Epic RPG Quest - Final Fantasy IX: Part 2

In today's episode, Bill and Jeff finally reach the opening title of Final Fantasy IX... plus also Vivi trips.

Final Fantasy IX Episode 1

Episode one of Epic RPG Quest is a go!  In today’s ‘sode we find Bill busting into Jeff’s garage as they embark on their epic quest together… first stop?  Final Fantasy IX.

We plan on releasing a new episode every Monday Wednesday and Friday so stay tuned.

Legend of Dragoon - Roadblocks

I have hit my first major roadblock on my journey.  This is one I knew I would reach at some point, and usually appears in the same fashion in almost every game I have played.  I have reached an enemy I am simply unprepared to handle.  Be it through lack of leveling, improper management of resources, or a poorly designed difficulty curve, I almost always run into a monster that I am unable to defeat on my first few tries.  Now, of course, I am not complaining about this fact in the least.  Racking the recesses of my brain for different tactics and techniques I can apply towards solving my problem is one of the things that has always attracted me to RPGs,  I feel like they are games you play with your mind as much as any other skill or dexterity.

What is true however, is that when one reaches one of these roadblocks, they are forced to finally sit back and gauge the personal worth of its removal to them.  This is particularly problematic in games, as games are (for the most part) meant to be fun and are seen as a means of entertainment.  This is something that is easy to convince yourself of when you are constantly moving forward, making progress, and making good time in the process.  Once all of that stops however, you are forced to step back and say, how much fun am I having and is it worth the hassle that getting past this obstacle will cause me?  (something in that sentiment is probably applicable to life as well... but I don't know if I'm smart enough to find it.)

In this particular instance, the answer for me is "tons of fun" and "absolutely, yes."  So there is little need for concern there.  I have been loving Legend of Dragoon thus far and as such had been moving at an even clip.  I am actually surprised I made it as far as I have without running into a stopgap such as this, or even really having lost many battles in general.  The first wall I reached in Legend of Dragoon was earlier on, in disk 2, on the ghost ship.  I was told by a friend that if I were to open the coded chest within two tries I would get an Ultimate Wargod accessory, which allows you to auto-complete your chained attacks.  This was very appealing to me as I am simply not great at quicktime events (which I do recognize as a fault of mine, and not of the game I'm playing itself) and as such there are some combo chains for certain characters that I simply have never seen, so such an item would be a great boon to remedying that situation and helping me to build up my characters.  I spent two nights trying to open that chest, but as it is a random sequence of numbers each try, it seemed more a test of luck than of skill.  Luckily, that was more of a wall that I was able to sidestep by releasing the grip of my Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (which did take me two full evenings of gameplay to do...) and simply convincing myself to move on (I opened the chest for one of the lesser items instead.).

Now, however, well into disk 3, I have come upon the battle with the Dragon Blocker Staff... or rather the magical hunk of whatever (I swear, on some of these games it just seems like they randomized a bunch of polygons and applied the texture of a building and then were like "yep, that's a monster alright.") that the staff is stuck in.  The problem is admittedly in part (actually, probably mostly in part) due to my personal hubris.  Upon passing the last village on my way to the next dungeon (or arena in this case) I noticed that every item being sold was magic based, and offered all kinds of protections against magical attacks.  Now, due to my previous failure to obtain an Ultimate Wargod for free, my gold has been precious to me, since buying one costs roughly 10k gold (or whatever the Legend of Dragoon currency is... I think it only says 'g', which I guess doesn't have to mean gold at all.) I had decided to save my money since items you obtain during questing often overshadow those you had just bought moments ago.  So I left the village with no magical protections save the ones I'd had prior, and of course headed straight into what was sure to be a slew of magical battles.

After spending two evenings trying to get past the one battle of which I speak, I decided to cut my losses and backtrack to the village in which I had passed up these now coveted magical protections, and lo and behold I am not able to leave the arena without having acquired the staff.  So now, here I sit, pondering both the game and my commitment to my endeavors as I rack my brain for the best way for me to put this chapter to rest...

Legend of Dragoon - Permadeath

Hey, I never said this blog would be spoiler free!  Although, I'm guessing if you hadn't played any of these games at this point, odds are that you won't be crossing their path anytime soon (unless you undertake your own Epic RPG Quest... in which case, send me a link, I love to read stuff.)

So yeah... Lavitz is dead... and dead in a permanent kinda way, not just a 'till the end of battle' kinda way.  I know I'm not the first to point out that in worlds full of Phoenix Down and Angel's Kisses or whatever, the rules surrounding the difference between permadeath and temporary death are kinda muddled.  Of course, many RPGs have solved the problem by having the characters pass out in battle rather than die, but it does still feel a little off when a character withstands thousands of injuries including getting bombarded with meteors from outer space and being smashed by a dragon, only to succumb to the slice of the main villain's sword because it's kinda more meaningful if he does.

The illogical minutia of permadeath don't really cause a problem for me, at least not one that I'm willing to blow out of proportion or feel a need to point at and say "Isn't this waaaaacky." (what do you think this is, internet video game comedy 101?).  I do however have a problem with the way permadeath is dealt with in most video games, as it feels like something that is constantly misused or at least misunderstood.

Death, in reality, is a universal constant, everyone experiences it, everyone feels its lingering presence, and despite conflicting views on the afterward, the implications of your time on this earth having come to an end are always the same.  For anyone in their life who has felt this loss, even in the smallest of forms, knows that there is more often than not something missing from the equation when video games deal with death.

Take for example the loss of Lavitz in Legend of Dragoon, something I recently experienced for the first time while playing through the game (currently on Disk 3 for those curious).  It happened... in a flash, and for a brief moment I was devastated (at least, in proper proportion to the context... it is just a game).  That feeling of devastation came from feeling the loss of the character, someone that I had fought with, and tried my hardest to build up as much as possible, not knowing or realizing that he could be taken from me at any time.  That devastation was almost immediately replaced as the character himself was replaced by another with the exact same stats and moves, something that seems to happen a lot when a game has an irreversible fatality.

The reasoning behind this, from a game designer's perspective, is sound.  You want to have a plot point with high impact to motivate the other characters, but you don't want to outrage the player by taking away something that they had come to know.  However, I say that if you want to tell a great story, one that the player has the ability to feel as much as the characters do, you need that feeling of loss.  Yes, the player will become angry, because death is supposed to make us angry, it is supposed to make us feel loss, it is supposed to confuse and frighten us.  By simply replacing the character immediately afterwards you are trivializing the meaning of the moment you just experienced.  You are turning what could have been a true experience for the player into a plot point for the character.

Of course, we can't touch on this point without bringing up Final Fantasy VII, certainly not the first game to deal with the situation well, but the most prominent in most peoples minds both due to the size of the audience and the fact that (for most) it was their first introduction to a game that could even begin to touch upon such subjects.  Aeris' death was an absolute loss.  If you had played the game through, unspoiled (say for instance, by a blog writer talking about 15 year old games,) then the loss of Aeris feels proper.  She was  a character that not only had very kind and endearing character traits narratively, but she also was a character that was highly incentivized for the player to use and build up.  She was your white mage, she was completely geared towards taking care of your party members.  Then, when she was gone... she was... gone.  She never got replaced, she never got revived, there was no way to bring her back.  In fact, I remember players wanting her back to such an extent, that rumors were abound with ways that 'you can totally bring her back to life!' (none of which were true, at least in the American localization, I can't speak for the Japanese version).  That is the impact death is supposed to have on us.

Now, I can only speculate that the reason for the loss in Final Fantasy VII being such a spot on representation (at least for the medium) is that the entire game was made very recently after the loss of Hironobu Sakaguchi's own mother, and therefore it is very likely he was very in tune with the feelings that a loss such as this should make one feel, but reasoning aside, the end result is the same.

The truth that this entire idea proves is that, moreso than any other medium, video games have the ability to make us feel exactly what the designer wants us to, however in order to do so they need to think of the real world implications and translations for the feelings they are trying to portray, rather than just presenting them to us as a plot point to move the story forward and assuming that we will feel them.

Legend of Dragoon - Initial Thoughts

Purchase Date: July 2012
Purchase Price: $25

There is, of course, a lot to say about Legend of Dragoon, and at this point I'm guessing most of it has been said.  Coming around on the tail end of the PS1 lifespan, Legend of Dragoon was touted as and in many ways looked forward to as the definitive "Final Fantasy Killer."  This, of course was both a tall order and a curse on the way the game was received as I remember it.  The high stakes of those claims of course being amplified by the fact that we were right in the middle of the former series' strongest streak (at least from a popularity perspective) ever.

If anything ever could have done it though (Spoiler Alert:  It didn't) it very well could have been this game.  The odds stacked so high against it, its incredible that this game made a blip on the radar at all, but in the end I feel like commercial success or failure (and I don't really think it was either to be honest.  A lot of people played and loved this game, but it never became the franchise it deserved either) this game won its way into the hearts and minds of many.  In fact, when I first posted publicly that I had begun the Epic RPG Quest, the overwhelming majority of reaction I received was along the lines of "Man, Legend of Dragoon... great game."  A reaction that is, in my opinion, rightfully earned.

The thing is, everyone knows the Final Fantasies of this era are great, and everyone knows of the Chrono Crosses and (to a lesser extent) the Grandias, but this game was a total wild card.  We didn't know shit about it to begin with, aside from the fact that it had set some pretty damn high expectations of itself.  Everything about this game people were discovering anew, from the characters, to the fighting system, to the world and its history and nuances.  All of these things were built and portrayed admirably, and for that reason I think overall it won out the hearts of its players, and now is remembered as just a great game, rather than "the one that tried to dethrone the king," as it was initially touted.

I, admittedly, had never had a chance to play it.  It was always on my radar up until and after its release, however being of the poorer type of gamer, I always shied towards the bargain bin in favor of this beautiful and seemingly unobtainable gem.  Legend of Dragoon just wasn't popular enough for me to be able to borrow/steal the game disc by disc from my friends as I had other games, and there wasn't a franchise name for me to imprint in the minds of my family members time and time again in order to receive it as a gift on any appropriate occasion.  Therefore I was left to my own devices... and my own devices were to go without.

Therefore, this was always at the top of my list of games to acquire a new once my collecting had begun.  Earlier this year, Karl a friend of mine from back home, had come out to attend Comic-Con (as he does each year since I get free passes, and really, who can turn that up?).  The event having come and gone, we were left with a few days to spend in L.A. with plenty of time to fill.  I knew I had to bring him to gamedude, to show him their palate of nostalgia and kickstart the familiar conversations of the games we loved growing up.  While there I noticed they had a copy of Legend of Dragoon sitting on the shelf which hadn't been there in past visits.  Feeling a bit of divinity in this I was sure to swoop it up, even though at this point I hadn't yet considered collecting these games seriously.

Once again, the game sat on my shelf for a solid month, however I always had the intention of playing it, and began just that roughly 2 weeks ago.  I am currently into the second disc of the game, and will continue to update the blog with my thoughts and revelations as I continue to play (as will likely be the format of writing from here on out, just a random spattering of musings based on what I am playing with some overall breakdowns as the one included above when I begin a game.)  I do, of course, have some thoughts to share already, but I will spare you for another day.

Granstream Saga - My Story

Purchase Date:  Hell if I know.
Price: Gift
Repurchase Date:  April 2012
Repurchase Price: $5


Granstream Saga was amongst my favorite games in the "something I'd never heard of until now" category that I had received as a gift.  Every time I held one of said games in my hands, ready to insert it into my system and power it up, I felt a palpable anticipation and anxiety (although subconsciously done, the sexual undertones of that statement were probably not a mistake).  I never knew what I was going to get.  Judging from the cover I figured I was in for some sort of romp involving a bejeweled hero with an awkwardly foreshortened sword (or maybe a comically large dagger?).  I figured it had airships, a panicked parakeet, a dreadnaught from Zelda, a busty maiden that kinda wants to punch me (maybe?) and some sort of cow skull monster with a... vagina? cowrie shell?... on its forehead (I specifically remember thinking that when picking up the game for the first time, and still to this day think it).  One thing for sure, it would be a ride one way or another (it was a dragon by the way... not a cow skull demon monster... I figured that was probably bugging you,).

The game did not disappoint.  It had an interesting fight system, fully hand drawn anime cut scenes (at this point most cut scenes were CGI, so that was a bit of a novelty) and a surprisingly well crafted story.  Most importantly, it felt like a game that was completely mine.  Nobody had ever heard of it and certainly nobody had ever played it (at least in my small town.  I'm not putting forth that truly I was the only person that ever played it... although that would be an interesting thought.  I get the game as a child, sell the game for store credit in the days before I knew this was a system designed to rip me off, and then buy the same copy back some fifteen years later in the overly elaborate ploy of some evil genius to get thirtyfive dollars from me rather than just thirty.  I imagine him wringing his hands, smiling at his ill gotten gains, his plan having finally paid off... wow, that was a long ass sidetrack).

Upon discovering gamedude earlier this year, my friend Jeremy (whom has had an integral part in both my decision to start this collection and the decision to record the journey) started to bulk up his collection with games of yesteryear.  I on the other hand started purchasing games in a more practical mindset, games I had always wanted to try but had a hard time finding (The World Ends With You, anyone?).  Every time I went to the store though, I was immediately drawn to the PS1 area of their shelves, content just to revel in it and the memories it stirred up.  I also remained somewhat jealous of my friend who had the confidence to make the rash purchases that I avoided, perhaps somewhat aware of the Pandora's box it would open.  All of that practicality went out the window when I saw a lone copy of Granstream Saga sitting on the shelf for a mere five dollars.

I bought the game and let it sit on my shelf for a few months while my wife and I moved to a new house and settled.  Then, one night, I decided "Hell, I bought the damn thing, I might as well play it." so I popped it into my PS3, flicked on the projector and began playing it on a screen larger than my young self could have imagined with headphones creating an encompassing world I hadn't dreamed of.  This is what my childhood is supposed to feel like... my new mission was coming into focus.

Final Fantasy IX - My Story

Purchase Date: 2000
Price: Gift
Repurchase Date:  2008
Repurchase Price:  $10 (estimated)

By the time Final Fantasy IX rolled around, I knew the drill.  It was going to be amazing ('ner-riffic being the term my friends and I had coined in order to explain how these games made us feel in our 'down there' zone).  Of course, hindsight as it is, this game generated the polarized opinions that it either marks the beginning of the series' downfall or it is the last true Final Fantasy game.  For many reasons it seems to teeter that gap, and while I don't seem to find myself thinking either of those statements are wholly accurate, I to tend to favor the later.  This probably being, in my opinion, the most under appreciated game in the bunch that I can think of.  Sure, Zidane wasn't my choice protagonist at first, but I ended up with a soft spot for the little sky pirate monkey boy... thing.  The character designs in general felt like HD re-builds of the cartridge era sprites which I found endearing.

I was straddling my Junior and Senior year of high school while playing this game (although I played games what felt like a lot at the time, it seems like my hour count must have been somewhat limited in retrospect as a game like this could take me 4-6 months to complete.) and as such, this game relates back to some serious milestones in my adolescence.  I remember playing this game in a daze as I had begun seriously dating what was, at the time, my most stable girlfriend.  This of course was an important landmark because up until that point I had been what is known as a serial dater (or as my sister lovingly referred to it "a manwhore").  I remember talking Final Fantasy IX strategy with my co-workers at my first job at an environmental lab (it was really weird, I worked the second shift and we set off chemical reactions and threw things off the roof... neither of which were work related of course)... and I remember spending all-nighters with my friends playing this game deep into the recesses in the morning before passing out in separate rooms and hurling insults at each other just for the fun of it.

This game, having encompassed so many milestones in my journey towards what I then thought was adulthood, was a natural choice to reacquire years later when I had grown nostalgic.  So in one fell swoop I picked up this one along with the previously mentioned Chrono Cross back in 2008.  In fact, I was re-playing this game when I began dating the woman that would later become my wife, so this game is intrinsically linked with a number of huge milestones in my life.

On top of all that, I find the game itself just to be absolutely delightful.  It is a true fairytale from beginning to end and decided to take a chance in exchanging the series' new standard of brooding heroes unraveling a complicated and world threatening plot while simultaneously accomplishing self realization (don't get me wrong, I loved that stuff as well) for a lighter and more jubilant fare (that still had a world threatening plot for good measure).  It was a bold move that kept the series fresh in my eyes without compromising the elements that made it great (as proven later in the series' history, some bold moves don't quite pay off.) 

I remember upon beating the game (both times actually) thinking to myself "That's it?  That was so simple!"  Not in a bad way though, just in a way that I hadn't expected.  Unlike most Final Fantasy games, its plot was so straight forward and easily followed (at least for me) that I understood it on the first playthrough (which definitely could not be said for a good number of entries, prior to and after this one).  It felt like a return to the series' humble beginnings in a number of ways.

Lastly, this sticks out to me as one of the last major experiences I had with the PS1 before moving towards the PS2 era.  Of course I paid no heed to it at the time, but a huge chapter in my gaming biography was coming to a close.

Chrono Cross - My Story

Purchase date: 2008 (exact date unknown)
Price:  $10 (estimated)

Chrono Cross presents an odd anomalous gap in my memory.  With most games I've played I am able to remember very clearly the experiences that were occurring during my life while playing them as well as oddly specific details about playing the game itself, such as which television in which room in the house I had hooked up my game system and spent the most time playing said game.  Chrono Cross, on the other hand seems to have blanked out a lot of my player experience.  Now, this isn't for lack of memorability, as anyone who's played the game can tell you.  I know this because I remember the game itself vividly.  Perhaps it is just that total immersion that sucked me in, or perhaps I was just too busy trying to figure out what the hell was going on in this game (seriously, I got a little lost about the time that I became a cat person that used to be my mortal enemy... and this seemed semi permanent).  In the end the details lost (or at least, disassociated) are insignificant, but it sticks out as odd to me, so I figured I'd ponder it a bit just the same (Achievement Unlocked: Pondering).

What I do remember however is that this game came to me as another in the long line of 'borrowed' games (at that time, most of the AAA games I got to play were borrowed, my personal library consisting of obscure titles out of the bargain bin, which I also played the absolute shit out of).  The lender in this particular case was the elder cousin of my best friend.  He always had the best games, and he always finished them within days of their release, no matter how long the play time.  This was due to the fact that he was significantly older than us and on a partial work disability due to a physical malady.  This meant that his life consisted of (and still does,) video games.

Now as a quick sidebar, I know there are a good many people who would frown upon such an existence, and I totally admit that it is not one that I could readily embrace myself, however its not exactly one I look down upon either.  In this life who is to say what achievements are more worth while, or that relationships built and maintained via interpersonal communication are any more real than those built over XBL or WoW.  It all ends the same for every one of us anyways, so to each their own (that sentiment is kinda a double edged sword isn't it?).

Sidebar... aside... (sure, that works) my friend's cousin was an outright cool dude.  He introduced us to pretty much everything awesome (video game and horror movie wise) way before we were supposed to be introduced to it  (to this day I still can't convince my friend to watch Fire in the Sky ever again).  Thus I had obtained a copy of Chrono Cross.  Now, I had of course been familiar with the predecessor, and was filled with excitement to play this game, and play it I did.  Everything about this game felt like a breath of fresh air at the time, from the beginning moments in a small beach side community, to the ever expanding cast of characters and the unique twists the plot threw you.  I remember treating the obtainable characters like Pokémon, I absolutely had to get them all.  Of course, this being before I knew of gamefaqs or even had a reliable internet connection, so I was only able to assemble my ultimate party based off of rumors and conjecture.

Truth be told, I never actually finished the game on that first play through.  I think this was in part due to the fact that at the time my mother had recently re-married, had another child and my family was moving to a new house so there was a lot of chaos in the mix.  That was combined with the fact that I had hit the wall of this game.  I use that term to explain what inevitably happens in any video game I play, but most prominently with RPGs, where I find myself with a seemingly insurmountable task to overcome.  A boss battle, a puzzle, an ill advised save with little to no health and no backup (back then each memory card held about 10 saves, so multiple saves were some sort of mythical beast, I'd heard of them, but never experienced it myself)... the catalyst changes, but the feeling is the same.  The feeling that raises the question as to whether or not the fun I am having with the game is worth the effort I need to put in at this very point.  More often than not, the answer is yes, but in this instance, and through no fault of the game itself, I had cast it aside and returned the disks.

Apparently this left a void somewhere in me because many years later, sometime in 2008, I became nostalgic and decided to see if I could find some of the games I'd always wanted to own and never did.  Chrono Cross was at the top of my list.  I promptly purchased a sealed "Greatest Hits" copy of the game via e-bay and played the hell out of it.  I remember a feeling of dread creeping upon me as I reached my previously hit wall (I remember it well, a point on the pirate ship where you have to rig a game against the captain... I couldn't figure it out for the life of me)  and I remember being almost angry at how easy it was to figure out now in my later years.  That was a big feeling for me, being able to easily accomplish a task that had daunted me in my youth, and it probably added a good amount of vigor to my desire to begin my current task at hand.

Final Fantasy VII - My Story

Purchase date: Summer 2005
Price: $20

To begin I have decided to tell the stories behind the games that I already own, and what better place to start than with Final Fantasy VII.

Rest assured, I don't plan on just telling you yet another masturbatory recap of the game and its awesomeness (there's already enough of that out there) but I probably do love it that much as well.

This was, of course, my first foray into the next generation of gaming (as was the case with pretty much everyone back then) and I was blown away.  Even more so than I was blown away by the game itself, I was blown away with how universal its appeal seemed.  This was an RPG that everyone owned... seriously... everyone.  I was amazed to find upon visiting the house of a friend of a friend, someone whom I though I had absolutely nothing in common with, that he had a copy of the game currently in his Playstation, the case sitting along side his sizable collection of madden titles and racing games.  Seriously, this was a kid who's hobbies included pizza and backyard wrestling, and there he was with what had been up until then, such a niche piece of entertainment, casually sitting in his collection.  I would never expect to see such a thing today.

My first introduction to the series came in the form of watching a friend play his copy during a sleepover.  (a friend that in retrospect I was a total ass to having that night alone gotten him in trouble with his parents by flirting with his sister... and then later dating her... I was not a good person back then, but then again very few high schoolers are.)  I vividly remember sitting there in his room and watching as the first battle transition came up.  He was in the northern part of the world and had to battle what looked to me to be cute bunnies.  I of course cried out "Aaaw, lookit the cute bunnies!" right before Vincent pulled out his rifle and shot one in the head causing it to erupt in an explosion of fading red polygons.  Holy shit!  I was hooked.

The funny thing is, as big of a fan as I am of this game, I never owned a copy of it until well after my fifth play through (did I mention I REALLY love this game?).  The reasoning behind that is simple... I was poor, and everyone on the goddam planet owned a copy.  The beauty behind it was that the game was 3 disks, so I strategically borrowed whatever disk my friends weren't using.  Then I would forget that I borrowed the disk and borrow it again from someone else.  By the time I got to college I think I had 3 Disk 1's, 4 Disk 2's, and 1 Disk 3 floating around my house.

After graduating college I had the typical post grad lull and decided that the best use of my time was to play through Final Fantasy VII in its entirety as quickly as possible.  All of my ill gotten disks at this point having been either tossed, lost or damaged beyond repair, it was high time I bought a copy of my own.  Impressively enough (or perhaps not impressive at all considering its following) this was 2005 and I was still able to walk into Media Play (now bankrupt and closed... R.I.P.) and buy a brand new copy, still in shrink wrap.  This copy is the one that sits on my shelf today and still remains as my go to game whenever I'm feeling kinda down.