01/03/2021

Final Fantasy VIII and IX: Not in this lifetime, baby

 

This is it, dear fellow gamers: I’m officially renouncing late ‘90s Final Fantasy entries, for now and for all eternity. 

I renounced FF VII long ago already, and I gave up on FF X after two failed attempts at tackling it; yet I had good hopes that I could still enjoy what’s in between. VIII and IX are more subdued, less cult classic-ish FF entries that still have their aficionados; and I thought I could become one of them. Alas, that was not meant to be, and I don’t think that ever will.

 

 
 

I didn’t manage to play the pair long enough to give detailed run reports; I’ll just say that FF VIII didn’t let me fight quickly enough for my taste, and that FF IX’s ATB system killed all the battle joy for me. But the main turnoff was this: I absolutely loathe the way these games take themselves so darn seriously. They come with a whole universe that they try shoving down your throat right from the first flashy and overdone cutscene, and they present that universe with such hieratic, ‘oh-we’re-trying-so-hard’ rigidity that it becomes utterly off-putting. I’m not saying I want meta-irony and fourth wall breaking on a regular basis in my RPG; what I do want, on the other hand, is a bit of humility and the awareness that RPGs are not movies and never will be. 

 

 

This is not just about FF, mind you. The late ‘90s are my most hated gaming era precisely because of their pretentious, over-the-top attempts at cinematic storytelling. The industry was going all Georges Lucas on itself, nipping and tucking and trying to shove in everything they couldn’t afford until then because of a lack of technical means. There was no insight about the specificity of gaming, about its deeply interactive nature; and hindsight about it was yet to come. That lack of awareness gave us a number of overdone titles that didn’t age quite as gracefully as their simpler, more game-y predecessors. Not sayin’ FF VIII and IX belong to that category, mind you; but heck, they’re definitely trying too hard for my taste.

With late ‘90s FF instalments out of the picture, I have few canon ones left to play. That would be FF III and IV on the DS, FF V and VI on the GBA, FF XII on the Switch, and FFXIII on the PC. Being a complete retro whore, I’m quite confident I’ll love III to VI; and since I’m also a total ARPG and dungeon crawler whore, I’ll probably enjoy XII and XIII as well. With that said, I’ll see you soon with fresh run reports, dear fellow gamers; until then, keep playing and take care!

 

5 comments:

  1. Funny; FF X was the first RPG I played that I knew was a 'JRPG'. Never finished it, but it got me into the genre, and I'm waiting to buy the PS4 remaster to finally finish it, but there's always something that grabs my attention more whenever it goes on sale.

    Can't argue with the other entries; I tried FFVII and got bored, same with FVIII (plus I hated how you're not encouraged to level up at all in that game, but to grind magic out of enemies instead) and I haven't tried FFIX yet.

    It's sad that the whole 'games are movies' is so ingrained into most titles now, I was actually surprised when I started Atelier Lulua and was playing before an hour had passed. A lot of features were still locked mind you, but I was playing. The hardest thing about going through JRPGs now that I only have 1 hour for playing most days, is knowing I have to wast an entire day just waiting through cutscenes. What a waste of my precious leisure time, thanks game. Part of why I've been enjoying indies more and more nowadays. Since a lot of them are short, they won't dare waste around 10% of their playtime in just cutscenes. And for everything else, there's Yu-Gi-Oh! and the Warriors Empires games; just set up your deck/character and you're good and ready to go.

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    1. Also, off topic, but have you seen the newest Kemco RPG? It's still a long ways off till it comes to console (since it's only tomorrow that Ruinverse releases on the switch), but I'm so excited for a Kemco game with a female protagonist!

      Speaking of new games...still haven't even tried Sword and Shield. Are you planning on trying out the remakes on they come out? Cause I'm sure not, and that open world game isn't doing it for me either.

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    2. > Have you seen the newest Kemco RPG: If you're talking about Ghost Sync, it looks neat indeed. Let's hope it will come to the Switch sooner or later!

      Funny that you should mention Sword&Shield, because... Oh well, you'll find out soon enough. ^^ As for the Diamond&Pearl remakes, well... I'm gonna be honest here: my heart skipped a bit when I stumbled upon them on Play Asia. I had lost all hope that those remakes would see the light of day, and I'm most definitely going to purchase them both. As for the Legends game, I'll wait for gameplay videos and reviews before commiting to a purchase. But yeah, I'm super-hyped about Diamond&Pearl ^^

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  2. Aha, I can totally relate to some of this. I love the _idea_ of Final Fantasy, most of the time. I adored FF7 (and just finished the remake literally three days ago, and enjoyed it), but I'll never play it again because good memories are better in the past, IMO.

    FFX dragged on forever and I finally got it off my bucket list, then realized I'm not really.. the biggest fan of the actual _games_? It's complicated. I too, got super bored of FFVI; I just have absolutely zero desire to progress past the first twenty minutes of endless cutscenes.

    I got a hard copy of FFIX on the Switch and I'm going to play it eventually, but I also recognize that these games are obscenely long. FFXII was an excellent journey, but the more I think about it, the more I realize I made it palatable using the game boosters, specifically the "8x speed" to get me through slogging endless encounters and massive areas to run through. The only reason I was able to get through FFX and FF12 was because of speed boosters. That's not a good selling point to a game.

    I still believe the finest Final Fantasy "experience", to give it a label, is the MMORPG Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn. In a previous life that game _was_ my life, and I don't recommend it to anyone because it's like recommending heroin. But, you got the great action-oriented MMO-style combat, within the gorgeous universe of Final Fantasy.

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    1. It's always a bit disappointing not to love a cult classic game or series. You're like "Why is the magic not working on me?" Of course, it may be that we're simply honest and not following the hype, nor letting stellar reviews influence us.

      In that regard, I really enjoyed your Breath of the Wild epopee, from the initial fascination and obsession to the acknowledgement of the game's flaws and limitations. It would have been all too easy to sing that game's praises and leave it at that, but you decided to offer a more subtle and nuanced point of view. It's never easy to admit that something we initially loved disappointed us on the long run, let alone to commit such thoughts to writing; yet you did it brilliantly, and without contradicting yourself or rejecting the game altogether. This is why I value your BotH posts way more than any professionnal review of the game.

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