Final Fantasy Extravaganza
So my life went nuts after my last post. I joined the Air Force to help finish paying for school and to support my wife, who is now pregnant, while she finished school. So i joined, went to basic, went to tech school and am now in the Operational Air Force and just finished CDC's (book tests to prove that you know your job), and I finally have some time. I know I will have less time very soon as my wife is due to give birth to my "Daughter to be" Lyla in two months. I know that this all seems extremely important, and it is, so it would make sense to blog about all the various topics listed above that have now become the main focuses in my life, however, I don't plan to.
I have recently decided to get back into Final Fantasy, in a big way. Through introspection on why I feel I have made this decision I decided that this is because I have a career type job and a family(soon) and it feels like life is starting to move too fast. I find myself spending time just doing nothing, getting back from the gym and wasting time on my phone or just sitting until I need to get ready for work. So I am going to try to slow down a bit by reading more (currently reading the Silmarillion, it is very intriguing and worth a read (so far) for any big LoTR fans) and playing more video games. And in deciding to play more video games I had to decide which one.
I immediately jumped to Final Fantasy: trying to slow my life down and not grow up too fast of course lead me back to my favorite games as a kid, FFVII was the first game that really got me hooked on games. So naturally my first thought was VII, then I thought maybe VI, or X, what about IX. Then I decided to look up (what a weird term, it used to mean in a dictionary or some print, now it means online, every time: just a random musing) some lists to find out which FF game was "The Best" (I put it in quotes because obviously, it is a subjective question). The games I listed above all showed up regularly in the top 3 or so of most lists I looked into, however I noticed one game that was frequently just outside or sometimes in the top 3, FF IV, which I have never played. Then I decided what type of Final Fantasy fanboy am I if there are so many I haven't played (I through IV, X-2, Dirge of Cerberus, XIII-2/3, also various other side games and handheld projects). So I decided to try to make my own list and play as many (FF) games as is feasibly/fiscally possible. I am not going to buy an expensive system in order to play a few side project games. I have a PS2, Xbox 360 and One, GameCube, and an iPhone (Some are available via iOS).
Obviously, I begin my "Quest" with Final Fantasy, released 1987 by Hironobu Sakaguchi and Square (now SquareEnix, ugh) for the Famicon/NES (re-released w/ FFII for Playstation). Titled Final Fantasy due to the assumption that Sqaure was soon to go bankrupt unless this game was a success. That is really all I have of thoughts, memories, information, and characters of Final Fantasy (the first game in the Final Fantasy Series, not the series as a whole) so I will just get right into the game itself.
Right off the bat the game hits you hard. Before you know anything you are asked to build your team. You are given four characters and asked to name each one and you are allowed to change the class of all of them to build the team you want. The four they give you start as a Warrior(Fighter), Thief, White Mage, and Black Mage. Pretty typical and a good team build, the other options were Monk(Black Belt) and Red Mage, the only change I made was switching out my Thief for a Monk. I rarely steal in any FF game and I like the Monk's abilities and character stats in other FF games. Next you name each one. When I was a kid (a relative term as I don't yet/will probably never, feel like I am a fully fledged "Adult"), I used to name the characters after myself, my friends, and embarrassingly enough girls I liked at the time. I decided to name them after my favorite characters from those roles in other Final Fantasy games. The Warrior I went with Cloud, as I said earlier FFVII is the game that got me into games, so I couldn't help it. My Monk was a tougher decision, I went with Sabin, which was a little tougher but pretty obvious when I really thought about my favorite "Monk" style character, definitely similar but deeper than Zell (FFVIII), the character looked like a male so Tifa (VII) was out, just better character and more vital to the story then Amarant (IX), and I am not sure if X has a monk style character, maybe Wakka, but that felt like a stretch. Didn't play XIII enough to get a good feel for Snow as a character. So Sabin, obviously best monk in FF Games. Black Mage was easy for me as well, Vivi. Since many FF games try to give you the option to have multiple people use magic there are few true Black Mage only characters. Vivi is the obvious choice for me. White Mage was a little bit tricky, but I decided my favorite was Yuna, I was surprised as well that I didn't choose Aeris. I feel like most White Mage characters try be tough and say they don't need help and can do everything themselves before they realise they are wrong, Aeris, Garnet, Eiko, and Rinoa (or is Selphie the White Mage, eh, VIII was confusing) they all try to not need people, I like how Yuna accepts that she has Guardians for a reason, she says during the game that she considers it a joy and an honour to have so many Guardians she can trust with her life and that they are also her friends. So there is my team; Cloud, Sabin, Yuna, Vivi, pretty stacked I would say.
Now to gameplay, once you start the game places you in an open map in front of a town, I would suggest entering the town right away (I tried to go fight first and nearly died as my characters had no equipment), once you talk to someone they assume that your group are the "Warriors of Light" and you are rushed to the King and asked to save the princess. Get right into it. You have just enough money to buy everyone a weapon and piece of equipment and two spells, cure and fire, works out pretty well. The first thing I noticed during actual gameplay was the music, it is fun and very familiar as all FF music is, especially of the fight music compared to VII. Next, thing I noticed was the leveling, very typical level system, gain a level and get a little better at everything, but the thing I noticed was that this game is a long haul grinder. I have put two hours of gameplay in, all of it fighting outside that first town trying to level up and am level 4, with about 600 exp to get to level 5, getting between 4 and 7 exp per battle, so it is rough. the next time I play I plan to venture a little bit forward to get some tougher fights and get some stuff to happen.
Lastly, I am just going to mention my play style and my plan for this blog. I play very grindy on FF Games, especially early. So it will be slow going, specifically this FF, before I have enough new information to constitute writing another blog entry. I hopefully will write once a week or every other week. Also, this blog is mostly for me and my personal quest to make a subjectively definitive list of the best entries from my favorite video game franchise. I will probably include tidbits and snippets maybe even an anecdote, factoid, or musing from my life outside of video games, but this will primarily be a general "Captains Log", if you don't mind the Star Trek reference, of my Final Fantasy progress and other nerdiness. I don't plan to post this to Facebook or any of the myriad of other social media places I could put this blog. So if, by chance, you ran across this blog, then congratulations you have definitely been spending too much time searching the blogisphere without a goal or aspiration of finding anything of substance or interest: just a nerd who is trying to hold onto his youth for as long as he can. Just ignore any errors you found in my spelling, punctuation, and grammar. Feel free to comment, if it is mean I will probably delete it anyway, but go nuts.
I have recently decided to get back into Final Fantasy, in a big way. Through introspection on why I feel I have made this decision I decided that this is because I have a career type job and a family(soon) and it feels like life is starting to move too fast. I find myself spending time just doing nothing, getting back from the gym and wasting time on my phone or just sitting until I need to get ready for work. So I am going to try to slow down a bit by reading more (currently reading the Silmarillion, it is very intriguing and worth a read (so far) for any big LoTR fans) and playing more video games. And in deciding to play more video games I had to decide which one.
I immediately jumped to Final Fantasy: trying to slow my life down and not grow up too fast of course lead me back to my favorite games as a kid, FFVII was the first game that really got me hooked on games. So naturally my first thought was VII, then I thought maybe VI, or X, what about IX. Then I decided to look up (what a weird term, it used to mean in a dictionary or some print, now it means online, every time: just a random musing) some lists to find out which FF game was "The Best" (I put it in quotes because obviously, it is a subjective question). The games I listed above all showed up regularly in the top 3 or so of most lists I looked into, however I noticed one game that was frequently just outside or sometimes in the top 3, FF IV, which I have never played. Then I decided what type of Final Fantasy fanboy am I if there are so many I haven't played (I through IV, X-2, Dirge of Cerberus, XIII-2/3, also various other side games and handheld projects). So I decided to try to make my own list and play as many (FF) games as is feasibly/fiscally possible. I am not going to buy an expensive system in order to play a few side project games. I have a PS2, Xbox 360 and One, GameCube, and an iPhone (Some are available via iOS).
Obviously, I begin my "Quest" with Final Fantasy, released 1987 by Hironobu Sakaguchi and Square (now SquareEnix, ugh) for the Famicon/NES (re-released w/ FFII for Playstation). Titled Final Fantasy due to the assumption that Sqaure was soon to go bankrupt unless this game was a success. That is really all I have of thoughts, memories, information, and characters of Final Fantasy (the first game in the Final Fantasy Series, not the series as a whole) so I will just get right into the game itself.
Right off the bat the game hits you hard. Before you know anything you are asked to build your team. You are given four characters and asked to name each one and you are allowed to change the class of all of them to build the team you want. The four they give you start as a Warrior(Fighter), Thief, White Mage, and Black Mage. Pretty typical and a good team build, the other options were Monk(Black Belt) and Red Mage, the only change I made was switching out my Thief for a Monk. I rarely steal in any FF game and I like the Monk's abilities and character stats in other FF games. Next you name each one. When I was a kid (a relative term as I don't yet/will probably never, feel like I am a fully fledged "Adult"), I used to name the characters after myself, my friends, and embarrassingly enough girls I liked at the time. I decided to name them after my favorite characters from those roles in other Final Fantasy games. The Warrior I went with Cloud, as I said earlier FFVII is the game that got me into games, so I couldn't help it. My Monk was a tougher decision, I went with Sabin, which was a little tougher but pretty obvious when I really thought about my favorite "Monk" style character, definitely similar but deeper than Zell (FFVIII), the character looked like a male so Tifa (VII) was out, just better character and more vital to the story then Amarant (IX), and I am not sure if X has a monk style character, maybe Wakka, but that felt like a stretch. Didn't play XIII enough to get a good feel for Snow as a character. So Sabin, obviously best monk in FF Games. Black Mage was easy for me as well, Vivi. Since many FF games try to give you the option to have multiple people use magic there are few true Black Mage only characters. Vivi is the obvious choice for me. White Mage was a little bit tricky, but I decided my favorite was Yuna, I was surprised as well that I didn't choose Aeris. I feel like most White Mage characters try be tough and say they don't need help and can do everything themselves before they realise they are wrong, Aeris, Garnet, Eiko, and Rinoa (or is Selphie the White Mage, eh, VIII was confusing) they all try to not need people, I like how Yuna accepts that she has Guardians for a reason, she says during the game that she considers it a joy and an honour to have so many Guardians she can trust with her life and that they are also her friends. So there is my team; Cloud, Sabin, Yuna, Vivi, pretty stacked I would say.
Now to gameplay, once you start the game places you in an open map in front of a town, I would suggest entering the town right away (I tried to go fight first and nearly died as my characters had no equipment), once you talk to someone they assume that your group are the "Warriors of Light" and you are rushed to the King and asked to save the princess. Get right into it. You have just enough money to buy everyone a weapon and piece of equipment and two spells, cure and fire, works out pretty well. The first thing I noticed during actual gameplay was the music, it is fun and very familiar as all FF music is, especially of the fight music compared to VII. Next, thing I noticed was the leveling, very typical level system, gain a level and get a little better at everything, but the thing I noticed was that this game is a long haul grinder. I have put two hours of gameplay in, all of it fighting outside that first town trying to level up and am level 4, with about 600 exp to get to level 5, getting between 4 and 7 exp per battle, so it is rough. the next time I play I plan to venture a little bit forward to get some tougher fights and get some stuff to happen.
Lastly, I am just going to mention my play style and my plan for this blog. I play very grindy on FF Games, especially early. So it will be slow going, specifically this FF, before I have enough new information to constitute writing another blog entry. I hopefully will write once a week or every other week. Also, this blog is mostly for me and my personal quest to make a subjectively definitive list of the best entries from my favorite video game franchise. I will probably include tidbits and snippets maybe even an anecdote, factoid, or musing from my life outside of video games, but this will primarily be a general "Captains Log", if you don't mind the Star Trek reference, of my Final Fantasy progress and other nerdiness. I don't plan to post this to Facebook or any of the myriad of other social media places I could put this blog. So if, by chance, you ran across this blog, then congratulations you have definitely been spending too much time searching the blogisphere without a goal or aspiration of finding anything of substance or interest: just a nerd who is trying to hold onto his youth for as long as he can. Just ignore any errors you found in my spelling, punctuation, and grammar. Feel free to comment, if it is mean I will probably delete it anyway, but go nuts.
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