For each day in 2010 (give or take) I’ll be showing a picture from somewhere in my life with a little explanation as to what it is.  Enjoy the trip down memory lane.  (CLICK HERE TO GO TO THE ARCHIVES!)

Formal Crabs

Date: Winter 1995?

Location: Wyckoff, NJ

Description: This is a picture of 19 teenagers in nice apparel using rudimentary sign language to spell out “I have crabs.”  It would be one of those situations where I would typically say You know it’s amazing we had any friends back then, but when you have 17 other friends joining in, including actual girls, I think you just have to chalk it off to… something or other.  I’m not sure what.

For each day in 2010 (give or take) I’ll be showing a picture from somewhere in my life with a little explanation as to what it is.  Enjoy the trip down memory lane.  (CLICK HERE TO GO TO THE ARCHIVES!)

Loving Headlock

Date: December 30, 1999

Location: North Haledon, NJ

Description: Every couple has their own unique way of expressing their love.  Odie does it by panting and drooling.  Salvador Dali did it by keeping away from his wife at all costs.  Dick Cheney expresses his love by shooting people in the face.  Aaron would often express his love to his then-girlfriend Julia by putting her in some painful wrestling move.  Her reaction always intrigued me – it was rarely anger, it was more often just a shrug of the shoulders and a confused look.  I think this would ultimately be good practice for the patience she would need to display having an infant.  This was taken, I believe, in the midst of a game of ‘Dash, as most headlocks seemed to be.  Seen in the background is the painting job of Kevin on Mitch’s bedroom walls, which was somewhere between Edvard Munch’s The Scream and a Grateful Dead tour shirt.  This photo also makes me keenly aware that timestamps on photographs, though a bit of an eyesore, can be extremely helpful, as I likely would have been off on this date by a good year or two.

All right, this is it.  The authoritative list of the best Final Fantasy titles.  This one is bound to cause some discussion, especially among people who think VI is a good game.  I’ve looked at dozens of other people’s lists across the boards, and needless to say, my opinions are not popular.  But here they are: the best and worst of the main Final Fantasy Titles.  (I say main because, of course, Final Fantasy Mystic Quest would be #1 otherwise.)

12.  Final Fantasy III

The problems with Final Fantasy III aren’t necessarily numerous, but they are certainly glaring.  The biggest problem I have is with the characters, or the fact that there aren’t any.  It’s the quest of four people nobody knows anything about and how they try to save the world.  The story for all the early Final Fantasies (basically up until 6) aren’t exactly very diverse.  It involves good guys trying to round up crystals to beat bad guys.  So when you already have a flimsy plotline, and no interesting characters to back it up, you’re going to have a game that simply isn’t enjoyable.  Add to that the music (even ignoring its very limited NES capabilities) is downright annoying.  While there are glimmers of interesting developments (the job system is introduced, even though it is fairly useless at this point, as well as summon magic), the game isn’t worth playing if you want an enjoyable experience.

11.  Final Fantasy II

Truthfully, this game is sorta interchangeable with FFIII in terms of likability.  It’s interesting to note – when US developers were deciding which FF title to bring to the states after FFI, they had two real options – go with the actual FFII or go with FFIV, which had just come out in Japan.  They picked IV, not because it was a better game, but just because it was more recent.  I think that was probably the best decision the franchise made in its history.  II is okay, but it has its share of issues as well.  It is telling that the method of leveling up – the more you do something, the stronger at it you become – was never used in subsequent games.  It’s a weak way to level up that requires lots of mindless battles.  Also, magic in this game is totally utterly useless.  The strongest spell in the game, Ultima 9, does about 1/4 of the damage of a normal attack.  The story isn’t developed enough to note improvements over FFI, although you do see seeds of some of the later titles and the stories (notably FFIV).  The one “improvement” of having to learn and recite key phrases could have been done away with.  Pretty forgettable overall.

10.  Final Fantasy X-2

I might be unnecessarily harsh on FFX-2.  It is a pretty enjoyable game to play on face value.  The battle system, although animated in a way that makes it very difficult to follow, isn’t laborious and I found myself enjoying the fights.  The idea of oversouling is great.  The game even contains one of the most awesome, challenging locations in the entire series (The Via Infinito).  My problems with the game, though, are immense, mainly because I am not a young teenage bisexual girl, which I am firmly convinced is the demographic they were targeting.  They essentially eliminated all that was good about FFX (interesting diverse characters, a bad guy I could understand wanting to destroy, blitzball, the music) and substituted it with costumes and hand-holding.  It is markedly dumbed down, even more than American FFII.  There isn’t even anything fresh to enjoy, as the world and nearly all the characters are rehashed from FFX.  It strikes me as they had a couple of ideas that didn’t make it into FFX, and rather than let it go, they made an entirely new game out of it that simply does not stand on its own, and it follows X very poorly.  The best thing they did was getting rid of those abhorrent Cloister of Trials.

9.  Final Fantasy VI

That’s right, the golden boy of the series, FFVI, sitting here just barely beating out FFX-2.  How did that happen? I’ll tell you.  First off, the entire game is just shrouded in a deep depression.  There is very little uplifting in the entire game, from the characters conflicts to the music to the towns.  Then there are the characters, which are way too many in number.  If they all served a use, then fine.  But a good 1/3 of them are useless and, aside from giving “options” to the player, they more or less sit in the background, unused.  The first half of the game is an endless series of my least-favorite-sequences of the series.  The actual events they have you go through are annoying and simply not fun.  Finally, I already made my opinions of Kefka known; many fans love him, but I don’t.  In wrestling terms, he’s like X-Pac: people jeer him not because he’s good at making people hate him, but because he’s so annoying and ludicrous that you just want him off your television screen.  The game is not totally bad, though.  This was the first real departure in storyline for the franchise, and it was, if nothing else, a noble effort.  The game’s scope is also very ambitious.  Having a truly shocking change halfway through the game (which literally changes the landscape for the rest of the game) is a great idea, and it breaks up the monotony of the storyline which many FF titles fall into.  When all is said and done, though, this is simply an overrated game that I don’t actually enjoy playing.

8.  Final Fantasy

It pains me just a little to rate this game only at 8th, since it was the one that started the entire ball rolling.  The story of the creation of the game is pretty fascinating, as the company was on its last legs, so this was the final game it was creating, and they wanted it to be a fantasy game (hence the name.)  That it became some widely successful is the sole reason Square even exists today.  Ultimately, though, this game is ranked so low because the ones that came after it were so good.  The game is rough, no doubt, but when you consider what came before it, it is revolutionary in so many ways.  Sure, there are issues with plot (fairly contrived), characters (there really aren’t any), and annoying glitches (the phantom enemy swipes).  They were ironing out the way the entire genre would work.  It is a classic to this day and still enjoyable to play, and featured themes that Uematsu would incorporate into many of his later masterpieces. 

7.  Final Fantasy VIII

Final Fantasy 8 is probably the most polarizing game in the series (with the exception of maybe XII).  While few would put it as the best in the series, most would put it as the very worst.  The flip side is the people who would argue that it is a superior game to VII.  For a very long time (up until this project), I was one of those people.  I’ve softened my tone slightly, but still say that FFVIII is a solid game.  The bad parts are, indeed, bad.  The junctioning system is very complex and a hassle, having to draw magic to increase in strength is tedious, and the main character, as you’ll remember, ranks as the worst character in any FF game.  That being said, there are a number of plusses.  The simplest ones to see are the advances in technology – VIII really became the benchmark for CGI videos and their ability to enhance a story.  Also, the fact that enemies level up with you is a very interesting take which I wouldn’t mind seeing make a comeback as it leads to interesting replay value.  The card minigame is among the best diversions in the series, and the ending is also among the best.  I think what ultimately hurt this game is there is no one standout positive feature, but I also think the negatives are not as bad as people make them out to be.

6.  Final Fantasy V

I was a little surprised to see this game did so well on the list.  Truthfully, it could probably swap with the next game on the list, and in fact it did at least once while I was trying to order them.  I always felt that V was the “middle child” of the series, never really getting the attention it should.  Among the games with class systems (III, V and X2), this one was clearly the best of the bunch.  Admittedly, some of the jobs are useless, but they’re all fun to at least try once or twice.  The storyline is nothing fantastic, and not even something we hadn’t seen in the prior game or two, but they seemed to trim the unnecessary parts (five people is a bit much to control at once, but they still retained the interesting characters and character progression.)  If my memory serves me, this was the first time they had a main character die, although some of that novelty was lost when an exact replica character took his place.  It’s a start, though.  The game does frankly take a while to get going, but by the end, it is really a fun game.  It’s major suffering would be that it was way too sylistically close to FFIV, and while I do love IV, there wasn’t much progress made between the two of them.

5.  Final Fantasy VII

Many like FFVII best and I think it’s because, for the most part, it was their first exposure to the franchise, as it was the first one to come out on a system other than Nintendo.  I’ve long speculated the same thing with the Evil Dead franchise – whichever you watch first will likely be your favorite (Evil Dead II for me).  As a “purist” who had played the NES and SNES ones first, I had trouble rolling with the punches for this one.  Over time, I’ve come to appreciate it for what it is, though I still stand by my assertion that it is an overrated game.  However, it is incredibly ambitious, as not only were they designing for a new system with better capabilities, they also added countless extras and expanded the idea of an RPG tenfold with this game.  Also in hindsight, I realize how lame those “awesome” graphics were.  Even the movies seemed like cheap anime.  But, there were a number of good things about this game: the death of a major character is definitely one of the biggest shocks of all games, not just this series.  Sephiroth is everything that Kefka isn’t (read: actually interesting.)  While the story is confusing, what FF title doesn’t have a convoluted plotline?  7 certainly has replay value, though not perhaps as much as some later titles.

4.  Final Fantasy XII

Another game that surprised me when I saw how well it did.  Since this game is freshest in my mind, I think I tend to remember the aggravating bits more than I should.  Also, it should be noted that I played the majority of the game with no walkthroughs (unlike every other title except IX), so there was an element of aggravation in having to do things twice or trying things that didn’t work.  The experiments they made with the game were largely successful: the new battle system, while I wouldn’t want it permanently, was quite nice.  The gambit system was definitely interesting (once you acquire good enough gambits, at least.)  I had no problem with the plot whatsoever, as far as two warring nations.  My major beef was the total lack of interesting characters and character development, but I don’t know that that was their main impulse.  They never even truly assigned a main character (Vaan, who is generally accepted as the main character, is probably only 4th or 5th most important in terms of plot.)  Their concentration seemed to be on the creation of the world and the battle systems.  But the joy of the game, aside from its amazing movies, was definitely its scope.  It’s enormous.  And very free.  You can go almost anywhere off the bat, you can clearly get in over your head doing so, and it’s a pleasure trying to see what secrets you can unlock on your own.  The hunt is a great idea, and the amount of optional stuff makes the replay value of this one very great (as long as you don’t particularly have anywhere important to go for a while.)

3.  Final Fantasy IX

I once played this game for an hour and vowed never to play it again.  I was so very wrong.  FFIX for a while was listed at #2 on this list, and only very recently got switched back to where it is.  I think having only played it once and not done “everything” bumped it up higher than it might have gotten otherwise, so I have moved it to the well-earned #3.  It is heralded as a return to the “old style” FF game, and it is that and more.  Characters that are very defined, not just in terms of personality, but ability (I got tired of anyone being able to do anything with the right equipment.)  Here, your mages were mages and your fighters were fighters.  Having a main character who was not an abomination helped.  This game is simply fun with very few minuses.  They got rid of the confusing junctioning system, didn’t try to throw a messy materia system, and nothing as complex as the later sphere grid.  You got a weapon that also assists other attributes, try it.  It seemed oddly strategy-based, especially considering it is the simplest method of leveling up in any game.  While I could have done without the “active time mode” which replaced the “meanwhile” cut scenes from earlier games, and seen a different mini-game other than the card game which was in no way an improvement over VIIIs card game, there isn’t much else I’d change.  Having one of the better endings of the games helped too.  Just a truly fun game.

2.  Final Fantasy X

Here was another difficult choice, between this one and Final Fantasy IX, and they are also primarily interchangeable.  The Cloisters of Trials, one of the worst things ever, almost single-handedly knocked this down a peg.  Aside from that, though, FFX offers almost everything else you could want.  A very deep world with plenty to do.  Characters that are vivid and diverse within the game.  A bad guy (Sin) who truly seems unbeatable, and a bad guy (Seymour) who is evil all on his own.  Hidden subquests.  An awesome, time-sucking minigame (Blitzball).  A very good score.  Excellent movies.  It’s hard not to like this game, though some say it’s too easy.  There’s always ways to make games harder (try to beat it with only one character alive, for instance.)  I do have a few issues with the game, which I touched on briefly in the worst-characters post (lookin’ at you, Tidus.)  Additionally, the voice acting was okay at best, and painful at other times.  It subsequently got better in newer games.  Also, the game was incredibly limiting, not being able to access most of the world until the last 10% of the game.  But these negatives don’t overcome the fun this game holds.  Clearly deserving of the top 3.

1.  Final Fantasy IV

This should surprise nobody who knows me at all. Long listed as my favorite game of all time, Final Fantasy IV is truly an epic game.  On the SNES, we actually played this game so much that we wore out the memory capability of it.  When we called Square, they said they knew it could happen with FFI (whose NES system had a very limited capability for memory) but that they’d never heard of it happened on the SNES.  Why is it the best?  Well, its strength lies in its story and characters.  It’s got betrayal, it’s got moral dilemmas, it’s got a redemption story, it’s got tragic (yet meaningful) loss.  The characters as a whole are the most fleshed out of any game – while others in the series may have a good character or two, IV has an entire roster of very detailed characters with fitting backstories.  It is often overshadowed by VI for some reason, I’m guessing because there aren’t an awful lot of side-quests.  But when the story is so good, why bog it down?  The score is also, as already noted, the best of the series, with countless memorable melodies.  The main negatives are that I always felt Golbez should have been the final end guy, and the actual ending (although I appreciate how it actually gives updates on the characters) is a bit bubble-gum happy for me (the twins should have stayed dead at the very least.)

Now that I’ve completed this completely asinine quest, I might play FFIV one more time, for old time’s sake.  Or, you know, see my wife and kid.

For each day in 2010 (give or take) I’ll be showing a picture from somewhere in my life with a little explanation as to what it is.  Enjoy the trip down memory lane.  (CLICK HERE TO GO TO THE ARCHIVES!)

Tasty Wallpaper

Date: Fall, 1997

Location: New Brunswick, NJ

Description: I remember back in the summer of 1992 when my sister took me to OnStage for the first time.  There I met many interesting characters, including Scott who was avidly trying to get me to try Mountain Dew.  My sister, being a good protective sister, tried her best to get me to avoid it.  But I had my first taste, and that was the start of a very unhealthy addiction that I arguably still have today.  It’s not my fault it’s so good.  However, Rutgers University had just signed an agreement with Coke, so there was NO Pepsi products to be found on its sprawling cmapus.  We had to get a ride off campus to buy some at the supermarket, which we would do with great regularity.  It was actually a common sight for Cyrus and my fridge to only contain Mountain Dew and a lone can of Teriyaki sauce.  In fact, we had so many boxes lying around that I decided to paper our wall with it.  It lasted a good week before the fire marshal declared it unsafe, saying “no more than 25% of the walls can be covered by any covering.”  When I pointed out that the other three walls had nothing on them, and therefore we were well below the 25%, he didn’t particularly care and still made me take it down.  It wasn’t the first time at college that the man would try to keep me down without good explanation.  And this is actually only the third most impressive piece of art achieved with Mountain Dew in my day.  But I have to leave something to build up towards, don’t I?

This will just be about my favorite and least favorite PLAYABLE characters – ones you can actually use in battle.  This is deliberately to avoid picking ten supporting characters from FFX-2.  I’ll even add some graphics to break up the monotony of the font for a moment.  As before, let me know what you think – agree or disagree.  I think this is pretty much aimed at about 4 people that I know have played most of these.

TOP 10 WORST CHARACTERS

10.  Cloud Strife (FFVII)

While it technically started with FFVI, I always viewed Cloud as the start of the whiny emo main characters in the series.  There were times when I was hoping Sephiroth would just kill him already, because I was sick of him clutching at his head and emoting.  His name wasn’t a help either.  Cloud Strife?  Better than Humidity Angst, I suppose.

9.  Gau (FFVI)

The first of what promises to be many blue mages on my list, Gau is perhaps the least worst of them.  But in many ways, he is also more aggravating.  To achieve new skills, you have to go back to a certain area in the world and fight partially-random monsters, have him LEAP onto one of them, go missing for several fights, and then come back.  At that point, he will learn a skill that will pale in comparison to what your party is already doing.  Talk about doing a whole lot of work and getting very little in return.

8.  Cait Sith (FFVII)

I’m hard pressed to think of a more annoying character in the series.  Ignoring the fact that he’s a cat riding on a robotic moogle, all being controlled by some member of Shinra, his point appears to be to show up and muck up your party a bit.  If any of this was an attempt at humor, I’d have to question it.  If it was an attempt at plot development, I’d have to question it more.  He’s a useless character whose attacks are paltry.  There’s no reason whatsoever to use him.

7. Tidus (FFX)

I always thought of Tidus as Cloud Lite, which is saying something because Cloud himself was pretty light, if you get my drift.  Tidus spent most of the game alternating between whining about something or other and yelling that something else wasn’t right.  He made that kid on Youtube crying about Britney Spears seem pretty well adjusted.  Add to that the voice actor who portrayed him didn’t do the character any favors by doing his best slightly matured Dennis the Menace impression. 

6.  Paine (FFX-2)

In doing research about this, I read that Paine’s character was inspired by someone else who is still yet to come on my sucky character list.  Whoever thought that was a good idea ought to be dragged out into the street and then dragged around more in the street.  In my playthrough I described her as the lovechild of Auron and Lulu after having had all her personality surgically removed.  I think that’s fairly accurate.  She is as bland a character as they come.

5.  Onion Kids (FFIII)

After compiling my list, I went online and found someone else did a top 10 list of worst characters.  Not only did 6 of ours overlap, I was surprised to see I wasn’t the only person to include these guys.  These are the “characters” of Final Fantasy III.  I put that in quotes because there’s no distinct personality traits, no quirks… no characters.  They didn’t even have names until they remade the game for the DS.  I’ve never not cared about a protagonist so much in my life. 

4.  Quina Quen (FFIX)

I wish I was at the meeting where this character was developed.  I could hear the pitch now.  “Let’s take the annoying aspects of Cait Sith, add the laborious uselessness of Gau, and mush them into one character.  Good.  Next, let’s not give them any distinct gender, because that’s a laugh riot.  All on board?  Great.  Finally, let’s give that character one joke – no more – for the duration of the very long game.  This character likes food.  Everything this character will do will be about food.  We can make this character optional too, but why wouldn’t anyone want to use them as much as possible?”  I’ll tell you why: Quina blows.

3. Edward Chris von Muir (FFIV)

I am unsure of who Square is trying to target when they continue to put effeminate characters and job classes into their games that are useless.  Edward the Bard is probably the prime example of such a character.  One of his actual moves – and I’m not making this up – is to hide so he doesn’t get hit.  That strikes me as pretty useless ability.  His other “attacks” involve singing songs that COULD POSSIBLY (but rarely do) inflict some type of status ailment.  He makes Zell from FFVIII seem straight.  Even Edward’s lute song sucks.

2.  Relm Arrowny (FFVI)

Utterly utterly useless.  During most playthroughs of FFVI, you could see at the end of the game that Relm had been used in exactly one battle – the one that I was obligated to use her to complete the storyline.  Her one ability, Draw, seems to work only on creatures that are so week a good cough would kill them anyway.  Against anything with any difficulty, her best ability is to get killed so I don’t have to worry about her anymore.  When I later found out that she was supposedly the daughter of Shadow, it bumped Shadow off my top-10 cool characters list simply by producing such a crappy daughter.

1. Squall Leonhart (FFVIII)

How much does Squall suck?  Let me count the ways.  1)  He is supposed to be a tortured mind.  He’s just whiny.  2)  I have no reason why anyone appoints him leader in the game – he is terrible at being a leader.  3)  What did Rinoa see in him?  Was it just a scar she liked?  There’s no way it could have been his “personality.”  4)  He was the inspiration for Paine.  5)  His name is Squall Leonhart.  I think Hailstorm Bunnybutt would have been a better name.  6)  I was rooting for Ultimecia to win. 

Honorable mentions: Bartz Klauser (FFV), Strago (FFVI), Zell Dincht (FFVIII), Adelbert Steiner (FFIX), Yuna (FFX-2)

TOP 10 BEST CHARACTERS

10.  Warrior (FFI)

Okay, I know what you’re thinking.  How can I like the Fighter and hate on the Onion Kids?  Well, with FFI, they were breaking new ground.  It wasn’t about characters at this point, it was about storyline and gameplay, both of which were pretty revolutionary.  And even though I’ve always been a thief guy, I’ve more than anything fought fought fought through all the Final Fantasies.  As a model for all future fighters that I would use, this red-haired guy had to make the list.

9. Vivi Orunitia (FFIX)

I have to be honest – I’m not the biggest Vivi fan in the world.  However, I have to concede that he is a very interesting character.  Constantly battling his own inner demons about his own existence and what it means to be alive vs. manufactured, as well as seeing people somehow related to him being manipulated for evil.  It’s pretty existential for these games.  He might have ranked higher if he didn’t spent the first two thirds of the game tripping over his own robes.

8.  Rydia of Mist (FFIV)

The characters of FFIV have very deep emotional issues – more so than most games.  Cecil coming to grips with the evils he’s been forced to do in the past.  Edge overcoming the horrible disfigurement of his parents.  The Mysidian people having their inhabitants voluntarily turn themselves to stone.  But none (okay one) is more tragic than Rydia, whose mother is slain, her town is destroyed, and she is raised by summoned monsters underground.  Her having an actual transformative story arc is what puts her on the list – one of the first times in the series a character is shown overcoming a horrific past to propel her cause. 

7.  General Leo Christophe (FFVI)

You know a game isn’t one of my favorites when the (2nd) best character in it is one who is, technically, an enemy and who dies pretty early on in the game.  But there is a reason everyone has stories of being able to revive him and use him in your party – because he’s pretty damn awesome.  One of those good guy in a bad situation stories. 

6.  Garnet til Alexandrios XVII (FFIX)

Women don’t get a fair shake in many of the Final Fantasy games.  They are often very docile and tagalongs.  With the only exception before FFIX that I can think of being Tifa, really, the women are all just curative magic users.  Now, in battle, Garnet (also called Dagger) is very much the same.  But her actual character has her getting right in the gritty to solve the problems of her populace (she is a princess.)  Ashe would later do it in a more kick-ass, although infinitely more bland, way in FFXII.

5.  Balthier (FFXII)

In a game where all the characters could have been plucked as small one-line bit parts of any Victorian drama, it isn’t hard to stand out.  Balthier does, and not in an anachronistic way like Vaan does.  Balthier is a cocky, smarmy sky pirate who was given the task of having discernible charisma.  It helps that he was given about 98% of all the good lines in the game.  And not in a corny comic-relief sort of way.  He was genuinely witty and made the drudgery quite a bit lighter. 

4.  Zidane Tribal (FFIX)

Following Cloud and Squall, the producers of the game could have probably had the leading man been a jar of mayonnaise and it would have been a drastic improvement.  What they gave us instead was a very different protagonist – a lead character who was selfish, womanizing, and actually enjoyed what he was doing.  Sure, he ended up getting sucked into a whirlwind story of come-uppance and even a romance angle, but he did it all while stealing along the way.  He was sorta what Locke from FFVI was meant to be if he hadn’t got sucked into a sappy melodrama about a half-human who was all weepy about her powers. 

3.  Auron (FFX)

He is the bad-assest character in any game.  Everything, from his calm demeanor, to his Jedi-Master-like tutoring, to his just calmly saying “Farewell” before kicking the shit out of somebody… everything about him screamed awesome.  Points got taken away for him not actually being alive at any point. 

2.  Umaro (FFVI)

Seen here riding on an imaginary chocobo, Umaro – better known as the YETI – is the most unique character in the series.  He is optional, but why anybody would pass him up is beyond me.  He has two specialized attacks besides swinging with an axe.  1)  He hurls himself at the enemies causing extensive damage. 2)  He picks up HIS OWN PARTY MEMBERS and THROWS THEM at the enemies for extensive damage.  He’s like a hairy suicide bomber with an acute sense of irony.  I just want to hug him. 

1.  Kain Highwind (FFIV)

Kain is a very complex character.  In addition to being a dragoon, a class of character that only begun getting any depth in this game, he is also the first (and best) example of treason.  He is a traitor and, though it is not of his own doing, he continually comes back into the scenario to cast doubt on his allegiance.  Looking at it from his perspective, it has to be a hell of a roller coaster ride, not knowing if, at any minute, you’re going to turn your lance on your best friend.  It always struck me as a very fitting ending to his story when he refused to go to his best friend’s wedding because he needed to atone for his past crimes.  It makes me wonder if this theme is explored more in his sub-chapter in Final Fantasy IV: The After Years.  Looks like I’ll have to get a Wii now.

Honorable Mentions: Cecil Harvey (FFIV), Shadow (FFVI), Yuffie Kisaragi (FFVII), Rikku (FFX, NOT FFX-2), Basch fon Rosenburg (FFXII)

That’s right, with all 12 (not counting FFXI, which was an online game) Final Fantasy games complete, it’s time to start jotting down how I feel and seeing what people agree/disagree with.  I’m saving my favorite/least favorite characters as well as my favorite overall game ranking for separate entries.  This will be all supplemental lists.  For those who have played, chime in with where I rank.

TOP 5 SCORES (FOR A WHOLE GAME)

5. XII – The only score on this list not composed by Nobuo Uematsu, this one surprised me.  While I don’t know that I’d enjoy it on its own, it is all perfect background music and a nice compliment to the game.

4. V – This one sneaks in here because it is just a solid score, beginning to end.  Quite a few catchy little numbers in here.

3. IX – I can’t think of a Final Fantasy title more than IX where the entire score has a certain feel.  This one has a definite Renaissance/Medieval vibe going on.

2. VII – This surprised me, as I used to remember only the Turks theme, which I still don’t like.  But I’ll find myself humming songs from VII pretty often, like Tifa’s and Aerith’s themes.  It’s a well put-together score.

1.  IV – This one has it all: imperial themes, romance, three distinct feels (above ground, below ground, on the moon), and the only lame song is the stupid bard lute song.

TOP 10 SONGS

10. Place I’ll Return to Someday (IX) – The music that happens when you turn on the game.  Nice and bouncy.

9. The Dream Oath (VI) – The opera house scene may be long and boring, but the music is pretty epic.

8. Another Moon (IV) – Creepy and futuristic all in one.  Needs lyrics.

7. Those Who Fight Further (VII) – This makes me want to beat stuff up.  In a good way.

6. Tenderness in the Air (Town Theme) (V) – One of the catchiest songs of the whole series – hard to believe it’s just supposed to be ambiance.

5. One-Winged Angel (VII) – Pretty bad-ass theme for a character, really. If I could have this playing whenever I entered a room, I would.

4. Otherworld (X) – More heavy metal song than video game music, Nobuo channels his best wrestling theme song here.  Gets me pumped up, that’s for sure.

3. Pandemonium, The Castle Frozen in Time (IX) – I’m a sucker for pipe organ.

2. Prologue (I, IV, XII) – Although the arpeggiated crystal theme is probably the “theme” for the entire series, I always felt this one, which appears in many of them, is more defining.

1. Liberi Fatali (VIII) – Awe.  Some.

Honorable Mentions: Royal City Rabanastre (XII), Johnny C. Bad (VI), Fisherman’s Horizon (VIII)

TOP 5 BEST VILLAINS

5.  Tonberry (FF V, VI, VII, VIII, IX, X, X-2) – He is a recurring character, never changing all that much through his many incarnations, but he always makes your heart leap a bit.  He’s never easy in any of the games, it seems.

4.  Garland (I, IX) – I’m mainly talking about FFI Garland here.  He’s the first real boss you encounter in the franchise, and that counts for something.  He’s also the first real “recall” character, appearing both later in FFI and then his namesake being used again in FFIX.

3.  Seymour Guado (X) – While the actual character he is not altogether too different from other power-hungry villains of the series, there are two things I really liked about him: 1) he was ruthless, killing his own father to further his quest, and 2) the voice actor was perfectly creepy to pull it off.

2.  Sephiroth (VII) – Ahh, the guy who would top 95% of all other FF lists for villains, but he’s only my #2.  He’s dastardly and calculating, but ultimately, there’s one more bad guy who I felt was smoother in his ruthlessness.

1.  Kuja (IX) – After the overt evil found in the previous games, they relied on a more subtle evil with Kuja.  You KNEW he was bad and he did bad things, but he was so subliminal at times doing it, you more just looked at his devastation afterwards and said “Wow, that’s pretty f-ed up.”

Honorable Mentions: Cid (FFXII), Bahamut (many), Nemesis (X)

TOP 5 WORST VILLAINS

5. (Tie) Fuijin & Raijin (VIII) and LeBlanc (X-2) – These get lumped together because I have the same problem with both of them: you fight them 10000 times and they suck each and every time.  Even LeBlanc’s gratuitous T&A couldn’t spare her from this list.

4.  Magic Pot (V, VII, X, XII) – Sure, these guys can do some good things for you depending on the game, but really they just use up your elixirs and waste your time.

3. Ultros (VI) – Ultros is Fuijin, Raijin & LeBlanc rolled in one, but without the boobs or the charm.  Add his buddy Chupon into the mix and you can probably hear me grinding my teeth from there.

2. Vayne Solidor (XII) – You spend the entire game occasionally seeing this guy standing behind a desk, looking like someone from a romance novel cover, but really only hear from other people about how bad he is.  The first time you really even get to see him for more than a few minutes is when you’re trying to kill him at the end of the game.

1.  Kefka (VI) – He sucks.  Absolutely sucks.  His theme sucks.  His mannerisms suck.  His “comedy” sucks.  He is unrealistically cruel.  Dealing with him sucks.  Which is a shame, too, because one of his songs (Dancing Mad) is pretty frickin’ cool.

Honorable Mentions: Exdeath (V) – seriously, his name is Exdeath.

Up next, top 10 best and worst characters.

First round – The first hole is pretty tough, and there was a risk-reward type shot.  The safe shot is a backhand so you steer clear of the slope to the water on the right.  There is also a roller which I managed to put twice for a putt in practice.  I try the roller.  Shanked right.  I start the whole tournament 5 4 3 3 4.  That’s right, +4 after 5 holes, and this is pretty duecable course (though maybe not these holes in particular)  I proceed to throw 3 pars but 6 bogeys and a double bogey.  +5.  The leader was -8.  The sad thing, I was trying a new putting style and it worked pretty well, all in all.  Missed one or two but made some nice ones.  I was 2 strokes away from 2nd-to-last.

2nd Round: 16 new pin positions.  I’m inclined to just say “look at round 1″ but that’s lazy.  I started 3 4 4 4 4.  Yup, +4 on the first five holes again.  While the back 9 (where I started) were harder in the afternoon, the front nine were considerably easier.  So hopefully I could…. forget it, I didn’t.  I shot 6 bogeys and one birdie.  I had a stretch of 3 out of four holes where I missed 3 putts within 20′ (including two airballs from within 15′, both straddle putts.)

Without knowing my exact ratings yet (I think they’ll both be between 890 – 910), you have to go back to May 2007 to see two consecutive rounds that bad (in that case, it was a 907 and 807 – thankfully it wasn’t THAT bad)

This was the closest I’ve come to not finishing a tournament.  But I paid $80 worth and I can still try to ace a hole and get maybe that much in dollars.

There’s little worse, after throwing the worst starting round of a tournament in three years, than coming back and finding your fantasy baseball teams are also deciding to suck today.

At least he weather’s beautiful.  Oh well, three more rounds to get out of the cellar.

So it’s taken just over two years to complete, but I have now played all of the Final Fantasy games that are available for systems I can play.  This does not include any spinoff games, just the core games of the series (even X-2).  Including the 100 hours almost exactly it took me to beat FFXII, this whole process took me ~742 hours of play time, or basically one straight month (half the time Aaron guessed.)  I plan on doing a post or two about the entire series and some favorites-lists, but for now, let’s concentrate on FFXII itself.  I played mainly on my own, since I’d never beaten it before, only using walkthroughs for a) one or two points where I didn’t know what to do and b) for optional things, like hunts and gaining certain equipment.  Therefore, I probably only did about 75% of the stuff in this game, if that.  Anyway, onto the good, the bad, and the ugly.  With this game, many of these intertwine.

THE GOOD

- I thought I was going to hate doing away with the ATB system and not getting to select moves for each character.  Well, technically, I could have turned gambits off completely, but that’d be stupid.  After I got the hang of it, I actually grew to enjoy this style of play.  I could eat a sandwhich while playing the game since my characters would just do their own thing.  Of course, that is also a negative, but I was more positive about it than I thought.

- There were times when I felt like I was watching a movie.  The entire opening prologue, which every FF game seems to have, was definitely enjoyable and set a good setup for the rest of the game.  The final scenes were quite well done too.  If anything there could have been more, as they relied on the naturally good graphics o

- The world itself was very ambitious.  They added a few new races of character, and more towns and areas that you can shake a stick at.  Actually, its openness and ability to basically go wherever you want would also be one of my drawbacks.  As I said, much intertwining between the good and the bad.

- The hunts.  Cool idea, even if it boils down to an extra few dozen option bosses.  They were a good way to get some cool items early on.

- Loot.  Why would a wolf carry gold coins?  Good realism point there – creatures have other items that vendors want to buy to make items.  It’s good to know that, 13 games into the series, they realized that it never made any sense.  As a stealing/dropping nerd, it gave me a good feeling when they dropped something uber-rare.

- It was pleasantly challenging.  In the earlier games, because of screen capabilities, you’d fight a certain amount of monsters.  If it was only one on the screen, he’d usually be tough.  If it were nine creatures, they’d all be piss-weak.  But here, you could have two strong guys fight and, while you’re trying to kill them, two or three more strong guys come up.  I was killed many many times in this game because of that.  FFs aren’t usually known for their challenge.

- This is probably my favorite incarnation of Cid.  He was pretty bad-ass in this game.

- For a non-Nobuo Uemetsu game, the music was quite good.

- I know many sites say Nicole Frantl voiced the character of Fran, but I’m pretty sure it was Bjork.

THE BAD

- The characters.  I know this is the biggest beef with most people and this game, and they’re right.  It’s a whole collection of people I don’t really care about.  There’s no centralized character (it’s sort of Vaan, but not really), and all of them are sorta the same.  Aside from Balthier, nobody had any defining characteristics.  They all seemed to be stoic, rugged imperial soldiers, or young kids who want to be rugged imperial soldiers.  That’s another thing:

- The lack of plot development.  At first I got into the whole caught in the middle of a war storyline.  It was interesting and a slight deviation from other titles.  But then when I realized I was 80 hours into the game, and it was still a war between two sides and really nothing had happened, I threw my hands up in the air.  No swerves, no sympathetic situations… just two sides fighting.

- It was very ‘pedestrian’ – nearly all of your bad guys were just dudes, including the last guy, who was apparently a dude on some mega steroids.  While that makes sense with the storyline, it doesn’t do a whole lot for intrigue.  And it makes you wonder – the guys who were not dudes but freaky monsters, what did they have to do with anything?  At least in the earlier games, it was explained that the search for magic unleashed fiends or some such explanation.

- There is TOO much to do.  And your characters walk so slow.  Sure, I spent 100 hours on this game alone, but I think a good third of that was walking around the humongous areas in HOPES to do something or trying to find a mark to hunt or trying to get a chest to spawn.

- Plainly put, it got boring.  The first third was pretty exciting.  The 2nd third, I was doing some optional quests.  But from about 60 hours on, I just kinda wanted to be done.  Nothing had really happened and it was stale quickly.

THE UGLY

- Okay, I get that Viera (a race of creatures) are very home-centric and it’s considered an insult to their race when someone leaves the wood, as Fran did.  That’s fine.  But why are there SO MANY VIERA around the world?  I mean, there’s probably 5x more Viera in the world than in their home.  Surely they can’t still be pissed at Fran?

- Magic is useless until 2/3 the way through the game, and then it’s the most important thing ever.  Basically put, before certain gambits come your way, just have all of your guys attack with weapons or cure.  Then when you can target weak enemies, only use magic (and Basch with a killer weapon and Berserk).  Game over.

- Vayne, the main guy.  He was literally very ugly and quite creepy at the end there.

- Their attempts at ‘heightened language’ made me pine for the days of accidental bad Japanese translation.  Here, in an attempt to make it feel somewhat Medieval, they all spoke funny.  That made deciphering who was who even tougher, especially since everything had two names.  I felt like I needed Cliffs Notes on a few occasions.

- Do you know how long it took me to realize Larsa was a guy?  A very long time.

Overall: at the start, this had the potential to be one of my favorites of all time.  But as it went on, it lost steam.  It had some very interesting ideas, but ultimately, it became a grind to finish.  And I didn’t even try to do most of the optional stuff.  Most people love or hate this game.  I’m in between.

For each day in 2010 (give or take) I’ll be showing a picture from somewhere in my life with a little explanation as to what it is.  Enjoy the trip down memory lane.  (CLICK HERE TO GO TO THE ARCHIVES!)

The Ashtabula Reunion

Date: Late Summer 2006

Location: Quakertown, PA

Description: I toured as a “professional” disc golfer for five weeks in 2006, which incidentally started this blog’s existence, if one were so inclined to look in the way-back machine.  One of the tournaments I hit was in Ashtabula, OH, where I played pretty mediocre golf for my rating at the time.  Because I knew NOBODY, I ended up hanging out with people I didn’t know at the player’s party, including this girl Amanda.  We exchanged numbers after both deciding we wanted to play Nockamixon Park, a course I’d heard much about but never played.  A number of months later, I texted Amanda Ashtabula, as she was listed in my phone because I never got her full name, and her phone lit up Fatty Nockamixon, since she never got mine.  We played a round there, which was wholly unremarkable other than me being very disappointed in the out-of-control vegetation growth.  But one wholly unexpected benefit of that time together was this picture, which has always remained a favorite of mine throughout the years.  Unnecessarily artistic and pretty well framed (for a picture that I used a timer to take), this picture was a fitting farewell to Amanda Ashtabula, who I have not seen since.