Final Fantasy V

Even though I take notes while I play through each Final Fantasy game, it surprises me how difficult these posts still continue to be to write. And none harder than this one, thanks to my torn opinion on the game. Final Fantasy V does many things right, much better than its predecessors, but still falters in areas that just cannot be ignored. This was going to be a short post, and should have been. But I'm a person who can't let certain problems go, as small as they may seem to others.

As usual, let me get the easy things out of the way first. Music is the one area that all of the Final Fantasy games so far have not disappointed. Library of the Ancients has an especially good track, and I also enjoyed the music that plays during Chocobo/Galuf/humorous scenes. Graphics are pretty good, but being as though every game I've played so far has been a remake, this PlayStation port is technically the oldest game in the series I've played. If there's one thing that stands out about the graphics, it's that there are a wide variety of textures and areas in dungeons and caves.

Speaking of graphics and music, Final Fantasy V is different from those that came before it, in that it really shows emotion. When a character is sad, they bow their heads. When Galuf laughs, the sprite throws it's head back in laughter. A surprised character, such as when falling through a trap, will show humorous bulging eyes. It reminds me of Chrono Trigger, which is no surprise being the same company. The music ties in perfectly with the scenes as well, especially during sad scenes, which have two very moving tracks. And there is no shortage of those in this game. I'll go much more into that in a bit. To cap it off, characters have accents, which help give them personalities to their emotions.

The story itself is pretty good, and is so far the second best out of the five, behind Final Fantasy IV. Unlike the previous game though, twists continue occurring throughout the game, both minor and major. I only have two complaints on the story. First, Square reused the same plot device for the third game in a row: team is beat by the final boss (this time by being sent to N-Zone, basically the void between worlds), and the spirits of other heroes come to the rescue by waking them up and urge them to continue fighting. I don't know how they got away with that for three games in a row. The second problem is that it's too long. I put 42 hours into the game, at least six of which were solely spent on grinding. By two-thirds of the way through, I wanted it to be done. Unlike the past games, it wasn't just the final dungeon, but the story itself. The pre-final dungeon quest did not help either. It basically felt like the end-game Wind Waker fetch quest. The player cannot reach the final dungeon until they collect four tablets, which in turn unlock the 12 legendary weapons. Supposedly these weapons sealed away ExDeath (bad guy) the first time, yet none are actually required to be used to beat the game. What awful writing.

Okay, I admit it, my frustration with the game's length may be my own fault. I used a guide for this game, as I have done for basically each game before it. I followed it very closely as well, meaning obtaining all optional summons and magic spells that I would have normally missed many of. Since Final Fantasy V has an awful map, I found a guide necessary for saving me time, from wandering around...aimlessly. Not to go off on a tangent, but how could Square not update the map in any way for this port? I'm grateful that there even is a map to pull up, and that it has blinking white dots to indicate a town or cave entrance. There are multiple problems I found with the map. If you're going to create a large map (which I prefer), include variety of landmasses, which in turn creates areas that stick out as reference points. Having multiple deserts and a plethora of forests, mountain ranges, rivers and lakes, ended up just confusing me. I would also recommend having distinguishable continents, and naming them. I didn't realize how important both of these ideas (variety of landmasses and named continents) were in the previous games until I played Final Fantasy V. What made the map worse, was that every time I was just getting to memorize it, it would change. This happened twice, and the third version of the map was by far the most confusing. I'm not even going into the underwater version of the second and third maps, which I avoided when possible. Imagine the opposite of the maps, but without any landmasses to base one's location off of.

Returning to my main complaint, the game is just too long. This is too bad, since the last few dungeons during the fetch-quest are actually very good and interesting. By that point I didn't care, and wanted to blow through them as quickly as possible.

Which leads me right to another complaint, random battles. In the five games I've played in this series, I have easily run from the most battles in Final Fantasy V. Maybe it's just me, but the frequency of random battles is at least double that of any of the previous installments. Every five to ten steps would be another battle. I wouldn't care so much if the game wasn't aggrivatingly slow. Loading a battle takes three to five seconds. Exiting a battle takes three to five seconds, and I would pray that the enemy does not drop anything (99.99% of the time would be a cheap item of which I was already carrying 99), adding another three or four seconds. For a port they did a shoddy job. Anyways, yes, random battles were frustrating. It was not uncommon for me to run from nearly all battles in a dungeon, and fight only the boss. A boss that while not easy, also did not require any grinding to defeat, and until late-game would be taken down on the first attempt. Before you start believing that this is an easy game, it is not. Hold onto that thought though, I need to talk about other things before delving into that.

The theme of a shoddy port should be something you're starting to notice. The most noticible problem with this game, which ultimately turns most people away from this particular rendition, is the save glitch. I encountered this glitch within the first 30 minutes of playing and literally said "wow, f that". Imagine going into the save screen from the menu, and seeing a fuzzy screen, which after a few seconds turns blue, with the deformed figures of the characters off to the left. There is no text on the screen, so saving seems impossible. I read online that most of the time you can still save normally, but I didn't want to risk playing 25 hours and then losing all my data. That would put this run on a long-term hiatus. Unfortunately over the next week, I couldn't find the GameBoy Advance port/remake of Final Fantasy V in the three local stores (yet found Final Fantasy VI Advance and multiple copies of Final Fantasy IV Advance and Dawn of Souls), and wasn't up for paying $25 on amazon for a used copy I couldn't physically look at first.

I did as much research online as I could, trying to find out my odds of losing my game data. Turns out, permanently losing game data is rare, and more often than not the worst problem with be the game glitching out (I'll explain soon) or freezing. The freezing, which thankfully I never encountered, occurs when backing out of the save screen. Oh, I should mention that yes, one can still save without problem even within a glitched save screen. Wait for the fuzziness to disappear, and the screen to turn blue. Tap down once (from temporary save state to save port 1). Next screen, hit X (first save slot). Then hit X once more (confirm yes, save in this slot), and hear the confirmation tone for completion. This is the spot where the freezing can occur. I have read that by backing out of save screen too quickly can be the cause. This honestly makes sense to me, because after the save tone dings, if the player listens closely, they'll hear the music slow down for a second or two. I believe the game is having trouble continuing to load, and will just break if the player tries to back out and load even more game data. The answer for avoidance is simple: wait three or four seconds between each O button press to back out. Timely, yes, but better than a frozen game.

Short story time. My game glitched out just once after saving, and to be totally honest, it was pretty cool. I had just saved after traversing a ship wreckage, with the save point being below deck in a piece of cabin. After backing out of the menu, the room was glitched and completely black with white stripes. I could still see my character, the save point, and make out the general room features and two exits. I knew I should just turn the game off and back on, but part of me feared that my save data was corrupt (but always had two saved games, just in case), so I wanted to try exploring first. I figured maybe it was only this room that was glitched. I walked out the south exit, and was then standing outside the last village I had visited. I just started laughing. Somehow I had warped from a ship wreckage out at sea, past an ocean, a long river, and across another ocean to the safety of this land. Being that the story had long moved past that village, I'm pretty sure I would have been stranded in that area. Although safe, I suppose. I reset, and the game was fine. Anyways, the point being, the save glitch is blown out of proportion. I only encountered one problem during my 42 hours of playing.

I want to get into the battle system, the meat of most discussions regarding this game, but I want to mention a few other good things that stood out to me while playing. Inventory, as far as I could tell, is unlimited. Inventory management was such a pain in Final Fantasy IV, so this was a huge relief. Float no longer dispells itself when moving from one floor to another in a dungeon or cave, like it did in Final Fantasy IV (I can't remember about previous games). And really, why should it go away? Finally, I think that Square did a great job with the ending cutscenes and credits. It wasn't just a "Yay, we won!- roll credits", but includes scenes to show what each character is up to, and really wraps up the entire story.

Okay, the battle system and jobs. This is what kept me playing the game. At the beginning of the game, when there are only a few jobs, the system seems confusing. I didn't understand really, how to use one job and equip another job class' ability. As I kept playing though, and more job classes opened up, I could see the potential of characters obtaining abilities between multiple jobs and using them together for different strategies. Each job has innate abilities and normal abilities. Innate abilities will all be "on" when as that class, though normal abilities must be equipped to be used. However, when as the Freelancer (Bare) or Mime job, all innate abilities from mastered jobs are transferred over, as well as the best stats of the best mastered job. Once I learned this, I understood that by the end of the game, each character needed certain jobs mastered so that all of the innate abilities would transfer over to the Freelancer job, and I could choose the best combination of normal abilities (of which Freelancer gets two ability slots instead of the normal one choice, and the Mime receives three slots, though in turn loses the Attack and Item commands- more on that later).

Before I go into how the job system can be gratifyingly game-breaking, I must, as usual, get my qualms out of the way first. The player has no idea what ability they are currently learning, or how many abilities the current job even has. Jobs range from four to seven abilities, from around 400 to 999 Ability Points required (not respective to the number of abilities). This would have been enormously frustrating without a guide. It is not uncommon for the final ability of a job to be lackluster, even though the large amount of Ability Points (ABP) required seems enticing. I would have been in a fit of rage had I spent hours gaining ABP just to learn "Equip Rods" or something similar. The only reason to learn a job's final ability is for the innate abilities to transfer to the Freelancer class (yet the job class which has this final ability, Time Mage, does not have any innate abilities to transfer, and the Freelancer job can already equip all items!). Spending hours to gain enough ABP is not an exaggeration either. The Player receives one or two ABP per battle at the beginning of the game, up to five to seven later in the game. When considering how slow each battle is to begin and end, acquiring hundreds of ABP takes way too long. Even with using a smart strategy, to kill multiple particular enemies in one Blue Spell hit to obtain four to eight ABP per battle, grinding still took multiple hours. Though the time spent was worth it, as the outcome resulted in some fun and nearly game-breaking battles.

I'll give one example, since this battle stands out in my mind, so much so that I took notes on my exact strategy to win. This was not a fun battle, but every Final Fantasy game has at least one of these. About halfway through the game, the player must fight against purely elemental bosses, in this case four identical crystals. Each crystal had a different element, each with 8,000 HP. The problem is that while they all have rather weak attacks, when their HP drops low enough (below half), they begin to cast powerful -aga level spells which hit the whole party. The goal is to kill one at a time, but unforunately the best attacks hit all enemies, and most of my team had counter-attack as an innate ability, so they would whittle down the HP of an enemy I didn't want to target.

I died five times before succeeding. A guide can only help so much when every player's team is going to consist of different jobs and abilities. My strategy ended as follows (I also post for myself to read this in the future). Battle starts, my Ninja casts Float (a Time Mage ability) on the entire party. My Ninja and Knight then held back and defended for the time being. I did not want them doing any damage just yet. My White Mage continually healed the small amount of damage taken. For three rounds, I had my Black Mage summon Titan (a Summoner ability) to do damage to three of the four crystals, with the fourth gaining HP (holding at full HP) with each attack. After the third summon, I had my White Mage use Gil Toss (a Samurai ability), dealing around 4,500 damage to each of the crystals. Unfortunately, their HP was not yet low enough to kill them off, which I then believed to be another death. One crystal used Fire3 (Firaga), killing my White Mage and leaving my others with precariously low HP. I was fortunate enough to summon Titan once more before the other two crystals with low HP were able to use their very damaging spells (Aero Rake and Aqua3, as I learned from previous failures). This killed those three off. The Gil Toss left the last crystal with low HP as well, so it started casting Earth Shaker. And this did nothing, thanks to the Float cast early on. My Knight then used Sshot (attack four times) and my Ninja attacked as normal, and the battle ended successfully. Really though, these battles are not fun, and while there are definitely more ways to win, it still shouldn't take this much strategy. There was a second elemental boss battle later in the game, which while I won on the first try, felt much worse. There were three boss enemies instead of four, but this time they continued to throw out moderate to heavy damage along with debilitating status effects. What's worse, is that they all had to be killed within a few seconds of each other, or the dead would revive. I prefer most other boss battles, which require little strategy other than figure out its resistance, its weakness, attack, and stay alive. Listen Square-Enix: elemental boss battles are not fun!

Enough ranting about bosses and raving about the job class system (which words still can't explain well enough). I have a beef with the Final Fantasy series for something else: death. Final Fantasy V got me thinking a lot about death in the series. Really, why does every Final Fantasy game have so much death? There are multiple staples of the series I have noticed: Cid, an airship rising from the ground/sand/water (Final Fantasy V continued this trend, again), Moogles, and death. There continues to be characters, whether in the party (FFII, FFIV, and FFV) or important NPCs (every FF game so far), who die off. Why does this need to be a plot point to drive the story forward? I'm not denying that it works. It makes the player more immersed with the story, and feel for certain characters who have attachment to those who die. For the most part, there are characters who sacrifice themselves in order for the party to accomplish the task at-hand, whether it be a minute fetch-quest or a large part of the overall quest. I just think that this type of plot device has become stale after five games, and hope the trend fades away, or is at least a rare surprise (I'm looking at you, Final Fantasy VII). I will admit though, that Final Fantasy V has the saddest and most emotionally jarring scenes of the first five Final Fantasy games.

Speaking of death, let's talk about Pokemon for a moment. I've always thought that the idea of being KO'd in Pokemon games, with never any Pokemon actually dying, pretty funny. None ever die, but can be revived at a PokeCenter or within battle via certain items. In RPGs, especially the Final Fantasy series, characters can die in cutscenes. Yet for some bizzarre reason, cannot be raised with any items. These same characters can die hundreds of times in battles, and be raised with magic or items without any problem. The same magic and items, with characters that have plenty of these items and MP I should add, almost never come into play during these cutscenes. And the developers give zero reason as to why. I never really considered it (thought about it occasionally, but never really cared, being that it was a plot device) until a cutscene in Final Fantasy V where they actually try using Cure3 (Curaga), then Raise, and then a Phoenix Down, all to no avail. The text then reads, "... (omitted, spoilers) flame flickered out..." I like that for once, the developers, while not giving any explantion, showed that items and magic have no effect. My point is two-fold: Square-Enix and other developers/publishers need to give more effort into why characters cannot be brought back from the dead this one particular time, and that the Pokemon games no longer look so foolish. Nintendo and GameFreak, at least with the Pokemon series, avoided being involved in this discussion because Pokemon never die. Just something to think about.

I finished* Final Fantasy V. I'm disappointed in myself, because I couldn't bring myself to finish the game properly, however. I died on the final boss four times, each being a 20-30 minute battle, without cutscenes. Thankfully there's a save point 30 seconds away from the final boss, a first for the Final Fantasy series. But this boss is just plain tough. Two forms, the second being what I cannot beat, no matter my strategy. Unfortunately all the good strategies I've found online use different parties and abilities than what I have, and I don't feel like grinding for at least two more hours for Exp. and ABP. So I took the easy way out: had a Chemist combine a Maidens Kiss with a Holy Water, and used it on the first form. After defeat, the battle ended without transforming into the second form. Yes, I cheated, and I'm ashamed for it. I'm still debating returning to level up, because I don't want all of my hard work and planning for my jobs and abilities go to waste.

Yet, who can resist the allure of Final Fantasy VI...

Quarterly Update!

I play quite a few games. There's no denying that. I may not put in as much time per game as others may (especially those who play online), but I have a problem with creating a backlog. A backlog of unfinished games. Sure, I create a blog post about what I played the past year, but are my thoughts really that clear? Are the highs and lows of each game well represented? Do I ultimately understand why I put down a certain game and started another one? These are questions that have lead me to thinking that a quarterly update on what I'm playing and finished may be a better idea. My end-of-year post won't go away, and not all games I've played recently will be included in quarterly updates. Ultimately, I just need to post more often, and not just about Final Fantasy.

Yes, I finished Final Fantasy V. This deserves its own post, which will be the next one coming. I have yet to get my thoughts in order though, since I'm torn on how I feel. It's a great game. But I've gotten to the point where comparing Final Fantasy games has become difficult.

I should mention that the blog post I mentioned in my 2013 Games Recap, regarding my opinion on the open-world genre, is still something I'd like to do. The most recent game I've been playing (outside of Final Fantasy V) is Saints Row IV. This is yet another game that shows what new ideas a developer can bring to the open-world genre, and I'm really enjoying it. It uses the same world from Saints Row: The Third, but due to another crazy plot, the player now has superpowers. This game feels like a mashup of Crackdown 2 and Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. However, it just feels unpolished when compared against Saints Row: The Third. This is likely due to Volition's previous parent company, THQ, going bankrupt and then being pickup up by Deep Silver (who is in turn owned by Koch Media), all in the midst of SRIV game development. Volition has a long ways towards catching up to Rockstar, but I believe they've become the biggest contender.

Changing subjects, Microsoft had some great sales on Xbox Live Arcade games from October through December this past year. I ended up buying thirteen games from those sales, not including two full Games on Demand games. Many I haven't even started, but I've given others a shot. None have had the lasting power of Spelunky though. Every few weeks I play it again, trying to get just a bit further. The game only has five worlds, each with four stages, but it is not an easy game. I have died a lot. Not on the scale of Super Meat Boy or even The Binding of Isaac, but it sure feels like a lot. Yet, it never phases me. Every time, I understand why I died, and know full-well that it was absolutely my fault. The game is programmed very well, and the controls are fluent and fit perfectly. Two things stand out to me as to why I enjoy the game so much. First, the levels are always random, including difficulty. Take the Jungle for example, the game's second world. Typically, stages start as normal, random levels. Sometimes, "The dead are restless", and are populated by zombies. Sometimes, "You hear water running", and the bottom of the stage, where the exit will be, is an ocean full of deadly piranha. Or worst of all, the level will be nearly pitch black, save for a torch which must be carried around to see. The game won't care if you just had a great or poor run, the levels and difficulty will be random. The player just needs to adjust and learn about how to avoid making any mistakes (health is very low, and spikes are instant death). This leads to my second enjoyment: the ghost. Take too long exploring a stage, and an invulnerable ghost will appear and slowly drift towards the player for a one-hit death. The player must move quickly through the stage, knowing the ghost appearing is absolute. It may take me years, but I will eventually beat Spelunky.

The other XBLA games are good, but not on the same level as Spelunky. I beat Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons. It's not as good as others have claimed, but it presented gameplay that I can't recall seeing throughout an entire game. The player controls both brothers, each with a controller stick. Their actions are initiate via the left and right triggers, respective to the character and also the controller sticks. Puzzles are simple, but revolve around treating each player's hand as one of the characters, and separating them. It can be hard to grasp at first, especially when the brothers cross paths, leaving the player's hands controlling opposite of what they see on the screen. The game was short and had a strange story, but was worth the few dollars I paid for the unique experience.

I've tried multiple times, but I just cannot get into Outland. The Metroidvania genre typically appeals greatly to me, but something about this game just doesn't "click". Maybe it's the feeling of the sparse and large areas, making it feel slower than it actually plays. It could be that the combat feels slow and clunky, when compared to its vastly superior fathers, the 2D Metroid and Castlevania games. I'm not sure but I'm disappointed with the game so far. Which is too bad, because the Ikaruga-esque color switching premise in a Metroidvania game still sounds awesome.

Dust: An Elysian Tale, on the other hand, is a Metroidvania game done right. At least for the most part. Dust is a complete 180 from Outland. The world has small stages, combat is quick and feels fresh every time, and the graphics are vibrant. Yet, why did I quit playing the game? It could have been that the game was too non-linear. The amount of side-quests was overwhelming, and I wasn't even sure if I was heading toward the story-progressing goal. The answer, is Spelunky. I returned to the more enticing game. I would rather take a beating and have my ass handed to me by a tiny bat or clearly visable spikes, than be drawn into the world of Dust.

Perhaps this is why I started playing Dark Souls a few weeks ago. I have been wanting to play this game for quite a long time, but every time I looked at the game sitting in my shelf, I could only think of the stories of rage. Rage and thrown controllers, of frustration of the game's difficulty. Players who had absolute hate for the game. Yet it was other stories, of perseverance and satisfaction that players would feel for continuing on and coming to terms with what the game holds, that made me want to play it. And I have, for about five hours. I have died six times, if I recall correctly. Not unlike Spelunky, every time I have died I knew that it was my fault, and what I probably should have done differently. I have yet to feel any rage during this game. Every enemy is its own battle, and while the lesser skeletons are one-hit kills, they are not to be toyed with or treated as fodder for souls. What I find interesting is that while both games sit together, known for their ruthless difficulty, they sit at opposite spectrums in terms of speed. Thanks to the ghost, Spelunky is about quick decisions and accuracy. Yet from my experience, Dark Souls pushes the player to slow down, and take time to ensure victory in each situation. I've considered the distance between fire pits (save points) in Dark Souls, and so far they're really not that far apart. When populated by smart enemies, possibly around any and every corner, the distance feels like an eternity in time.

Okay, so how about this for a transition: Dark Souls is likely the hardest RPG I've ever played. Paper Mario: Sticker Star, is likely one of the easiest. Somehow, it gives me the kind of frustration I should be feeling in Dark Souls. Not from the enemies, but from how long the game is. Sticker Star is what I played before starting Dark Souls (yes, I'd rather play Dark Souls than Sticker Star...think about that for a moment) while taking a break from Final Fantasy V, after I finished Alice: Madness Returns (more on that shortly). Sticker Star may be a ton of fun, but it just never feels like I'm making any progress. Experience points and leveling are gone, leaving the only reason to enter battles is to collect coins. Stickers are everywhere to fight with, and with the correct button timing, the most basic of stickers are pretty useful. I wouldn't care so much about coins if they didn't feel so necessary to beat bosses. More coins means more actions per turn in battles, thanks to the battle slot machine. Yes I'm just ranting, but I'm frustrated with the game. I quit for two reasons. I found out that each boss has a weakness to a particular single, special sticker. The player is given a very general hint on what it is, but won't know until they reach the boss. By then, if the player doesn't have it, it's game over and back to the save point (usually through the whole stage, a good 20-30 minutes). To further the frustration, these special stickers take up anywhere from four to nine spaces of normal stickers, so the player can't just lug them all around. The other reason I quit, which really drove me away, was finding out that I was only on the third world, and the game had at least seven. Gladly returned it to the backlog.

Okay, back down the rabbit hole. I finally finished Alice: Madness returns a few weeks ago, and boy that game did some things tremendously well...and other things not so well. As many reviewers have pointed out, the worlds are just beautiful. These are seriously some of the best worlds I have digitally stepped foot into. My only wishes are that they weren't so long, and along with that, were more of them. The game had just six worlds, or chapters. Each was one very long stage, with save points being random and automatic. Developers need to learn: unless the game is based around or built up around save points, they should either be manual or close together, or both. I understand save points intentionally being distant as a difficulty measure (see: most JRPGs or sidescrollers), but as I get older my time is more valuable and limited, so I need one of the two. This is what had me put the game away for months. The gameplay and combat brought be back though. I don't even know how to explain it, but it's a third-person action game done right. The only other games that have outdone it in the combat category would be Arkham Asylum/City (both amazing games, which reminds me that I need to finish Arkham City). Combat is very fast, weapons are varied, and chaining is fluent and fun. Another area which Alice excels at is platforming. This puts it in a very small group of 3D platformers I enjoy, along with Mario games and Banjo-Kazooie. Finally, the last reason I highly recommend Alice: Madness Returns, is its emotional plot. The original game, American McGee's Alice, was a take on the Alice in Wonderland story. This game, the direct sequel, has Alice returning to Wonderland in order to solve the mystery of her family's death from a house-fire, for which she is blamed. I won't spoil anything, but how the game plays out made me appreciate writers for games, for how well they can weave a twist throughout a story.

Last two games I want to talk about, both of which I got from those sales I mentioned. SSX and Tony Hawk's Pro Skater HD. SSX is pretty fun. That's all I can think about for that game. It could be because THPS HD is both really cool and quite disappointing, so I have more thoughts on it. The good news: classic Tony Hawk is back, with small levels, multiple goals, and tight controls. The bad: only seven levels, tight controls are not as good as I remember, and over half of the music is new, which means 90% of what is in the game now stinks. To make matters worse, there is no option in the menu to change the set list (THPS 3 onwards had this option, c'mon!). Out of all of the games I've purchased during the sale, the $7.50 on this is the most regretted, beyond even the $4.00 on Outland.

So that's the majority of what I've been playing since my 2013 recap post. I've also put a decent amount of time into Fallout 3 again, to get the remaining seven achievements (now two). Other games I've played, but not enough to warrant expansion in this post: Miner Dig Deep (always relaxing and fun), The Bridge (not very far yet), Deadlight (not very far), and Sonic Generations (not very far, and I was never the biggest Sonic fan anyways).

Next post will be about Final Fantasy V. Hopefully I can get my thoughts together soon, because the sooner I do, the sooner I can start Final Fantasy VI.