FINAL FANTASY

I've been into the Final Fantasy series since early 2021, but technically I started in December of 2020 when I decided to get into FFVII with some friends. At first I thought I'd stay only in that bubble but now I'm trying to play most of the classic games :)

I've played FFVII, FFIX, and FFX, and I'm some ways through a playthrough of FFIV. I've also played Dissidia which is where my branching out started so I have a gist of most characters and plots. I'm just in love with the science-fantasy worlds of FF and every narrative has really touched me so far. I know the earlier games may not be as dense but I'm always down for the magic of a JRPG adventure.

In-Depth:

All-Time Favorite Game:

(Spoiler Light)

As my first dive into the Final Fantasy Series, I may be emotionally biased in VII's favor, but of the games I have played so far it truly hit's all it's marks. It's thee most popular in the series and is undoubtedly overrated in comparison to the lack of recognition its peers receive, but it is somewhat earned. Final Fantasy VII, IX, and X all stand toe to toe in my mind as amazing, beautiful, and moving JRPGs, but where IX and X may stumble a bit, Final Fantasy VII . . . stumbles as well but manages to make a much stronger recovery. Everything about it comes together in a way that the others just barely miss.

But despite Final Fantasy VII's massive popularity, it somehow feels deeply under-appreciated for what it is. Remakes, Rebirths, and prequels have followed the legacy of this game to mixed reception, with prequel materials of the Compilations of FFVII in the mid 2000s being very hit-or-miss. Then recently in 2020 what was marketed as a next-gen remake of Final Fantasy VII, opted instead to be some odd meta-textual commentary prequel project, which despite everyone seeming to love I despise greatly. Mainly for the marketing. Almost everyone I've introduced Final Fantasy VII to has said that they were planning on buying the remake, and I have to stop myself from howling in dismay - IT IS THE WORST PIECE OF MEDIA TO START WITH FOR THIS GAME. But this isn't a take-down piece of Final Fantasy VII Remake (2020), it's a give-up of praise to Final Fantasy VII (1997)!

I am grateful every single day that I was able to play Final Fantasy VII with minimal plot spoilers (as minimal as you can with the greatest plot twist in video game canon under your belt), and a great appreciation for art as it is. The saddest part about the legacy of Final Fantasy VII to me is the circumstances under which it was first released, that led to a product of great ambition shot full of technical holes. Mainly being shoddy translation due to being the first localized project of its scale, blunt as an atom bomb graphical limitations due to being the series' first foray into 3D, and being drenched in its contemporary rules-of-cool that make it seem unapproachable today. But what is most impressive about the game is how it shines despite, and sometimes because, of these aspects.

The first thing that stands out about Final Fantasy VII is its graphics and artstyle, something that made it eye-catching in its prime and repulsive to most today. It's the most superficial yet critical reason why many automatically turn to the not-remake remake, and is deeply misunderstood in my eyes. Not the technical graphical fidelity and quality itself, the game just does comparatively look bad to its own contemporaries in early 3D, but it absolutely makes the most of its limitations.

The characters of VII are terribly crude with no texture-work and rough, cartoonish facsimiles of the characters, but the world of the game is brought to life with delightful pre-rendered backgrounds that do most of the heavy lifting for artstyle. This model would go on to be reused for the PS1 era of Final Fantasy, and for great reason. There is an unbelievable amount of artistry that was milked out of this set-up even from it's debut in VII, giving the artists complete control of the environment and cinematography of the game in a clever use of 3D's capabilities. Final Fantasy IX would go on to perfect this style to a tee, with naturally cartoony characters built for the overworld, and gorgeous texture work that made everything gel and age like fine wine, but there is something endlessly charming about VII's floundering with the style that adds so much to it in my eyes.

It obviously wouldn't have been worse if it had gone for actual textures and but theres something about the angular crudeness of the models that manages to match the roughness of the world of the game. I wouldn't have done away with the chibi-style at all either, aesthetic dissonance be damned! Hearing someone say that a cartoony or abstract style for a dramatic story detracts from it is the quickest way to have me up in arms defending it as a die-hard cartoonist myself. It very much helps the story and world strike a balance between serious and charming, and taps into the root aesthetics of the series to help it feel grounded. I've also heard the style of the overworld cutscenes compared to that of action figures being moved around, which is most certainly an unintentional but BEAUTIFUL feeling to evoke for the tone of the game. Anytime I see VII I'm infatuated with the way it shorthands it's scenes, and in doing so makes them more striking, focused, and well-composed than I think would be possible with a different style. The remake and VII's predecessor FFX are examples of this, losing composition and style for the sake of fidelity (though I'm most damning of remake and its overly generic cinematic style).

Past the presentation is the story of the game, which for a very complicated mix of reasons I believe is above that of IX and X. They are all wonderful, but in characters and world-building specifically I think VII has the others trumped. Final Fantasy IX is the most affected I ever was by a character and plot, but for the members of the cast that are brilliant, the other half or so are left out to dry. And while I feel as though themes of religion and mortality mix beautifully into the world and characters of FFX, there are certain character beats and aspects of the world that were undercooked and left me wanting more. And I won't even touch on the main villain's writing. Some of these victories may be due to the cyberpunk sci-fi nature of VII meaning a lot of the world is already filled in for me than a fantasy one having to be built more from scratch.

The main themes of the game of environmentalism, trauma, and systemic oppression being less abstract than the others may also be a part of this and how easy it is to relate directly to the cast and their struggles. It is not very easy to write a worthy anti-capitalist and environmentalist message due to its legacy being littered with preachy, fluffy, and ultimately shallow attempts. And with the edgy and dark presentation of the world of VII it'd be easy to assume it as similar, but it is actually a deeply nuanced story with so much heart. The cast is the most fleshed out and relatable of the games I've played owed to the stories dedication to faith in humanity over a hollow misanthropic worldview which it easily could have leaned on. The balance of humor and dreariness is at its best in this game, in a tone that can be earnest even in sarcasm. Which for my irony-poisoned and societally-disillusioned generation feels very familiar and comforting.

Cloud and Sephiroth are just about the best hero-villain duo I've seen, and I adore to no end how the plot twists and turns to deconstruct identity and agency. I believe many people see the plot to be some sort of disaster due to how confusing it can be, but besides a few plot holes the game was very fair in its use of smoke and mirrors. The main set up of it's mysteries - the Nibelhiem Flashback - is one of my favorite set-pieces in almost anything, with careful writing and iconic cinematography that deserves its over-reference. The story can absolutely be a mess at times, but all the supporting elements hold it up so strongly that I rarely ever find myself caring.

Like Zack's lack of spotlight in the original game which was explores with his characterization in Crisis Core. His only real moment to shine in VII is an out-of-the-way cutscene trigger at ground zero of the Nibelhiem tragedy. It's absolutely a shoehorned in moment for his character and a major plothole, but that somehow adds to the feeling of loneliness and grief with how distant his memory is. Crisis Core being supplementary material actually adds to this feeling with truly only Cloud and the player being able to engage with his memory before being forced back into the present of the game. It's not good practice to praise writers for what are ultimately their mistake, but goddamn if meta-textual moments like that don' touch my heart.

Besides these key strengths and charms of the game, a lot else about it just comes together. It's the most fun to play with the limit break system and speed being snappy and fun, and the low difficulty doesn't detract much from the gameplay. The soundtrack is the overall strongest to me, with the catchiest and most powerful motifs and themes contributing greatly to balancing the story's tone. Uematsu's classic magic does wonders for what could've otherwise felt like a rather cold cyberpunk world. The character and gravitas of the game managing to shine even through the godawful localization (which I highly recommend watching Let's Mosey to learn more about) speaks a lot to it's original strength in my opinion as well, and it's an experience not replicable with cinematic voice acting.

If anything is to be taken from this overview of the game, it's that it is a classic and great starting point for getting into Final Fantasy that has somehow been done too much and too little service as a standalone game. Never, and I mean NEVER, discount any game or artistic experience on merit of seeming low fidelity or dissonant in presentation, it's incredibly important to engage with art on far more levels than the most basic initial reaction it creates in you, and you'll miss out on so many experiences that highlight what truly makes art wonderful. Not perfection or traditional aesthetic beauty, but that pure drive to express new and meaningful ideas in interesting ways. Even on new and complicated hardware with limited disc space and nightmarish localization deadlines!

All-Time Favorite Character:

(IMMENSELY SPOILER-FULL)

In 2021, my senior ELA class read Shakespeare's Hamlet. Our unit started with the teacher introducing us the the idea of the English Literary Canon, and a video of a man I could best define as an Old English Turkey (with a wattle and everything) defending his claim that Hamlet - character and play - were the best things ever written. Being the great teacher he was, my ELA teacher introduced these while priming us with a healthy dose of skepticism, which a room of tired teenagers was happy to endorse at the claim of some stuffy old play allegedly being THEE best thing ever. It was partially just vapid anti-intellectualism, but it also of course was an insult to the diversity of cultures and story across the entire world (much of which isn't part of the Canon) as well as to the subjectivity of art. It made me go into the play of Hamlet with a smarmy distrust for any sense of quality within.

I was then very surprised to see that Hamlet was in fact, a masterfully written character in a deeply interesting and engaging play. I also saw similarities between him and the character of Kuja, as the character had been lodged deep into my skull for a year at that point and I was currently in the process of playing his game proper with my friends. Final Fantasy IX is very rich with references to theater. And the shorthand for that of course is Shakespeare. And the shorthand for Shakespeare is Romeo and Juliet or Hamlet. The former is alluded to quite a bit with the leading pair of Zidane and Garnet, with Zidane himself being a thespian and often acting out and quoting his own performances for a laugh of cheesy romantic moment. Hamlet, however, I feel is more subtly alluded to in the character of Kuja - with his flare for drama that makes the literal Shakespearean characters' heads spin, and a character arc surrounding the traditional theatrics and inevitabilities of revenge plots.

Part of Final Fantasy IX's obsession with theatrics is from it being a return to form for the series before it's full fledged leap into the next generation after a small dip into more sci-fi waters, away from its more fantasy roots. Unlike sci-fi which is expected to be more nuanced in theme and execution, fantasy is renowned for it's morally rigid, predictable, and fluffy stories, which very much defined the early Final Fantasy games. The series as quickly as it could began putting its spins on high fantasy, usually by tapping into more sci-fi elements for the twist, but there is undeniably still that sense of tradition and . . . theater in its stories. Theater in the sense of . . . that feeling that every now and then you are seeing a story so overdone that it might as well be a recital; an act with a very obvious stage and script, rather than an original world and story. But there is still a great rush to stories like that. The actors still perform with the gravitas of revolutionary parts, the tension can still be cut with a knife, and even if you know the ending, it still leaves you giving a standing ovation. This feeling is what Final Fantasy IX aims to elicit with its archetypal characters and many allusions to past games, while still going for new tricks and executing old ones with as much passion as if they'd been crafted yesterday.

This in my opinion, is very similar to the work of Hamlet, which more than anything is a meta-commentary on the revenge tragedy. The play is somewhat as if . . . instead of having a character who is the perfect archetypal brooding, revenge-seeking noble placed in his natural environment, you instead got an actual depressed and grieving Shakespeare fan, and told him he was now trapped in such a play. Hamlet's procrastinations and ruminations are a mix of foppish, self-absorbed laziness, but incredibly real and earnest grappling with a mix of grief, disdain, and purpose. And no matter how long he drags his feet, talks circles around the plot, or distracts people with puns, a play can only be 5 acts, and the inevitable ending concludes with as much bravado as if it had invented to concept of tragedy itself. This is seen a lot in Zidane as a sarcastic theatric placed into the valiant fantasy hero role, hamming it up for goofs and gaffes, but being forced to confront his demons wholeheartedly before his triumphant revival and final battle. But the ending for his role is that of the victor, what I'm more interested in, is his unlucky brother whom believed he was given the role of the revenge-seeking noble, but, forgot what genre he was in, and what the inevitable ending would always be.

Throughout the plot of Final Fantasy 9, Kuja is a comically vain and campy villain. He is obviously plotting against everyone, he sticks out like a sore, skimpily-dressed, thumb, and shows little to no remorse or reason for his actions beyond his own amusement at tragedy. This, already had me hooked when I first watched a playthrough of the game. I am someone whom for various reasons had a habit of overly romanticizing my life and assuming everything I did and that happened to me was part of some grand play of life, so I connected with him self-indulgently. He was the dark side of that; the fascination with harsh inevitability, and the catharsis of tragedy. But, that sadism does not lend itself to self-reflection. In the eve of the game's final act, it is revealed that Kuja's main motivation was that he was an alien created to destroy all life on the heroes' home planet of Gaia, but at the last minute his creator, Garland, discarded him. So he escaped his dead alien world of Terra for the life and culture of Gaia, and plotted his revenge and plan to SAVE Gaia from his cruel creator's machinations (with his own cruel machinations). Everything was going smooth, he had danced circles around every major player in the plot, including his creator, and was going to win - until, uh-oh! He isn't immortal as he had believed, nor does he even have a normal lifespan. Despite everything he'd done to reassert his identity as an individual, he was still just a weapon created with a purpose, and an expiration date attached to it. He was going to die soon.

This is when Kuja's character went from entertaining to earth-shattering for me. Completely unable to cope with this realization - that everything he did was for nothing, that there was no grand design he had orchestrated, and that his life was still subject to the aimless whims of nature - he snaps and goes on an omnicidal rampage. Flying to the ends of creation to destroy the source of all life, because: "Why should the world exist without me? That wouldn't be fair." This is where the core of Kuja's character is revealed - that of an egocentric, immature angel obsessed with the magic of life to the point of dysfunction. This is also where I've seen people roll their eyes at his character seeing this as another part of his shallowness, throwing a fit because of his vanity. But as someone who already saw myself in him, I knew exactly what this was and it made me A-D-O-R-E him. This wasn't just vanity, this was soul-consuming, insanity-inducing existential despair that the theatrics and and flamboyance were being used to cope with. The inevitable truth that a story - tried and true and infinitely repeatable - is supposed to soften with the promise of a virtual immortality, but which is still unbearable to face for someone as wrapped up in fantasy as Kuja was. Which played beautifully into the core themes of the game.

At the center of Final Fantasy IX, is the question of existence, legacy, and identity - fitting topics for a series on the eve of its reinvention. Death and the question of what they're living for haunts nearly every character of the cast. Mainly struggling with existential topics from all sides of a war consuming their world: coping with the immense grief of systemic slaughter, with the interpersonal grief of losing someone dear to you despite their unforgivable actions, and understanding your identity as a being brought into existence only for warfare. And at the center of this plot-defining war, is of course Kuja. Everything going wrong for the characters is from his plot which is ironically to save the planet and preserve life. At first it's believed that the queen of Alexandria, and mother of Garnet, is the source of all the turmoil as the instigator of the war, but soon she is back-stabbed by Kuja and all roads begin leading to him. Then, as the characters are led on their goose-chase of him, they find Garland, mastermind of the plot to extinct Gaians for the sake of prolonging his parasitic planet. But after he is disposed of and Kuja is left spiraling, the true villain of the story takes shape - the darkness of eternity, embodied through Necron, a being wishing to return the universe to a state of complete stillness and death.

To Necron, everything the cast had gone through was the wheels of fate turning, as cycles of existential fear only wrought more death upon the world, and the natural course of this was for all life to extinguish itself. Which to it was perfectly embodied in Kuja's actions. But as the series has concluded consistently from story to story, world to world, game to game, life is not about death. Death is inevitable, but not truly final, we live on in the memories of others and the legacy of the world we left behind, which is why the bonds we make and memories we share transcends the flesh and the grips of existential despair. Kuja's mistake was that he couldn't see beyond his own narrative, and in his course to destroy all cycles of life, he was damning himself and everything to a true death. But with friends by your side, anything, even death can be overcome - and thus the final battle of the game begins. A finale that any Final Fantasy or even high fantasy fan could see coming from miles away, but executed with the earnestness and gravitas of the first true epic ever told. And AS POWERFUL AS THAT to me, who like Kuja struggles with paralyzing existential anxiety, but seeks catharsis in narratives and stories. But the narrative of life is not in immortality, but in your memory - a life that only continue on because you cannot. And cultivating that memory through bonds, growth, and acceptance in life is how you reach true peace.

I, frankly, had never felt more seen, understood, and comforted by a character in my life. Final Fantasy IX is not perfect to me (as you can tell by the above essay on a completely different game), but it is the most a story has ever impacted me. It doesn't just end at Kuja either, though one of my largest complaints with the game is uneven quality in the main cast, the characters that are good are AMAZING, and all deal with the throes of existential dread in equally impactful ways, Vivi and Garnet being two of them. My second favorite character in the game behind Kuja however, is of course his brother and counterpart, Zidane. Whom I hope you don't mind me going on a side tangent about.

As I stated earlier, he somewhat got the better end of the stick in his placement into the hero role, but I am still deeply fascinated by the ways he mirrors Kuja, and the depth it adds to both their characters. One of my favorite set-pieces in the game I failed to mention was Terra itself and when it is revealed that Kuja and Zidane are brothers.

Zidane himself is more detached from the war than his peers, not having any personal stakes in it's raging besides the pain of his companions, which he is hit-or-miss in dealing with. But this and other oddities in his character are explained through the time the party spends on Terra. Zidane never felt he had a true home, and thus defines himself through his relationship with others and never lets on to his own angsts, which has the defect of causing his emotional advice to sometimes ring hollow as he's trying to solve problems he hasn't solved for himself. When he learns his true home is on Terra surrounded by mindless clones of himself, with an identity predefined as nothing but a weapon, he mentally crumbles within minutes, and the party must save him from his existential spiral.

The next time we see Kuja after it is explained he and Kuja share the same origin, it is only glanced over in the two's interactions as they immediately begin their previous antagonistic banter. But subtly, just from Zidane's own reaction to this knowledge, so much is said about Kuja along with Zidane. Specifically drawing attention to their paralleled use of theatrics as a crutch for feelings of existential loneliness and alienation, which as I've said means a lot to me. The fact that Zidane went mad with nihilism spending no more than an hour in a place Kuja was raised in for years, speaks volumes to his character as well, and at least for me makes me admire him for his mental fortitude.

Zidane at least in being raised on Gaia was given a foundation to build his identity through those who raised him, Kuja had to build his from scratch after being deemed useless by his creator and discarded from the only purpose he was ever given. The fact the identity he built was that of a callous, vengeful fop is as much his own moral failing as it was unlucky for him to have not found a better model in a time of emotional destitution. Which makes him heart-wrenchingly tragic and desperate as a villain. He holds both an iron grip on the plot of the game, yet it slips through his fingers like sand in the face of the grand design of fate. He dons the mask of a shallow, petty villain yet exhibits as much depth as the main hero himself. He is an unforgivable, harbinger of death and destruction, yet his greatest wish was to save himself and the fate of the planet he brought nearly to ruin. He couldn't bear a superficial death so greatly he almost brought about his own true annihilation.

A description of him that sends me into near hysterics everytime I think of it is from a translation of the Final Fantsy IX Ultimania (FF's traditional lore bible):

"With well-kept, long, silver hair that reaches down to his hips and skin as white as snow, his appearance is beautiful, but he has a cutting, brutal, narcissistic personality. As if to flaunt his own existence, he is fond of over dramatic posing and speaking theatrically."

"As if to flaunt his own existence" . . . How painfully vain yet innocent of him.

By the time we'd finished Hamlet in 2022, it had been about a year since I had first experienced Kuja's story and I was wrapping it up for the second time with my friends. Despite all his loafing and musings, Hamlet succeeded in his revenge and undoing by the end of the play. A play can only be 5 acts, and a tragedian must play his part. And the Old English Turkey had a point: Hamlet was a masterfully written and deeply resonant character in a story that feels somewhat timeless in its deconstruction of one of the most immortal tales that can be told. And similarly, as I finished Final Fantasy IX for the second time, I realized that a game can only be 3-4 discs, and fairytale villains must meet their demise as long as the tale of magical good and evils is retold across literature, film, or video games.

But despite everything, the Turkey's fatal flaw of appealing to objectivity still rang true. On top of the aforementioned issues with claiming any work to be "the best", it was clear from that man's interview there were personal factors informing his opinion beyond his limited range of literary expertise. But ironically, personal stake is what can make a character so great, despite it being what will always hold that greatness back from of being an "objective" truth. My reverence and adoration for Kuja as a character is far from objective, many people see him as vapid and lame, and even many who like him like him . . . wrong . . . in my eyes, at least. But those nuances of my experience relating to him are what makes him the character he is to me, and that he is to others. Much as Hamlet is a masterpiece to the Old English Turkey, and a joke to most of the other kids in my ELA class.

I am wary of anyone who tries to champion the idea of objectivity in art, for political and moral reasons, but also because it is just oxymoronic to say that objectivity can define art when it is the subjectivity of life which defines how art is created and experienced. So, know that when I state: "Kuja is the best character ever written, not just in the video game canon, but all media ever created", I mean it with that nuance.

Favorite Thing About The Series Overall:

Besides the consistently engaging, impactful, and memorable stories and characters the series has treated me to, one of the most rewarding aspects of being a fan are the staple elements of the series that appear in every game. Moogles, Summons, Chocobos, and a myriad of re-occurring names, spells and traditions can be found across the series from the 2D classics to the modern cinematic giants. As I said with Final Fantasy VII, these aspects and references help keep the series grounded in its identity, and with Final Fantasy IX it can be used to play into the theatrics of fate. But I think the most fulfilling aspect of these traditions is seeing how each game and story recontextualizes them, not just through new names or game mechanics, but how they are related to by the characters of the story.

One of my first exposures to this was going from Final Fantasy VII to IX, and seeing Ultima go from some pretentious spell an over-leveled dragon in the final dungeon wiped my party with incidentally, to a death knell of all of creation during the final fight against Kuja. Summons went from a fun gameplay mechanic to an emotionally important cultural touchstone of the white mages from VII to IX, and by X they were near the level of supporting cast with how involved they are in the plot and gameplay. Moogles and Chocobos in the more fantasy leaning of the games just serve as little distractions, but for a game like VII, deeply drenched in sci-fi and grittiness, their presence as rare fae still inhabiting the damaged land is more pronounced. It serves as un-intrusive fanservice, a way to make the game systems familiar for returning fans, and creative foundations to build around.

What I love about this more personally however is how it reminds me of subjectivity in real life, like I waxed about a bit in Kuja's essay. We all have basic human experiences and interactions with our world that can have completely different meanings to us based on a wide range of factors. To some, a phrase or invocation could be meaningless and vapid, to someone else it could hold deep power. To some, religion and mythology can be a fun experience, to others a distant cultural touchstone, or to others a deep emotional connection. And depending on context or circumstance, something silly and magical can be a cute distraction or a rare sign of hope. It adds an odd layer of authenticity to the series' characters and world to see this mimicked through these staples.

Gracest

Galaxy