Sunday, January 24, 2010

Part II: Where the Numbers Go Awry



Sticking with US release #'s  here, I hadn't played Final Fantasy II until it was released much later for the GBA.   So I'm going to skip it and go right to Final Fantasy III (later VI).  Like the original NES, I also never owned a Super Nintendo.  This time, however, a friend of mine was kind enough to lend me his system and the game, so I could play it myself.  And thank God, too, because this game would change the way I look at video games, RPGs especially.
(Again, spoilers ahead.)

This game is everything I wanted RPGs to be.  Up to this point, I had played mainly on my Sega Genesis:  D&D: Warriors of the Eternal Sun, Shining Force, and others I can't remember.  Along with Final Fantasy, I also played Ultima (at a friend's place) on the NES.  I remember wondering why the characters couldn't be fleshed out with their own stories.  All these games, except for Shining Force, had generic classes with a story that revolved around the world, not the characters you play.  And while the characters in Shining Force had names and pictures that were singular, they were hardly fleshed out.  Final Fantasy III changed that.


Each character here had their own back story.  As a player, you could relate to each one like characters in a movie or a novel.  My team consisted of Locke, Celes, Terra, and Shadow, but there was any combination of characters players could use during their quest.



And there were beautiful moments, too.  The amazing opera scene was unlike anything I had ever seen.  After the world was torn, Celes was alone on an island, looking to find her friends.  While the clock was ticking to jump off the floating island, players had to wait an uncomfortable amount of time or lose Shadow forever.  The split final dungeon with the epic, multi-tiered final boss.  


While it embarrasses me a little to admit it now, I even bought the soundtrack for this game...and listened to it, too.  A lot.  I used the music in my video making class in High School, as a soundtrack for my own movies.  I ran to it with the disc in my discman.  I lived this game for a good portion of my life.



The depth of the characters first drew my attention when, while the party was asleep at an inn, Locke and Celes both met outside and just talked.  I had never seen anything like this before in a video game, and it immediately connected me to the characters and drew me into the world.


While I may give you a different answer if you ask me what my favorite Final Fantasy game is, there is no doubt that if you asked which Final Fantasy game influenced the way I played and enjoyed video games the most, my answer would be Final Fantasy III for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System.



-dp

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