Life in the OC is full of waiting.
It’s about 10 days until the release of Final Fantasy XII. I’ve been playing video games for a long time, and I’ve been playing Final Fantasy games since Day 1 back in 1990.
So, I though a good way to waste time is to talk about my favorite Final Fantasy Games in Order from most, to least. Why? Meh. I don’t know. No one is going to read this! :-)
First off is Final Fantasy IX.
Some people may read this and go, “Bdwaaaaaaaahh!?!” I don’t know why people hate this game. I love it. Cool characters, all of which are likeable, even if Zidane has a tail and looks like David Bowie. Even the villain is likeable. Kinda’ sad, really. Okay, so I don’t remember why I liked him or felt sorry for him. I just remember that I do. I owned this game, but it somehow disappeared. I borrowed it from Ryan, probably two or three years ago. He prolly thinks his copy disappeared, too.
Second on my list is Final Fantasy IV.
My first memory of this game involves how I actually obtained a copy. My first Final Fantasy as I had said before, was Final Fantasy 1. This game came out in the US, two years later as Final Fantasy II. To be chronologically correct, though, I’ll refer to it as Final Fantasy IV. This was the first Final Fantasy for the Super Nintendo. For the first time (for me), the characters have names. That was weird. This game was more like an interactive movie, than a video game. Within hours, I was emotionally connected with the characters. I also found the battle system quite interesting. Instead of entering each character’s commands a the start of a turn, you enter commands when their turn comes up. Time is always moving! Though this is commonplace in 90% of RPGs now, this was such an interesting concept. So how did I obtain my copy? Well, I lived in the middle of nowhere growing up. No, literally. Middle of nowhere. The closest town was about 10 miles away. That town only had your basic necessites such as a grocery store, and and Ames department store for clothes. The nearest big city and mall was about 90 minutes away. We were friends with the owners of the Sprout Brook Country store, about two miles down the road. The Owners son had a copy of this game, but had no time to play it. I borrowed it, in exchange for Mario Paint. After falling in love with the game, I had requested to purchase it from him. I knew the game cost about $80 from my few trips to the mall. I had saved up about $100 from allowances, so that I could purchase it. When I spoke with the store owner, she asked how much I wanted. I offered $60, she said, “How about $20?” Sold! I played this game for probably two years straight. Beating it, starting over, and loving the story and characters again and again. The nostalgia around this game is so sharp in my memory.
Next up, in third, is Final Fantasy X. This game was originally scheduled to come out in January of 2002, I believe, however, due to popular demand, Square pushed it up to mid-December of 2001. This game is full of sadness, yet the characters are so cheery. The game takes place in the world of Spira, whose name seems quite apropriate, when you consideral the spiral of death that takes place in the world. Basically, you’ve got this guy named Yevon, who is the ruller of a city of Summoners called Zanarkand. Zanarkand goes to war with the City of Bevelle. Bevelle is ridiculously overpowered, and Yevon knows that his city won’t survive, so he takes all of his people, turns them to stone, so that they can create a giant summoned beast named Sin. Using Sin, he destroys all of Bevelle’s technology and tells people that the only way to get rid of Sin is to destroy all of their technology and maybe, some day, Sin won’t ever come back. Nice story, except it’s not true. Well, it’s a game, so that’s the reason, it’s not true, but it turns out he was lying to the people of Bevelle. Sin will always be there. Kinda’. You see, Yevon’s daughter, Yunalesca, also a summoner, found a way to defeat sin. It’s a trick called the Final Summoning. Basically, Sin can be destroyed by having a summoner take one of their most loved friends or family members and having them turned into the final summoning, which is able to defeat Sin. Unfortunately, the summoner loses their life by performing the summoning. So Sin is gone, right? Wrong. Yevon still lives inside of Sin. He uses the body of the final summoning to create a new Sin to destroy the world’s technology. Thus, the cycle begins again. And so it continued for 1,000 years until the time that the game takes place in. The cast of heroes find a way to not only stop Sin, but defeat Yevon, so that he can’t create a new Sin. Hooray heroes!
Well, that’s my top three. I’ll see if I can get the next set up soon. Ten bucks says I don’t!