Final Fantasy VII:Advent Children

After Final Fantasy VII became the greatest video game ever made(because VI apparently didn't count without polygon graphics) and Final Fantasy Spirits Within was the ultimate disappointment, Squenix decided to mine this property for all it was worth. Some people thought it was a bit of a letdown, but frankly I think it was everything it was supposed to be, which was a shorter version of Final Fantasy VII with much better graphics. A lot of people gripe about how Sephiroth came back to life after he was killed in the original game, but then I guess they're forgetting he died already and came back within the game, so this wasn't much of a stretch. In fact, him coming back through clones and a piece of his mother Jenova was kind of the main plot of the game. Advent Children may have lacked originality, but at least they finally made a movie based on a game that was recognizable to the source material. What we really wanted were fight scenes and there were enough to make this worthwhile. Really that's what it was all about and this was the second best scene:

Still trying to get that ringtone, but really it was all about the battle with Sephiroth. Final Fantasy VII had an epic ending but what we ultimately wanted was a real showdown between Cloud and Sephiroth and no matter how they may remake it, it will never be this:

So I'm into FF right now because next week I'm going to see Distant Worlds: Music of Final Fantasy perfomred by the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra, so that's all that really matters between now and NaNoWriMo! Now go back and watch that epic battle with One-Winged Angel playing in the background, peace out yo!

Final Fantasy X

Final Fantasy X was arguably a great game, many believe one of the greatest in the Final Fantasy series. Admittedly, it was the first in the series to be on the PS2 which means it had the best graphics yet and it was the first to have voice overs, so that meant a lot. But really to me, it was the game about water. Yes, PS2 had new water effects, and somebody at Square decided to take advantage of this by using water for everything and basically building an entire story aound water. I mean the main character Tidus wields a sword called Brotherhood that is made of water and they play a sport called Blitzball that is all underwater. The theme of the game is most decidedly water. It looks incredibly cool, but there are some glaring flaws that make it clear this game was a little half-assed.

Where to begin? How about the weapons and armor system? Ever since sprites got a greater detailed appearance it has been hard to justify armor so the armor options were quite limited, but this game skewed things around exceptionally. It was innovative that they came up with a system that lets you customize weapons and armor, but upon closer inspection we realize that there is a problem. Most games make weapons increase in power steadily throughout the game, but in this game there is really just one base weapon for every character that you can increase as you go along, and then one ultimate weapon you can get near the end, and of course the Brotherhood which is probably between the ultimate weapon and the next best weapon you can make. The armor system doesn't even have any ultimate options so really this game comes down to customizing the best you can for your playing style, which you can probably do near the beginning and you really don't have much need to upgrade through the whole rest of the game.

A much bigger problem than the equipment is the setting. Spira is impressive at first glance. It is the first game in the series to skip the over world map in favor of a continuous path of equal scale areas, which is interesting, until you realize just how small that makes the world. At the beginning of the game there are only six cities, two of which get destroyed during the story, so when all is said and done, there are only four cities left at the end of the game. There aren't even ruins of other cities, except of course Zanarkand, but that's a whole other ball of wax. Admittedly, the whole story revolves around a monster that destroys the world on a regular basis, but it does beg the question, how the hell did these people last a thousand years of this crap? Seriously, ever decade or two a giant flying whale rips apart the world, but we can hold it together long enough to play Blitzball?

Despite all of this, the story itself does play out pretty solid. The only real problem with the story is that it just rehashes the same sword wielder protects healer/summoner girl and falls in love with her, though it definitely did it with the most flash to date. And then there's the twist ending which is a bit disappointing, unless you play the sequel. For the record, the sequel's best ending ties with the last seconds of the original, which means it is the true ending. I believe in the end, Tidus is the Aeon of Water and ends up being Yuna's final summon after all.

Go ahead and play it, it's still fun, it's just not the best. Except the soundtrack, this game had the best music, opening on metal, hell yeah!

sexism in RPGs

So last week I had a laugh at RPGs but I'd like to take a moment to talk about something I noticed in RPGs, they tend to be sexist. Invariably, the hero is a male warrior with minimal if any magic but great ability to use weapons, usually a sword, with supporting males using various weapons, while females use magic. The obvious conclusion is that males are stronger warriors, but bear in mind that this situation also means women are better at magic, which is arguably cooler than handheld weapons. Another important note is that the stat for magic is usually referred to as "intelligence" which is therefore higher in females than males. Females in RPGs are typically healers, but they also often have the ability to summon gods or at least god-like beings and bend them to their will to defend them and destroy their enemies and sometimes the women themselves can use some damage dealing magic as well. Not bad for a chick armed with  just a staff, meanwhile her male companion usually has just a sword. That may be a big ass sword, but when your skill set consists entirely of hack and slash, there's appoint you have to wonder if his girlfriend is more of an asset than he is. And then on top of all this, the stats on their character sheets basically say the male is a strong yet stupid grunt while his girlfriend is a physically weak, but mentally gifted master sorceress.

Final Fantasy may be the  most egregious offender, numbers 4, 7, 8, 9, 10, 12 and to a lesser extent, 6 all followed this exactly, while 5 and 2 had too much flexibility in character building, but did suggest through dialogue that females made better magic and males made better fighters. Even the original made white mages the only females. Other RPGs follow the same pattern, such as Wild Arms, featuring sorceresses teaming with normal guys wielding swords. I first noticed this in FF8 while I was taking a course in sociology and my professor explained that we have to notice all the ways sexism stands out in everything. In FF8, all of the male playable characters have limit breaks that accentuate their weapon skills, whereas the females all have the ability to use magic as their limit breaks. The overarching theme was sorceresses and the men who love them.

In conclusion, there is arguably balance, but just once I'd love to see an RPG that doesn't divide this ratio by gender.

RPGs in a nutshell

So I've been going a little crazy and decided I'd just summarize every RPG video game ever made with my own fake script. Keep in mind, I love RPGs so no hate here, just noticing a pattern.

Hero: The evil empire has destroyed my home and killed my family, and now all I have left is this sword by which I shall swear VENGANCE!

Princess/Priestess: Help me! My home has been conquered by an evil tyrant who killed my family to get my power. I am the last heir to divine magic that lets me heal and protect and summon gods, but because I am so young and inexperienced I haven't reached my full potential and now all I can do is a little healing and summon a little cat-like creature that can barely defend me and I only have a staff to protect myself with! If the evil tyrant gets me he'll use my power to conquer the world!

Hero: I will protect youwith my sword, and my sword alone, because that's all I've got, but it will have to do until you get your power, and even then somehow my sword will still be stronger, yet everyone in our world will recognize you as the most powerful being even though I'm clearly stronger. Whatev's, as long as I get laid.

Princess/Priestess: My hero!

Evil Tyrant: Not so fast! It is I, the champion of the evil empire which ruined both of your lives, and now I will capture the girl and use her power to conquer the world!

Hero: But I will stop you with my sword!

Princess/Priestess: And I will keep healing him so he can hit you with his sword relentlessly until you finally die.

Evil Tyrant: FOOLS! I have released the power of an ancient evil sealed a thousand years ago! Someone should have destroyed it by now, but everybody just assumed the seal would hold and forgot about it, so now the power is mine! BUWAHAHA!

Cid & co: Excuse us, we're just some minor supoporting characters with vaguely interesting backstories that never really get developed because all the attention needs to be on the apocalyptic love story between you two, but we can help. Or at least we could if we ever got used and leveled up, but you'll ignore us until our final sidequest when we have a solo battle we are severely underprepared for. Only one of us will actually make the cut to be in your active party in the final battle anyway, and it will probably be the ridiculously overpowered badass who should have been the real main character.

Hero: Did you say overpowered badass? I want him!

Cid: Of course you do! But you won't get to him until near the end of the game and even then it will require a ridiculously hard sidequest that ends with an optional boss that's way more powerful than Mr. Main Villain over there.

Evil Tyrant: Hey, I'm right here!

Cid Whatever dude. Anyway, there will be several subtle clues hidden along the way, but they are so obscure you'll never figure them out, so just check a cheat guide to figure out how to find your guy.

Hero: Thank you, you are true friends!

Cid: Not so fast buddy, we actually don't really care about you, we're just afraid he's going to destroy our homes, kill our families and enslave us.

Hero: Well, that is what he's done to us.

Evil Tyrant: Yeah, I'm totally gonna do that.

Hero: Fair enough, let's do this! LEEROY JENKINS! Wait, where did everybody go?

Evil Tyrant: They're gone, it's time for our final duel!

Hero: No, they're not gone, I can feel them with me, supporting me in spirit! We'll defeat you together!

And with a final blow of the sword, the Evil Tyrant is felled and the world is saved and the hero lives happily ever after with his princess/priestess.