My thoughts on Final Fantasy XIII-2.February 25, 2013 by

Includes some spoilers, but not a lot. Mostly just concerning character appearances.

This is pretty late, but whatever. :p I finished the game and then got distracted and forgot that I needed to write a review for it.

If you liked FFXIII, I can’t think of a reason not to like FFXIII-2.

A lot of it is very similar to its predecessor but at the same time, some of the complaints that people had were fixed, namely the linearity and lack of sidequests (that didn’t involve fights, anyway).

The battle system is largely the same but also has a couple of minor differences and one major one. One small difference, which is clearly a positive thing, is that the leader dying doesn’t automatically end the battle. Whoever is second-in-command takes over so that the other party member can be revived. Another small change is the crystarium. Instead of each role having its own tiered screen, it’s all together, more like FFX’s sphere field. It honestly doesn’t make an important difference but I slightly preferred the old system.

The big difference is, of course, the fact that you no longer have a third party member. Well, a human one, anyway. Instead, you capture monsters and one of them (at a time) acts as the third member. I can see why some people might like it better this way, but I prefer characters. For one thing, they’re actually a part of the story, and for another, there are a shitload of monsters you can choose from. I don’t like RPGs with a bunch of characters (I think seven is basically the perfect number), which is what this felt like. It’s good to have options but there’s such a thing as too many. So in that respect, I preferred FFXIII’s system.

Unlike a lot of people, I loved the cast of FFXIII. Therefore, since the sequel only has two main characters, I was pretty much going to not like the cast as much by default unless they were a couple of the best characters ever. They weren’t, but I did in fact like both Noel and Serah. Serah doesn’t start out as a fighter but she has a tough attitude while being vulnerable, but not to the point where she’s just a damsel in distress. Noel is both a great fighter and is a protector (both literally and with his personality). He’s also a little like Snow, which is why Noel actually gives Snow a hard time even though he doesn’t even really know the guy. For anyone who didn’t like Snow, fear not—Noel may have a couple of similar personality traits, but he’s definitely a less annoying character (even though I didn’t hate Snow, I can understand why people did). The cool thing is that every main character from FFXIII-2 shows up briefly (with Hope and Lightning being in it the most). I got giddy when Vanille and Fang appeared. :p

The villain of XIII-2, Caius, was definitely better, and Serah and Noel were both good, but I still have to give it to XIII for the cast since I pretty much liked all of them.

The story was nothing special, so it’s similar to XIII in that way. However, I do apparently happen to like games dealing with time travel since I liked this, and I also loved FFVIII and Chrono Trigger. There’s always some amount of confusion involved since it’s dealing with time and changing stuff around, but I thought the game did a good job with it.

I like the concept of checking out the same areas but in different times so that you can do other things and see what’s changed. On the other hand, I can see some people thinking of it as repetitive, so I suppose it can be a double-edged sword. I was a fan of it, personally. Some of the sidequests involve having to travel from one time to another, which I enjoyed. While the sidequests themselves aren’t in depth, they’re still definitely more than just killing an enemy. I mean, some of them are that, but some are more than that, which is more than I can say for XIII.

I also liked the puzzle aspect when dealing with time paradoxes. Granted, the clock puzzles could get really frustrating, but for the most part, I appreciated that part of the game.

It had a pretty memorable boss fight as well. I liked the strategy involved. I'm referring to the very final battle, though, because the three short ones right beforehand are rather easy.

Anyway, there's definitely not a big gap between the two games. If you liked FFXIII-2, you should like this one. If you didn't, you probably won't love this one, but you might like it more depending on what parts of XIII turned you off. It's a shorter game and getting the Platinum isn't really any easier than it was in the first one due to a couple of specific trophies.

Overall, I enjoyed it quite a bit.

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My thoughts on Final Fantasy IV.August 27, 2012 by

Includes spoilers.









1. X
4. VII
5. IV
6. IX
7. VI

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Final Fantasy Celebration: SummonsJanuary 30, 2012 by

One of the staples of the Final Fantasy series is the concept of summons. Whether they’re called Summons, Eidolons, Espers, Guardian Forces, Avatars, or Aeons, they’ve been a part of Final Fantasy since the third game. A lot of them are recurring, and sometimes they have more of a purpose than just being summoned in battle to help out your party. They also have their own respective strengths and weaknesses, sometimes related to magical elements. I’ve only played VI, VII, VIII, X, and XIII, so this is basically going to be based on their respective systems regarding summons.


Final Fantasy VI

VI had by far the most with around thirty. Other than being involved in the story, Espers are important because they’re essential for learning different magical spells. Each one has its own abilities to learn, which is done by equipping one and battling with it and thus, gaining points toward said abilities. Because of how the final boss fight played out, I spent extra time making sure a lot of the characters had a majority of the abilities. Other than that, though, I only summoned them to battle a few times, and that's not an exaggeration. I simply didn't find them advantageous at all in that respect. Instead, I stuck with the magical abilities I had learned from them.


Final Fantasy VII

Then there’s VII. In this entry, summons are just that: summons. You do need to have one equipped to use it, but you don’t gain any special abilities from any of them. While I didn’t find myself using them too much, I definitely used them more here than in VI. I even went as far as to obtain the Knights of the Round summon, which is pretty time consuming. I only used it a couple of times so as to not make battles too easy, but it was badass, for sure. I managed to get through the final boss without using it. Overall, though, I can’t recall using summons that much in VII.


Final Fantasy VIII

Here we go. Summons, known as Guardian Forces this time around, are incredibly important in VIII. They’re involved in the story and the gameplay, and are obtained by either beating them in battle or drawing them from another boss. I ended up using them a lot more than I had expected based on VII and XIII (I played those both before this one). Similar to VI, GFs are pretty essential in general battling because of the junction system. Instead of worrying about leveling up your characters, it’s all about gaining the abilities that your GFs have available. Their respective elemental qualities come into play quite a bit.

My personal favorite was Diablos. I used that one over and over on the giant Tonberry in order to acquire that particular GF. Diablos did the maximum amount of damage and was just badass in general. Quazecotl was probably my most used one (aside from in the above situation) since I had it junctioned to Squall right from the beginning and basically never removed it from him. I obtained every GF except for Leviathan. Supposedly I didn't draw it from whatever boss had it, but I find that odd considering I always made sure to check the draw list every time I faced a boss or new enemy. Oh well. :p


Final Fantasy X

Out of the five I’ve played, FFX seems to have the best balance when it comes to using summons. I used them less than in VIII but more than in the other three games. They didn’t have to be used most of the time but came in handy in certain battles, or just when I was too lazy to have a drawn out battle. I also used them at times to get their limit breaks ready for a big upcoming battle just in case I needed to use them. Aeons, as they’re called in FFX, are obtained by completing trials, which each involve a puzzle.

Like some of the other entries in the series, they play a role in the story in that they’re used by summoners to help them on their pilgrimage. It also had a few extra Aeons you could obtain by doing a little extra work: Yojimbo, Anima, and the Magus Sisters. All of which, as far as I know, were unique to this game, and the latter two were pretty awesome. I used Yojimbo all of once. Anima and The Magus Sisters--especially the latter--were pretty damn powerful. Out of the normal ones, I definitely used Bahamut the most after obtaining it, but I used the other ones throughout the game as well. Like I said, FFX just seems to have had a really good balance with summons. There’s also a point in which you have to fight all of them. They were extremely easy but it was also kind of sad to have to kill your Aeons. You can also pit your Aeons against another summoner's (which are the same), which are a little harder.


Final Fantasy XIII

Having played FFX when I was a kid, I remembered very little. What I did seem to recall, though, was that summons were actually useful. That’s why I was surprised when, upon playing my second ever FF game (XIII), I found that they were almost entirely useless. The only time I ever really used one was when I was battling Adamantoise over and over for an item that you can sell for a shitload of money. They seemed to provide almost no advantage in battle. There are also only six, one for each main character, all of which you obtain by beating them in a fight. It is cool, though, how they're used in cutscenes by the characters, such as when Fang summons Bahamut when they enter Gran Pulse and when they all summon their respective Eidolons when they return to Cocoon.


The most known summon is probably Bahamut. I’ve known someone on the boards here for years who has the name BahamutXXXX, so I pretty much knew about Bahamut before ever getting into the series. Plus, it flies. Flying is always cool. And his special attack is MegaFlare. Other notable ones that have popped up at least a few times include Shiva (ice), Ifrit (fire), Leviathan (water), Alexander (holy), and Odin.

So how do you guys feel about the Final Fantasy summons? Do you prefer when there’s a huge emphasis on them, when they’re only used sparingly, or when there’s a balance? Do you have a favorite?

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My Top Final Fantasy CharactersJanuary 27, 2012 by

This is for GodofMoogle's Final Fantasy celebration.

There are, of course, some others that I’ve liked that I simply don’t have as much to say about. Celes, Terra, and Locke from VI were pretty good, for instance. Tifa was my favorite in VII (not a big fan of that cast at all). Quistis from VIII was pretty good, mostly for the fact that she liked mocking Squall and had a more mature attitude than most of the others. Most of the cast of X was good (there wasn’t much to Kimahri but there was nothing wrong with him, either, and Wakka was definitely annoying at times but okay others). XIII’s female cast was very good, not so much with the male side but I didn’t actually dislike any of them, either. With that said…

While Squall acts like the outsider of the group, the real outsider is Rinoa. She’s the only one that didn’t grow up in the orphanage and is the only one who isn’t a trained soldier. Despite that, she’s responsible for heading up a vigilante team trying to make things better (and going against her father at the same time even if he doesn’t know it). After everyone’s past is revealed, she questions her place in it all, but ultimately chooses to keep fighting. And although she does have to be saved by Squall, Rinoa never really comes off as a damsel in distress. After she comes back from space, she gives herself up for the safety of the world because she can’t be sure she won’t be used again by Edea. She just has a likable personality and also immediately joins Quistis in that she tends to mock Squall. I always found that entertaining. How can you not give credit to the girl who finally gets him to open up a bit? I think the fact that she wasn’t someone from his past helped with that, since Quistis was similar but never managed to break that shell. And the idea that Rinoa ends up as Ultimecia? Poignant. I know that technically it’s not confirmed, but I always assumed that’s what we were supposed to believe.

Fang is mostly on here for her personality and combat. Along with Snow, she doesn’t have much in the way of development, although she does at least have some back story. It does add a little something to her character knowing that she was once Ragnarok and took on the responsibility herself because Vanille couldn’t go along with it. Mostly, though, I just really like her lighthearted attitude, and her personality makes for some interesting interactions with other characters (specifically Lightning and Vanille). Along with the other two females in the cast, Fang was almost always in my party for battles. I do take issue with her random freak out where she turns against Vanille, but I understand her position earlier on where she’s seriously thinking about just fulfilling their Focus. She’d rather turn to crystal for a time and then come back than simply die, which makes sense. Ultimately, she does do that by combining with Vanille to become the true Ragnarok, but they do it to save the world.

Lulu might not have the depth or character development of others on here, but she had enough when paired up with the best aspect of her: her personality. No, not her outfit. :p She and Auron are very much alike with their laid back and blunt attitudes. This is especially true for her in regards to both Tidus and Wakka. Lulu is able to read the two of them pretty easily. Plus, we find out that she was in love with someone who died (Wakka’s brother) and that she sees Yuna as a sister, so it’s hard for her to knowingly be guiding Yuna to her death. Before that, she mostly comes off as cold, but that’s just her attitude and her exterior. She has a noticeably more mature demeanor than Wakka but you also see that she’s a bit naïve in one similar way (religion wise) toward the end of the game in the scene with Yunalesca. She was also obviously useful in combat since she was the default black mage.

I doubt this one is surprising. Auron seems to be a pretty popular character overall. I think the main reasons for that are his combat skills and his blunt attitude. Even though the combat system in FFX made it so that I switched out characters more than in the other games, Auron was still my most used due to his prowess. I know part of it relies on which paths you take on the sphere grid, but it seems like Auron is definitely supposed to be the strongest physically, and it shows during fights.

His story, although not much of a twist, is pretty cool. He’s hanging on to the living realm to fulfill both a promise to Jecht to take care of Tidus and to finally put an end to Sin. Auron had no idea about the sacrifice Braska was going to have to ultimately make and he tried to stop it and failed, which is when he technically dies. His low key attitude is the opposite of Tidus’s, which makes for a nice dynamic between the two of them. He has the benefit of having more knowledge than any of the other characters due to having gone on a pilgrimage before with both Tidus’s father and Yuna’s.

This one kind of snuck up on me. The more I thought about it, the more I was able to see that I really do think he’s one of the best Final Fantasy characters (at least out of the ones I’ve come across). I flat out didn’t like Squall in the beginning because I thought he was a slightly emo dick. I guess it didn’t help that he was mostly a dick to a character I did like (Quistis). The great thing is that as time went on, his personality and attitude became completely understandable. He had actual character development. He was socially awkward. He had abandonment issues. He had trust issues. He felt like he could only count on himself while not even fully believing in himself. We find out later exactly why he has these issues and it’s pretty realistic. I think a very important and good thing is that he does not completely change. He doesn’t do a 180. He does more like a 90. By the end, he’s grown to trust himself and others more while also retaining what makes him who he is (mostly his stoicism and seriousness).

It’s very interesting to know where he comes from since he’s so different from his father. Luckily for Squall, he didn’t inherit Laguna’s bumbling and too shy qualities when it came to women, although he did obviously have an issue with social issues in general.

Even though he already had Quistis mocking him and trying to get him to open up, he doesn’t really start to do that until he meets Rinoa, and it’s obvious she knocks him off balance. Over time, he starts caring about her even though he doesn’t even seem to know it himself. Squall is also thrown into a major leadership role out of nowhere and has severe doubts about it, but ends up proving he’s more than capable of handling it. He also risks his life to save Rinoa. Plus he has this awesome line in regards to his first dream about Laguna: “I dreamed I was an idiot.” I almost love him just for that.

And, of course, he was just great in combat. He almost singlehandedly beat the final boss for me with his limit break.

This doesn’t actually have to do with their characters directly, but I really like the idea that if things had gone correctly with Laguna and Julia, neither Squall nor Rinoa would have ever been born. Instead, their father and mother, respectively, would have been together. But thanks to that being messed up, it’s the second generation that gets a chance at love.

Hate her voice all you want (but I got used to it rather quickly), but Vanille is simply a well written and well developed character. She gets a lot of blind hate thrown her way and really doesn’t deserve it, other than the fact that she has orgasms while in battle. The reason I call it blind hate is because people just seem to ignore who her character actually is. On the surface, she’s a cheery and optimistic person. This is not just for her own sake of burying the immense guilt she feels underneath, but to try to make others feel better as well. That’s a particular quality that a lot of people don’t have—I know I don’t. She’s also the first person to kind of babysit Hope (before Lightning gets stuck with him) and she encourages him to confront Snow about what he’s feeling.

We get hints that there’s more to her thanks to the fact that Vanille narrates the story, but we really don’t get a big reveal until chapter seven, where one of the game’s best scenes plays out (with Vanille and Sazh). I’m not one to feel sorry for people/characters, but goddamn, did I just want to hug that girl right there. Vanille crying out “I don’t know what to do!” Aww. And willing to let Sazh kill her, since at least part of her felt she deserved it. Poor girl. :(

They’re able to move past that, and later on, Vanille actually burdens herself with guilt that isn’t even hers to bear, but she does it so that someone she cares about (Fang) doesn’t have to. Her relationship with Fang, platonic or otherwise, was also interesting and fun to watch. She has a vulnerable and innocent aura about her, which is definitely the case in some ways, but it’s far from it in others. Vanille may not be the strongest character, but she certainly is one of the strongest emotionally. Plus, her back story is just cool, knowing she already went through something like this hundreds of years ago. Not to mention, she was a mainstay in my party whenever possible. Sure, the noises annoyed me, but she was pretty essential in battle for the most part as far as I’m concerned. You can very rarely go wrong with a party made up of Lightning, Vanille, and Fang.

Ah, Lightning. The badass heroine of Final Fantasy XIII. Unlike Squall, Lightning being a bitch actually endeared me to her from the start. What’s the difference? I’m not entirely sure. If I had to guess, I would say it stems from Lightning just being focused on kicking ass and not coddling anyone around her whereas Squall was a dick who also came off as sort of emo at the same time. However, similar to how Squall, we get a look at her true emotional state farther into the game. Of course, it didn’t hurt that she smacks Snow a couple of times. That was just fun. For a while, she’s definitely all business and also cynical. We see it when she’s paired with Hope and really doesn’t want to take care of him, and basically tells him to grow up or he’s not gonna make it. It’s not until somewhere around chapter five that we learn a very important part of her back story, when Hope and Lightning begin to see themselves as pets of some kind.

You can see Lightning start to take Hope under her wing and a big reason for that is the guilt she feels at how she dealt with her sister, Serah. After finding out Serah became a l’cie, Lightning basically shunned her (and her being engaged to Snow didn’t help), which she obviously regrets after the fact. While her resolve doesn’t soften after this, her attitude does. She’s still badass and takes on the leadership role, but she also forgives Snow for the blame she placed on him when she was trying to avoid blaming herself. Also, her being paired with Fang briefly in one of the chapters was hilarious, including Lightning punching her. It was just entertaining to watch the two of them since they had completely different attitudes (Lightning’s being serious and Fang’s being lighthearted).

Did I mention she’s badass? Lightning is definitely my favorite Final Fantasy lead. I don’t think there was ever a time in which she wasn’t in my party. If there was, it was very, very rare.


Vanille and Lightning are definitely the top two, though truth be told, I don't have an order. Squall is at three, and then the rest are just not ordered. Other than some of these, I don't exactly have the highest opinion of Final Fantasy characters considering how many there actually are. There are plenty I like to a certain extent, plenty I'm indifferent about or dislike, but not many that I think are flat out great.

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My thoughts on Final Fantasy X.December 13, 2011 by

Includes spoilers.

Final Fantasy X is actually the first FF game I ever played back when I was a kid, along with my brother. We got to a certain boss fight and just couldn’t beat it, and never went back to it. Well, I finally decided to try it again after having played four other FF games and liking them all. I didn’t remember much about it really, other than I liked Lulu and hated blitzball. Neither of those things changed, by the way. :p

It took me about 70 hours, which is the same amount of time it took me to get through FFXIII (before I went trophy hunting).

Really, the only glaring flaw for me was, in fact, blitzball. I only played one game that wasn’t the mandatory one, and never went back because…yeah, I just can’t stand it.

It really has some great imagery. The fake Zanarkand that Seymour shows you, the water scene with Tidus and Yuna, seeing the wrecked Zanarkand for the first time, the cutscenes on the airship involving Sin, etc. Obviously the graphics aren’t up to par with stuff from today but back when it came out, it was amazing, and the beauty of the actual things on screen isn’t lost at all.

I would definitely say that FFX has the best cast of characters, at least out of the games I’ve played. It doesn’t have my favorite overall characters, but the cast as a whole is better than the other casts as a whole. The other games have had ones I’ve liked and ones I haven’t liked—or at least ones that I cared nothing for—while this one didn’t really. Only Wakka somewhat annoyed me and that was when he was acting like a religious fanatic or a bigot about the Al Bhed. Granted, he acted that way more frequently than I would have liked, but he was otherwise pretty normal. I know that Tidus is pretty hated for supposedly being whiny but he’s not really for the majority of the game. I was a bit annoyed with him in the beginning but he’s fine other than that. In fact, he has a very logical attitude a lot of the time. Once he becomes a guardian, Tidus steps up whenever there’s a group discussion and says that their job is to protect Yuna so they should do that no matter what. Not very whiny. And when he finds out the truth about what’s going to happen to her, he wants to figure out a way to save her, which is the most normal reaction to have. So I was on his and Rikku’s side on that whole thing, which is also what helped me to like her character. There was really nothing to dislike about Kimarhi, although some of that stems from him not being one of the more important characters.

What I liked about Yuna was that, even though I disagreed with her line of thinking, she was just a very selfless character in wanting to do whatever she could to bring hope to Spira. However, what I really loved was when she came face to face with Yunalesca. That whole scene was great, but it was a big moment for all of the characters, really, especially Yuna. She finally sees that while bringing about peace for a period of time is good, it’s just not enough. As she puts it, it’s false hope, and she’d rather give everyone real hope. It has nothing to do with her suddenly not wanting to sacrifice herself.

For me, Seymour is the most memorable villain out of the FF games that I’ve played. I know, blasphemy from the view of Sephiroth fans, right? :p I just thought he had a very nonchalant way about him that I liked. He never apologized for anything and knew exactly what direction he was headed in from the start, and did it with a casual as hell attitude.

My favorites, though? People should be able to see this coming: Lulu and Auron. I love Lulu’s bluntness (mostly toward Tidus but also Wakka) and laid back demeanor. Then it’s shown that there’s more to her when the whole thing with Chappu (what a horrible name) comes out, and we also learn more about how close she is with Yuna. Plus she’s the main black magic user. As for Auron, my initial theory was actually that he was Jecht (IE Tidus’s dad)…until we see them on screen together. :p But the real twist was also something that I saw coming, but it was still a good thing for him. Like Lulu, he was pretty blunt and laid back. And he kicked ass in battle.

Along with having the best cast, I also think FFX benefits from having the best story. It all just comes together nicely as it unravels. Yes, that sentence says exactly what it’s supposed to say. While I did see Yuna having to die coming long before Tidus did, it was still nice to see him find out, and his struggle to try to change it. It was also always cool when another character’s view of it would come out.

I already mentioned it above, but the cutscene with Yunalesca was one of the best of the game. It’s when the characters finally get on the same page, not only with each other, but with me as the player. You see Wakka lose his naivety. He always had hope that Sin would go away if people atoned for all the bad things that they’ve done, but is basically told exactly what I had been thinking from the very beginning: That’s impossible. You see a rare naïve moment from Lulu as well as she backs up having thought the same as Wakka due to what they’d always been taught. Basically, summoners sacrificing themselves might bring about peace for however long, but it’s just not worth the price. Sin always comes back, so unless you can find a way to permanently defeat it, the whole pilgrimage ritual should stop. So in that scene, they all finally call bullshit and just do what they feel is right.

Oh, and the whole cutscene where we’re introduced to that fayth and told that Tidus is a dream? Trippy! And awesome. I like how it basically goes from the story of Yuna sacrificing herself and Tidus trying to find a way to prevent it to Tidus finding out that if they succeed, he’s the one who’s going to disappear…and he accepts that. Both he and Auron complete their mission of defeating Sin/setting Jecht free and that’s where their journeys end. I did feel weird about killing my own aeons, though. :p

Then of course there’s the gameplay. In simple terms, it’s just really fun. The battling is fast paced (like FFXIII) and the fact that you can switch out characters during fights is fantastic. The game is designed so that you have to do that so while you could argue that it makes it easier, it also adds depth to it and is necessary. Sometimes in games you have to do a trial run on a boss fight or something because you have no idea what’s coming. While that can definitely happen here as well, you can also somewhat bypass that because you’re not stuck with whatever party you entered the fight with. I love that. You can do whatever combination you want at anytime. It also kept my party from being stagnant like it was in the others. For the most part, in every other FF, I kept with a certain party the entire time (as long as it was available to me). I did keep in Auron and Tidus in more than most, but I switched it up plenty. It wasn’t until very late in the game that I discovered you could also change your weapon/armor in battle, which is pretty awesome even if I didn’t need to use it much at all.

It was pretty much a given that I would like the sphere system since I really liked FFXIII’s crystarium. This system is obviously more complex and less linear than that one, though. You collect different spheres for different attributes, and it’s one whole big grid that everyone is a part of from the start, with branching paths. You can go in multiple directions and cross paths, which is important so that more than one character has certain abilities.

The aeons are balanced pretty nicely here. They’re there if you need them but certainly aren’t necessary to use a majority of the time, and there’s a good variety of them.

That’s about it. Throw in some good music and sidequests along with everything else, and FFX is an awesome game, and now my favorite in the Final Fantasy series.

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