Now I've spent most of my leisure time today listening to the 3 Black Mages albums and unsurprisingly it got me wanting to play the various final fantasy games their remixes are from. Thankfully I've managed to quell the urge because I don't wanna waste another 50 hours of my life replaying a game I've had enough of, at least for the moment. But it did get me thinking...
I once considered myself a fairly big Final Fantasy fan, a close look around my room could quickly lead you to the same conclusion, I have statues of Rinoa (FF8) Angelo (FF8), Cloud and Sephiroth (FF7) along with one or two others, along with other bits of less conventional memorabilia as well as a number of the games. However looking back I can see that I've clearly just been sucked into the hype for the most part as I often do, I mean I do like the figures, the chains etc but the games are often hit and miss. For me it started off on the PC with Final Fantasy 7 after hearing a lot about it around school. Unfortunately my PC at the time sucked and wasn't really capable of playing the game and ran at around 5fps so was incredibly slow. Somehow I made it through the opening bombing mission, godknows how I managed to beat the normal speed countdown, mostly through pigheaded 'I paid for this I will enjoy it' rather than actually having fun, and it soon was sold on and the series temporarily forgotten about until my sister, incredibly kindly, bought me a Playstation along with Toca Touring Cars and yes, you guessed it, FF7.
I spent my entire first day playing it, racking up 8-9 hours easily, getting into the first jenova battle and to the new continent before saving and going to bed. As often did at the time however, the excitement of having such an amount of new equipment meant I got little sleep, so I woke up during the night and decided to resume playing, on mute of course to avoid annoying my parents and getting caught. However on firing it up and loading my saved game, my tiny little mind was blown into a thousand pieces when the 3rd party memory card claimed it was a corrupt file and I lost all my data. Over the years I think I lost around 150 hours (not just on this game I hasten to add) before I learnt my lesson about 3rd party accessories (much less of an issue now I'd say, but back then it was fairly commonplace that there'd be issues). Needless to say I eventually progressed with the game, it becoming the first in my remaining memory to make me cry with that disk 1 ending, and eventually progressing to disk 3. This is where I met what has always been an issue for me, the inevitable level grind. I'd gotten to disk 3 all well and good, exhausting all the story based play I wanted to, but due to my lack of skill (as I realise there are FF obsessives who try to complete the games without in any way leveling up so in theory it is possible) I wasn't levelled high enough, and would have to spend a good chunk of time in repetitive battles without anything to really to motivate me to do so, no interesting side quest left that I wanted to do, and after a number of game overs trying to get where I was supposed to I gave up on the game. Over the years I went back and tried, even the odd occasion with a cheat cd to erase the level grinding problem however I always lost interest before the end, and its only thanks to internet video that I've ever seen the ending of the game.
7 did do something however, it made me preorder its sequel, Final Fantasy 8, which I did enjoy but encountered the same problem with. The story I enjoyed even more, but when I reached disk 4, I had the same issue and its only been in recent years that I finally completed the game. Firmly sucked into the Final Fantasy community however, even though I had sorta liked the games they caused me equal frustration and joy, I went ahead and bought 9 which I hated and no longer possess, and 10 which became the first one in the series that I actually completed after sinking in easily over 100 hours on various play-throughs. I also acquired 3/6 on the snes somewhere in there on another hype induced purchase.
12 has also entered my collection but I've barely played it as I'm slowly waking up to reality (even though I still hand over the cash for them at least I'm learning, X was bought for £40 at its release, I was able to hold myself off for XII till it was a much more reasonable £10, though so far X has proved much more valuable for my money), that for one well, I'm an idiot, and two that these games while good, aren't always my kind of game.
For the overall record, 6,8 and 10 are my favourites in no particular order and they've all been completed. 7 while I would like to finish properly will only ever happen if theres a remake, I just can't play it anymore, and 9 I hated. 1,2,3,4,5 all got attempted but I quickly realised they werent for me. 4 and 5 are the only ones from those I still own as 4 came with Chrono Trigger, and 5 I had on some misguided collectors item as at the time it had never been released in english, now of course it has that cart is pretty much worthless..go me.
Anyway I will eventually get to a point here, feel free to skip on down to what I was intending to write without so much info. Given the atmosphere and enthusiasm that surrounds Final Fantasy, its hard sometimes not to get swept up in it, as for some reason I tend to believe a game that has sold millions of copies and has a whole bunch of people on the number of gaming forums I visit all shouting its praises. This isn't the only series that I've been sucked into like this, Zelda, Mario, Grand Theft Auto. 100s of pounds down the drain, and less than their moneys worth wringed out of them. But now getting around to the point...almost
Among all the Final Fantasys, number 7 more than any other is likely to get people crazy. From the number of Aeris resurrection cheats, to the constant demands for the PS2 and nowadays PS3 remakes, and the fact a game company actually listened to its fans and realised how much of a license to print money it is with the straight to dvd sequel Advent Children, the mobile subscription game (only in Japan) Before Crisis, the horrid (so i've been told) Vincent (who was only ever an optional character in the original game) spin off Dirge of Cerebus on the PS2, a definitive Blu-Ray version of Advent Children that is being bundled with a demo of Final Fantasy XIII, and finally the reason I started this post and in fact sadly the reason I actually bought a PSP - Final Fantasy Crisis Core.
As I said in recent times I've been realising I don't enjoy the series as much as I'd like to believe, I still spent a little north of £100 primarily to play this prequel to FF7. It was sold as much of a hack and slash action game rather than the grindathon JRPG so I was much more looking forward to the game as while I never finished the game, I have enjoyed the story - hence why I own Advent Children.
The first thing I have to say its very bizarre playing a game where you already know the outcome - if you make much progress with the original you find out what happens to the main character Zack - but it didn't spoil my enjoyment of how the story progresses. Its always weird to be going through a prequel, be it a film, a book or a video game as if you've already played part of the series its almost the ultimate spoiler. Visually I would say this game definately wouldn't look out of place on the original Playstation, and thanks to the knowledge gained by the programmers over the years its not got nearly as many glitches or horrible awkwardness of the original (which bare in mind was the first 3d ff game) and is easily the prettiest handheld game I've played. Also due to the UMD format over the DS carts there is enough storage room for a limited amount of voice acting to fill out the cutscenes.
There are a few different modes on this game, well 2 (3 if you count new game+ which is just restarting the game with your completed games character and equipment). Theres the main game, which comes in at around the 10 or so hour mark, and theres the missions (if I remember correctly theres 300 of these) which are small side well missions that will gain you more powerful items, give you something to do to help advance your character level without feeling like grinding for no benefit and also has the benefits of little tips of a hat towards the original or other spin offs from 7. The missions is what really turns this game from one that belongs on a home console to a more portable game, they're only a couple of minutes long so can easily be played on a short public transport trip on the way to work, or however else you wish to use your portable console.
The fact is however this isn't really a game for anyone other than fans of Final Fantasy 7. Its a fun game regardless, but only someone who has played the game to which this is a prequel to will be able to enjoy all the small references in the story which is really the whole point of the game. Its just pure fan service. It worked for me especially when its style and presentation and its basis in a bit of a more realistic universe (when you get to the end of the opening section you'll see what I mean) compared to the original , and it is a game I've already completed 4-5 times. The story I feel also works quite well, and a lot of the same strings the original does...and yes, I also cried during this game as sad as it is to admit that.
If you had some time off with nothing else to do, then you could quite probably finish this game with just a rental, but its a fan service game so chances are if you're interested in the game, you're going to want to come back to it. You also have to consider its a portable game, so they're a lot cheaper than those on home consoles, I mean this only set me back £18 and that was on a preorder..so I'd say its almost definately worth sacrificing a night out for.
Well thats it for now, that definately could've been written better but well, I don't like to edit. Enough rambling from me, I'm off to cook dinner
