Final Fantasy

I'm seriously over-leveled. And out-geared. And over-magicked.

Mount Gulug was a piece of cake, as was Mirage Tower and the Flying Fortress. That means I've defeated Marilith and Tiamat, and lit up the fire and wind crystals. I've retrieved the Adamant ore and gotten the dwarves to forge Excalibur for my knight.

Now naught but Chaos and Oblivion awaits me.

It's really strange seeing how Final Fantasy has evolved over the years. Playing this one, I'm noticing a lot of resonance with Dungeons & Dragons. A lot of the monsters are the same, even some of the items. And they layout of how you learn things. A circle of sages in the woods tells you of the fiend of fire residing in the volcano. The brother of a man in Melmond is an expert in the Lufenian language. A fairy gives you a bottle of fluid that lets you breath under water. It has a very D&D feel to it, and I love it.

And yet, Square still put their own stamp onto it. Clerics weren't armored warriors, they were white wizards. Typical D&D wizards were Final Fantasy black wizards. Warriors become Paladins, and magic progresses evenly from Fire 1 to Fire 3.

Looking back at this game, it's becoming clearer that Square achieved something unique. And I think that they've lost their way since. The games they create now... I'm not certain how to put it. They lack wizards. They've replaced heroism with bad-assery. They've replaced "wandering around trying to talk to the random person who drops a hint about what I should do next" with "this is what you do next".

Let me be more clear on the "they lack wizards" point, because it really does matter to me. Part of my ability to identify with a character is not just the character's personality, but their capabilities too. Vivi (FFIX) was a black mage. That's what he did. It's who he was, and it defined his actions both in and out of combat. Of course, FFIX black mages had a bit more depth than FFI black mages, but it still made the character meaningful.

The other Final Fantasies? Well, the job system games meant that any character could take any job. Same with paragons, or materia, or sphere grids. Admittedly some were better at them than others, but it still felt like that important bit of evidence about a character's past, a hint about who they are and why they do what they do, was lost.

I'm not going to suggest the games are worse for it, but it simply doesn't pluck the same strings in my heart.