I Bring Nothing to the Table

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With every Final Fantasy game there exists great (and not so great) teams of heroes bent on saving the world from some sort of evil force. While we could take a look at those heroes, let’s instead take a look at the evils that motivate these heroes to do what they do.

It should be noted that this feature will be full of spoilers.

Week 1 - Garland
Week 2 - Emperor Mateus of Palamecia
Week 3 - The Cloud of Darkness
Week 4 - Zeromus
Week 5 - Exdeath

It’s no secret that I love everything about Final Fantasy VI. The game was my second best 16-bit game, if you remember that old feature. In fact, this feature was inspired almost completely by the antagonist of the greatest Final Fantasy villain to ever grace the screen: Kefka.

Heading away from the job system and small parties, Square did something they’d never done before by creating a large, mostly de-centralized cast of protagonists. The main character is, ostensibly, Terra, but pretty even attention is given to at least four or five other characters, you can spend quite a bit of time without Terra in your party, and you don’t even have to re-add her to your party once you’ve reached the World of Ruin.

Then we have the main evil man of the series, Kefka. Talk about an odd one. The guy looks like a clown, both in his sprite and his Amano-inspired portrait. It turns out (and I don’t think this was that clear in the original translation, the GBA one is clearer) that he is not a jester of any sort, he’s the court mage of the Empire and one of the Emperor’s big four general-types among Leo, Celes, and the magic soldier Terra.

So he’s an evil henchman, so what? I bet there’s some ancient evil that secretly steals the scene and becomes the true villain, right? No…not even close. Kefka is truly evil, and a nihilist to boot, with actions that are truly deplorable. Edgar and Figaro won’t cooperate and hand over Terra? He sets Castle Figaro on fire. Assault on Doma taking too long and Imperial losses getting to be too much? Poison the city’s water supply, murdering women, children, captured Imperial soldiers, and everyone else.

It gets even worse. He brutally massacres a bunch of espers, throws the balance of magic off in the entire world, and causes the apocalypse. After becoming a god, he brutally unleashes his wrath against people, seeking to end life on the planet, because he can. All this unparalleled evil, yet in most every battle with the player, Kefka just runs away at the completion.

Here’s to the most evil, human villain Final Fantasy has ever seen.

Evil Rating:

War criminal, bringer of the apocalypse, brutal murderer, slaver. An all around bastard embodying the worst of humanity. He also looks like a clown :shudder:

10/10

Cool Rating:

Pure evil, mage, jerk, first speaking part in a Final Fantasy game, but also has a penchant for running away from battles that he can’t win. He also looks like a clown.

8/10

Images:

Sprite
Amano Art
More Amano
Battle Sprite
Anthologies CGI
Final Boss
Kefka Godform
CGI Godform
Dissidia Kefka
Dissidia Concept Art
Kefka Figurine

Video:

Kefka Cosplay:

Kefka Battle:

Insert another credit, because it’s time for your weekly video game news and you’ve just hit the Game Overview screen.

With every Final Fantasy game there exists great (and not so great) teams of heroes bent on saving the world from some sort of evil force. While we could take a look at those heroes, let’s instead take a look at the evils that motivate these heroes to do what they do.

It should be noted that this feature will be full of spoilers.

Week 1 - Garland
Week 2 - Emperor Mateus of Palamecia
Week 3 - The Cloud of Darkness

Final Fantasy IV was a masterpiece of soap operatic storytelling. Characters joined, left, fell in love, died, were amnesiacs, and were under mind control. It was a mess, but it was an entertaining tale of redemption for an evil man and his love for his woman.

Unfortunately we still had this very strange story anomaly where you’d play through about 90% of the game thinking one guy was your enemy (Golbez, in this case) only to find out that the real culprit was some other bloke (Zemus/Zeromus, in this case). While we can forgive the weak characterization in these early games, FF IV started to reach the saturation point for this nonsense. Sure, we love fighting evil, but wouldn’t it be nice to not just have a quick “Oh, this guy was mind controlling everyone” kind of thing be pulled on us?

So Zemus/Zeromus happens to be a Lunarian, or a dude from the moon, who’s decided that living on the moon blows. To fix this problem, he’s decided to kill everyone on the planet and take the planet for the Lunarians to live on. The other Lunarians are, surprisingly, not on board, so it’s up to the crew to take this sucker down.

Evil Rating:

He’s evil, but not evil enough to want to get his own hands dirty. 99% of the evil he causes is realized through his mind controlled puppets. I’ll give him points for wanting to kill everyone on the planet, but he’s gotta lose some for laziness. That and he totally gets owned by the heroes and has to let the embodiment of his hatred be the final boss.

7/10 (mostly because his evil intentions raze an entire town, kill multiple player characters, and are cool, but he loses points for the totally lame mind control plot)

Cool Rating:

Well he gets cool points for being from the moon. He’s also too cool for school, preferring to make others do his dirty work while he chills out on the moon. It doesn’t get much cooler than that, except that he gets owned pretty easily and has to unleash his hatred upon the world to actually be formidable.

7/10

Images:

Zemus (DS)
Zeromus (Amano Artwork)

Video:

Insert another credit, because it’s time for your weekly video game news and you’ve just hit the Game Overview screen.

With every Final Fantasy game there exists great (and not so great) teams of heroes bent on saving the world from some sort of evil force. While we could take a look at those heroes, let’s instead take a look at the evils that motivate these heroes to do what they do.

It should be noted that this feature will be full of spoilers.

Week 1 - Garland
Week 2 - Emperor Mateus of Palamecia

Final Fantasy III spearheaded the amazingly innovative, and often imitated, job system that sneaked its way into every other Final Fantasy game starting with III, was enhanced in V, and up until Final Fantasy VII (I claim that materia is a modified job-system). It was also utilized in Final Fantasy X-2 via dress spheres. Unfortunately for us, it had yet to refine its villain characterization, resulting in a final boss who you basically don’t see or even know about for the vast majority of the game.

The actual final boss of Final Fantasy III is about as nebulous as they come (sorry in advance for this terrible pun). The Cloud of Darkness is a chaotic force that seeks to end the world after it was thrown out of balance by the light and dark warriors and crystals. She (it has female appearance) actually kills the light warriors at one point (the player characters) and it takes the sacrifice of the dark warriors to allow the light ones to even have a chance to kill her.

It’s a tough battle, being an old school FF game and all, but good job composition will allow the team to take her down and save the world.

Evil Rating:

She’s a force of nature hell-bent on ending existence. That being said, what Final Fantasy villain isn’t? You don’t see her until the end of the game and most of the evil situations going on in the world are not even close to her or her minion Xande’s responsibility.

1/10 (remember, wanting to end the universe is not that evil in FF games)

Cool Rating:

She’s an amorphous, naked, green cloud of evil. Lame. She does kill the Light Warriors though, so kudos for that.

3/10

Image:

DS Remake Model

Video:

Insert another credit, because it’s time for your weekly video game news and you’ve just hit the Game Overview screen.

With every Final Fantasy game there exists great (and not so great) teams of heroes bent on saving the world from some sort of evil force. While we could take a look at those heroes, let’s instead take a look at the evils that motivate these heroes to do what they do.

It should be noted that this feature will be full of spoilers.

Final Fantasy II is a black sheep in the Final Fantasy series in many ways. Having never played it, I can’t really speak to some of these changes as being worthwhile or not, but we’re talking the first permanent deaths in the roster (no longer happens in modern Final Fantasy games or at least since VII) and an unconventional character development system that was based on character actions.

But we’re not here to talk about milestone moments in FF history, we’re here to talk about the jerk who needed to die at the end of this game, Emperor Palamecia. Having summoned beasts straight out of the depths of hell to assist him in world domination, this pretty-boy bastard needed to die and die he did. The heroes successfully get into the palace and kill the Emperor, sending him straight to hell. Of course, that’s not the end of Palamecia, because he somehow absorbs raw power in hell and threatens to destroy the world. Again, it’s hard to rate a final boss who I’ve never faced, but how can you argue against a boss who wasn’t even defeated the first time you killed him? How can you argue against a boss who dies and usurps the throne of hell from whatever being held it only to threaten the world yet again?

So the party heads back down into Pandemonium (i.e.: hell) to finally end this dude.

Evil Rating:

He killed the main character’s parents, poisoned a city filled with Dragoons and Wyverns, and destroyed plenty more with cyclones. Not a bad rap sheet compared to Garland’s claim to fame: kidnapping a princess, being killed by the Light Warriors, and entering a time loop.

6/10

Cool Rating:

He’s supposedly a really good-looking dude and how cool is it that he comes back as a super-demon from hell? I’d say he’s pretty cool.

7/10

Image:

Demon Emperor Palamecia

Video (in Spanish!):

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In an effort to diversify their holdings, Square Enix submit a peaceful takeover bid for Tecmo, the very troubled developer of many beloved series like Tecmo Bowl, Ninja Gaiden, and Dead or Alive. What did Squeenix get for asking nicely? A big, fat NO.

Turns out Tecmo rather likes being independent, but not as much as they let on at first, despite their building problems with employees and the law. It all started not too long ago with the very public, very ugly departure of Tomonubu Itagaki, basically the brains behind all those classics like DoA and Ninja Gaiden. He claimed he didn’t receive the bonuses promised him for completion of his games. Not too long after the employees of Tecmo began suing for unpaid wages for forced overtime. Things were looking bleak for Tecmo.

Cue Square Enix to show up as the cavalry, if you will. Knowing they need to start doing more than just the standard RPG, they figured that the ailing Tecmo would be a simple and clean (bonus points if you get the reference) acquisition. Little did they know Tecmo would be so fiery and say no. After news came that Tecmo was talking with Koei, Square Enix sent a rather sheepish note asking Tecmo to please tell them why they said no. Tecmo did not respond, Squeenix pulled the takeover offer.

Will Square Enix go for another company now? Keep your browsers pointed here and I’ll let you know.

It’s probably too early to start calling me Nostradamus (we’ll have to wait until the regular season of baseball ends to know just how good I am), but if you remember this post I mentioned that Mario RPG’s launch on the VC in PAL territories would spearhead a US release. Lo and behold, Mario RPG, one of the greatest Mario games, SNES games, and RPGs in gaming history.

It’s too bad that Square Enix won’t be releasing any of its other landmark SNES RPGs on VC, preferring to milk tons of money out of players with remakes (which we like) and ports (which we find a bit annoying, but kind of like anyway). Go out and buy Mario RPG and let’s hope that Earthbound hits the system soon.

Insert another credit, because it’s time for your weekly video game news and you’ve just hit the Game Overview screen.

As you all know by now, I love Chrono Trigger. The prospect of this new port of the SNES classic to the DS has me positively salivating at the thought. It all sounds super cool that I’ll be able to own another cart of this fantastic game and that it will have those nifty little improvements made to it.

Then I look at the new Final Fantasy IV remake released on the DS. It’s not just a port like Chrono Trigger is, it’s a full-blown reworking of the game adding 3D, cutscenes, and even voice acting and I can’t help but feel just a wee bit cheated. FF IV DS launched this past Tuesday for $39.99, since Square Enix knows that they’re the only company that can get away with such exorbitantly priced DS games, but I can more or less justify paying that much for a game that is significantly improved over its SNES iteration. The new version has a retooled difficulty level and added content as well, so, while pricey, it’s still a fully-featured new game of sorts.

How can I justify paying for a straight port of the best SNES game out there when I know that the company is capable of putting some effort into coming out with an improved version? Chrono Trigger may be an absolute classic, but it would definitely be served by improved graphics or even a more significant modification like with Persona 3: FES. In that game Atlus actually added on an epilogue of extensive length and substance.

It’s not exactly out of the question to have rereleases of this nature in Japan. Nintendo as been releasing updated versions of its NES Mario games since the days of the SNES with Super Mario All-Stars. I suppose it brings with it a chance to give a new generation an opportunity to play games which are far beyond what is playable without the Virtual Console or similar service, but I just can’t help but feel cheated knowing that I will inevitably pay quite a large sum of money for yet another marginally improved version of Chrono Trigger, despite my intense love for the game.

I guess there may be a silver lining to the rather lackluster effort involved in this DS rerelease: the hopeful high sales of the rerelease may lead to a proper sequel to Chrono Trigger.

Yoshinori Kitase has huge shoes to fill. As the producer of Final Fantasy XIII he’s looking at doing a job last held by Horonobu Sakaguchi in Final Fantasy X. Ok, Sakachuchi was technically the executive producer of that game, but with no other producers announced for XIII, I’m gonna come out and call him the EP.

Kitase had this to say (in this IGN article) about the new game and directions they’re taking:

Kitase spoke about carrying the Final Fantasy torch and commented on how this game will be unique, yet familiar. “In the grand scheme of things, Final Fantasy XIII is probably very different and new from anything you’ve seen in the series before. But, everybody on the team has played XII and the previous titles and there is an unseen connection there among the series.” He then went on to tell a story about a conversation with Hironobu Sakaguchi, creator of the Final Fantasy series. In it he asked Sakaguchi about what makes a Final Fantasy game a Final Fantasy game. Jokingly, Sakaguchi told him that as long as you have white text on a blue background, you should be fine. Final Fantasy XIII doesn’t have that, but Kitase says it’s still a continuation.

As funny as it is to mention the blue background thing, I think that a new direction is not a bad idea. FF games have, quite frankly, been getting a little stale for me of late. I worry a bit about XIII since its director is the same one from X-2 (Motomu Toriyama), but I’d like to see them stray.

One of the other cool things about the game was the mention of a different cast take with the character code-named Lightning. She supposedly is going to resist forming a party and try to be a loner. Hopefully she’s not a female version of one of those emo Squeenix protagonists, but it’s good to see that they won’t be partying from the get-go.

It’s one of the most anticipated trailers of the year, the Japanese trailer of FF XIII. Note that the blog category is Sony and doesn’t include M$, but this is because this is the Japanese trailer, a region where FF XIII will not see a 360 release.

Behold the trailer of the game Square Enix is calling flashier than than the Final Fantasy games that preceded it. It starts out in typical Final Fantasy fashion, but definitely flashes it up when the combat starts to show up. I’m definitely excited about the new direction and new protagonist.

Enjoy the trailer!

Many a developer has come out saying that console exclusives just don’t make any sense in this new, expensive game development environment. That being said, I’m pretty sure no one on earth outside of Square Enix could possibly have predicted that Final Fantasy XIII will be simultaneously launching on both the Xbox 360 and PS3 in North America and Europe (whenever the game launches).

To help give this mind-blowing announcement some perspective, the last main series Final Fantasy game (that wasn’t a remake or port) to be released on a non-Sony platform was Final Fantasy VI for the SNES back in 1994.

It should also be noted that FF XIII will NOT be multi-platform in Japan. It’s only coming out on the 360 in the states because of the substantial US install base compared to the eastern market.

Remember, stay tuned to this blog for more E3 updates that I deem interesting or important as they become available.