. Or Game Gear? I’m really not picky.
Spider-Man: The Video Game isn’t the best Spider-Man game out there. It didn’t define the genre, it didn’t show us all what it meant to be Spider-Man, and it suffered from the unfortunate handicap of including Namor. But it was a fun game, and future generations deserve an opportunity to play it.
The Spider that Walks like a Man: Spider-Man is an interesting character to animate, because his comic origins don’t really grant him an animated “walk”, but given his speed and super-powers, you could go in a lot of different directions with how a man blessed by a radioactive Spider God might wander around the place. Somehow, this led to Spider-Man of this title possessing a walking animation that makes Peter Parker appear to be… bored. And kind of slouchy? Look, what’s important is that Spider-Man really needs to visit a chiropractor.
Kirby is a hero because he never forgets his friends.
But the fact that the “Marvel Cinematic Universe” has been so long lasting (do we have a single movie universe/franchise with one solid continuity that has ever lasted this long?) has erased our memories of what normally happens in superhero movies. Let’s look across the aisle at Batman. If you’ve got a Batman movie, you have to have the old standbys: Bruce Wayne, Commissioner Gordon, Alfred Pennyworth, and Martha Wayne’s necklace. But past that? Well, if you liked a particular character from one Batman movie, there is absolutely no guarantee that character will ever be seen again. Lucius Fox? He’s a strong maybe. Robin? Depends on the decade. Batgirl? Geez, I know I’m one of six people that enjoyed Alicia Silverstone’s performance, but we’re somehow never seeing that character again. And even if a character returns, it doesn’t mean they’ll be remotely similar to their previous incarnation. Batman is always Batman, but Catwoman might be a Tim Burton fantasy, or a Bond Girl that incidentally owns a motorcycle. And the Al Ghul family can’t even stick to one nationality!
We’re going on 26 years of Kirby, and Kirby’s main cast has absolutely not changed with the times. Kirby is the same hungry ‘n heroic puff he has been since day one. King Dedede is a greedy hammerhead of a flightless (kinda) bird (also kinda). Even the freaking tree with a face has been serving the exact same purpose since his introduction as Kirby’s first ever boss. Waddle Dee is Dedede’s minion whether he’s got a bandana or not, and Scarfy is still just as angry about Kirby’s inhalations now decades after that stopped being Kirby’s main offensive maneuver. Link, Samus, and Sonic might explore entirely new universes with every installment, but Kirby’s world has been rigidly defined from his inception.
So, in a way, Kirby Star Allies is the ultimate form of the Kirby experience. Kirby never forgets his friends, so it’s only natural that he would wander around the universe and make brand new friends everywhere he goes. Yesterday’s villain is today’s best friend, and Kirby’s team of Dedede, Metaknight, and Marx is proof of that. And, even though it’s certain we’ll see another Kirby title after this series highpoint, you don’t have to worry never seeing Kirby’s “Batgirl” ever again. Kirby never forgets his friends, and that’s a fine explanation for why they keep that maniac around.
Favorite Copy Ability: How did it take this long for Kirby to become Spider-Kirby? Trapping opponents is fun, hi-jump makes a return as a friend ability, and Kirby gains the coolest hat in the world. Kirby does well doing everything a spider can.
This game was my first exposure to Spider-Man.
Initial Impression: Doc Ock is a pushover in this game. Literally! He’s balancing on his long, noodley octo-arms, and, a few jump kicks to the face later, he’ll be toppled over like a turtle. And then Spider-Man webs him up, and gets him to rat out every one of his cohorts. He’s a first level boss! With a bowl cut! He never had a chance.
Initial Impression: A mutant reptile that lives in the sewers? Gee, where have I heard 
Initial Impression: Here’s some loser with electric powers.
Initial Impression: Technopop apparently wanted to include one puzzle boss in this adventure, so Sandman winds up being nearly invincible. After Spidey has to fight an escaped gorilla in Central Park (hey, Circus Caper!), Sandman attacks, and he is completely invulnerable to Spider-Man’s webs and spider strength. The solution is to lure Sandman across the entire stage to a random fire hydrant, punch said hydrant, and then soak the man made of sand into inanimate mud. Even when you win, however, victory is fleeting, as you are informed Sandman is the first villain to escape Spider-Man’s web. Sandman must be some kind of super-super villain!
Initial Impression: Spider-Man, unable to find his next villain to trounce, determines that since Kingpin put a price on his head, he could just walk around in broad daylight, see who shows up, and then it’s clobberin’ time. This miraculously works, as Hobgoblin shows up about twenty feet outside the Daily Bugle. And then Spider-Man whacks the goblin right off his dumb glider. The end.
Initial Impression: She’s stated to be Spider-Man’s wife (“your friend Peter Parker’s wife”), and she’s kidnapped by a Kingpin/Venom combo (not the cool kind of Kingpin/Venom combo, they’re just working together) in time for the final stage. During the ultimate, vaguely impossible boss fight, she is slowly lowered into a vat of acid while Spider-Man and Fat-Man duel. If you win, Spider-Man is happy to be reunited with the redhead; if you lose, Kingpin escapes, and Spider-Man gets really depressed. So she’s Spider-Man’s Princess Peach. Got it.
Port-o-Call: Dr. Strange appears for no reason in the Master System/Game Gear version. The Sega CD version adds two new levels/bosses, and cutscenes that are… very strangely animated. Peter Parker and Mary Jane kiss during the intro and… it’s the least romantic cartoon ever.
