Square Angst

by Laura Organa Solo

Wow, I don't even know where to start. I can't think of any kind of proper introduction so this is going to be another one of my poorly organized slam-bang essays.

What Darkeye Heruelen's editorial first struck me as almost jealous sounding. Yes, it's true Final Fantasy fans are everywhere and that there are lots and lots and lots of fansites dedicated to it, all too many carrying the same info printed in the manual and the same old pictures you find everywhere. But is that really a reason to call it fanatical or cult-like? I have to admit that I'm afraid I am close to being a Final Fantasy fanatic. Anyone who has read my previous editorials can see that I am totally enamored with nonexistent characters and stories that have probably been rehashed too often. But I'm accustomed to that feeling, as I share the same desperately pathetic fanatical ties to Star Wars as well (wow, can you guess? ^_^). And over the past few years, I've gotten used to being told that I'm too obsessed to be healthy, that both the Final Fantasy and Star Wars series were bad, boring, rehashed, blah blah blah. So I guess defending myself and Square comes easy.

Here's my question: Why Final Fantasy? I can think of plenty of games that deserve those twenty or thirty more megabytes of server space than Final Fantasy does.

See, maybe this is true. Maybe the Final Fantasy games are all crap. Maybe the legions of fans are all actually wrong. But who can say? It's all a matter of opinion in the end. Unfortunately for Darkeye, he seems to be of the less common opinion. I don't quite understand the whole Final Fantasy phenomenon myself. I'm still surprised when to this day I continue run into people who adore VII like I do. "You  mean you don't hate it yet? You're not sick of it?" Somehow Final Fantasy VII has become immortal. Heck, somehow the whole series has become immortal. But I don't quite understand how.

Now, let me explain to you all what I find wrong with the games. First of all, they are becoming their own cliché. Or rather, falling victim to it. What I mean by this is that all the games are turning into the same thing, repeated over and over with a few changes to characters and environments. Ever since Final Fantasy Three/Six, the main character has been some kind of confused, pathetic figure trying to work out an identity crisis. This, by the way, is not exclusive to Final Fantasy games, as it appeared in Xenogears, Vagrant Story, and Parasite Eve as well.

This is an excellent point. The main characters do all have idenitity crises to work out. But you fail to mention Legend of Dragoon here, as Dart had his own mental problems as well. No, it wasn't a Square game, but you should point out that it's not just Square that has heroes with mental issues. IX pretty much broke out of the brooding hero syndrome of VII, VIII, Parasite Eve, and Vagrant Story up until the very end. Zidane was a fun guy. He had a sense of humor and he liked to have a good time. Up until maybe the middle or end of disc three, he was doing just fine mentally. IX didn't focus on identity crises at all, although it did include one.

Once is all right, but who wants to play countless games that are all about some nobody trying to figure out his or her place in the world?

That's another valid point! But we still are. And we're still enjoying the games that feature identity crises. So obviously it's not bothering too many people, save for those that share Darkeye's opinion. From the looks of Final Fantasy X, it doesn't look like Tidus is going to have any problems with his "inner self." He looks like a pretty happy-go-lucky kinda guy, like Zidane did. So maybe you will have less problems with X.

I would much rather play a game like Lunar: The Silver Star Story, which is centered on an ambitious youth who goes up against unbelievable odds to protect the people he cares about, and emerges victorious, than a game about some loser who belongs in a mental institution as he's being treated for Dissociative Identity Disorder and thinking "Oh, yeah, and we have to stop this evil dude when we get a chance, too."

It's true that Lunar had a plot unlike the past couple Final Fantasies. But for myself, I stopped playing it because I thought the writing was horribly corny and immature. But of course I'm not here to rant about why I didn't like Lunar: SSS. What I find ironic though is that Lunar's story sounds much more canned than the Final Fantasies and their identity problems. I hear more people complain about how people are tired of trying to rescue the princess, defeat the bad guy, and save the world.

Now, let's compare the so-called phenomenon that is Final Fantasy to another popular series, one that has recently made a comeback after a seven year absence. That series is Sega's "Phantasy Star." While Final Fantasy is a detached series, that is, a chain of games that have relatively little to do with each other except for a few common or re-appearing factors, Phantasy Star is an ongoing saga, with solid connections between characters, and events taking place in the same world. That, the way the series is laid out, is the reason why Phantasy Star has the, forgive the one and only pun I will make in this entire thesis, "phanatical phollowing" it does, and why Final Fantasy just has fans. I'm sure that there are some people in the world who would consider starting wars over Final Fantasy, but if you compare fan pages, the webmasters of such pages, and almost anything else Phantasy Star-related on the net, you'll find that Phantasy Star fans are much more ardent in their views and feelings than Final Fantasy fans are.

Now see, this seems to contradict Darkeye's first statement regarding the annoying Final Fantasy fans. I really think it's impossible to say that the fans for Phantasy Star are more passionate than Final Fantasy's fans. I am somewhat of a "New School gamer," while I grew up playing NES, SNES, and a friend's Sega Genesis, I never played the Final Fantasy or Phantasy Star games. Now that I am big on RPGs and am a member of the RPGaming community, I can honestly say I know lots of Final Fantasy fans (myself included) who could match any Phanstay Star fan in their fervency.

One element that Final Fantasy and Phantasy Star share is the death of a main character. Now, I'm sure you've all read enough rants about Final Fantasy Seven to know what happens mid-game, so I'm not afraid to throw in a spoiler. I laughed when I saw Aeris die. Why did I laugh when she died? I laughed for a couple of reasons. First, the game forces Aeris to be a part of your thrombin team for a long time prior to her death, and I really didn't like only being able to swap out one character. Add to that the fact that I never liked Aeris in battle due to the fact that her abilities were sub-par at best, and you can clearly see why it was a royal pain to have her forced into my front line. But the real reason is that I didn't care that she died. I had established no connection with her. I didn't care about her as if she were real, because the game failed to get me attached to her. Now, when I saw the death scene in Phantasy Star Four, which I will not spoil due to the fact that I doubt as many of you have played it as have played Final Fantasy Seven, I almost screamed in rage. I swore that I would make the villain pay for what he had done, even if it meant pulling an all-nighter in front of the television screen and running on nothing but coffee and willpower. Why the difference? Because in Phantasy Star Four, I had gotten attached to the character that died.

Okay, wow again. While I know lots of people who thought Aeris was pointless, stupid, useless, and yes, people who laughed when she died (my Final Fantasy-obsessed fiancée included who insists that despite loathing all of VII's characters, he still enjoyed the game), I do know lots of people who teared up over Aeris. Straight guys included, people. I myself shed tears over the mere video game (not nearly as how shamefully much I cried over the ending to Final Fantasy VIII but that might have been due to the fatigue of playing from 10pm to 4am). I don't, however, know anyone who got emotional over the death of the Phantasy Star character in question; an not because I surround myself with lots of Final Fantasy fanatics. I know gamers who have barely glanced at Final Fantasy but are passionate about other RPGs. I guess it's just because Phantasy Star hasn't been in the limelight like Final Fantasy is/was. This might come as a horrible shock to some (especially Darkeye) but I had never even heard of Phantasy Star until Phantasy Star Online came along. I should note that it is entirely untrue that you were forced to have Aeris in your party up until the Temple of the Ancients. There were only a few instances when you were forced to have a certain character besides Cloud. This stuff about Aeris being foisted so horribly on you is an exaggeration. Personally, I found her Healing Wind and Seal Evil limit breaks to be immensely helpful but of course that's just me.

Aeris' death was sudden, but quick. The death in Phantasy Star Four was a long, drawn-out, and quite torturous one for the character as they lay in bed, stricken with pain so intense they can hardly speak. There's a greater sense of despair conveyed in Phantasy Star Four than there is in Final Fantasy Seven.

Okay, I haven't played Phantasy Star 4 but I thought Aeris' death was just as sad despite the fact that it was quick. Even though it was just a stab wound, she was still the victim of a madman and she still had friends that desperately loved her. I was immensely touched by Cloud's reaction, his shock, his denial, and how it only caused him to persevere more.

Sephiroth wanted to trigger a catastrophe that would release an immense quantity of energy, yet not even singe one hair on his head, then go to the point where the concentration of that energy was at its peak, and just sit there and suck it up, not expecting to fall subject to radiation poisoning, burn wounds, or adverse effects of any sort. A little far-fetched, don't you think?

Just a quick note that we don't know anything about the scientific composition of Mako and the Lifestream so it's impossible to say he'd suffer from radiation or burns or anything of the sort. The Lifestream was made of spiritual energy, not uranium.

Now, Zio, on the other hand, just wanted to kill people. He looked at the world and, in his mind, saw that it was made up of two kinds of people: those that believed in and followed the ways of Dark Force, and those that didn't. He would take the followers and let them rule the world, living in a paradise filled only with the "saved," and would take the non-believers and slaughter them all in cold blood. Compare Sephiroth's actions in Nibelheim to Zio's in Molcum. Sephiroth burned down towns because he was driven mad with confusion and anger, trying to come to grips with who he was, and falling victim to the "confused character" syndrome that plagues Squaresoft games like the Smallpox.

I'm pretty sure this is inaccurate. Yes, Sephiroth was driven mad. But he didn't burn down Nibelheim because he was just a nutcase, he went on a killing spree because he saw humans as the people that destroyed his people, the Ancients. Hearing about Zio makes me want to play the game (who doesn't love a good villain?) but I think you're short-changing Sephiroth.

So, in a nutshell, Sephiroth was actually rather pathetic, much like a two-year old child trying to explain to himself the world around him. Zio was just plain malevolent, like a mentally disturbed child with budding antisocial personality disorder, trying to explain to himself not so much the world around him as instead all the ways he can destroy it.

Okay, 'short-changing' is an under-statement. Sephiroth had a motive. "Just plain malevolent" sounds rather simplistic. It's a poor contradiction to the previous praise for Zio's interesting character.

All right, as for Final Fantasy borrowing names from traditional myths and saying that's bad because they're called Final Fantasy strikes me as rather silly. I really don't see that as a reason to say it's bad. Everyone borrows from mythology. That's like saying The Mummy Returns is bad because they took a real man known as the Scorpion King (there were two Scorpion Kings in actuality) and turning it into a cursed wrestler. Mythology is just cultural. I agree that someone who says Ragnarok was originally from a different Final Fantasy is really sad but not everyone has been lucky enough to be exposed to multiple cultures and their traditions. It's true that the Shiva of Final Fantasy, a sexy female with an affinity to ice, is totally different from the Shiva of traditional Hindu, a big, ripped, male symbolizing fertility and war. I guess that could be seen as silly. But personally, it never bothered me. Maybe it would if I followed Hinduism but even a Hindu friend of mine didn't care. I don't know about everyone else.

[Legend of Dragoon] is much closer to a work of fantasy than Final Fantasy is. While the concepts of the Divine Tree of Life and the different races coming from it are similar to the religious beliefs of some cultures, they're not a blatant plagiarism thereof.

Incorrect. The Divine Tree of Life is based on the Norse Yggdrasil. They even call it Yggdrasil in the game. So even Legend of Dragoon is guilty of what you see as sins of Final Fantasy.

The places the characters visit in TLoD much less resemble places in the real world, and vary much more from one another, than the drab, gloomy, depressing, and oftentimes plain ugly environments found in Final Fantasy. Even places that are supposed to look run-down or worn by age don't look very good in terms of sheer quality.

On the contrary, there are several towns that are remarkably similar in Final Fantasy IX and Legend of Dragoon. It's been sometime since I played Legend of Dragoon but there were several cities that looked quite a bit like Lindblum. I agree that Legend of Dragoon had some stunning locations, especially Fletz and its twin towers, the waterway city with its smooth, organic-looking architecture, the Wingly city, but Final Fantasy is not lacking in lovely environments: Kalm's and Nibelheim's Dutch-looking peacefulness, Cosmo Canyon's ever-present sunset look, the eerily beautiful, deserted City of the Ancients, Mideel's and Costa del Sol's pleasant resort-type atmospheres, the peaks of Nibelheim, and the indescribable crater all from VII... Esthar's pristine beauty, Balamb's (similar to Fletz) pleasant port, Deling's exciting big-city feel, Winhill's simple quaintness all from VIII... Alexandria's old-school fantasy town, the wonder of Lindblum, Gizamaluke's Grotto soft, muted colors, Tantalus' extravagance, and my favorite, Kuja's private castle and all it's classical splendor, all from IX. I am afraid I have digressed awfully though. Yes, Final Fantasy has some ugly places but not everything can be beautiful. The slums of Midgar aren't expected to be pretty or attractive, Burmecia and Trabia have been ruined by war, and Corel is a poor tent city. I'm sure Phantasy Star has its own down-and-out settings.

All in all, I agree Darkeye has some valid points but I believe some were just exaggerated to make Square and Final Fantasy sound worse. Of course, in the end, it's just a matter of opinion. Final Fantasy is not evil, nor is the best game in the world. It's true Square is out to make money (we all are) but money can't be their only motivation. Saying that insults the people that put their heart into making something they want people to enjoy. A note that I do believe they slapped the Final Fantasy label on their upcoming movie but I was reminded that it is by Hironobu Sakaguchi who wrote the stories behind all the other Final Fantasy games I love so I have hope. I agree it's not good to buy something just because your favorite publisher did it but Square has been critically acclaimed for many, many games and while what the critics say doesn't mean everything (most hated Legend of Dragoon, which I enjoyed quite a bit) but the fans say it too. They may or may not be the best, but that's up to you to decide.

Thank you for your time.

Original Editorial: Final Fantasy? No Such Luck.