If nothing else this blog gives me an excuse to play through my favorite games again. It might seem like a waste of time if I wasn't writing about them afterwards. I know, most people would say that video games are a waste of time in the first place but what else am I gonna do?
There are few games I hold in higher regard that Final Fantasy 2. This was the first turn based RPG I ever played. I got it on Christmas of 91 along with my Super Nintendo. F-Zero was the other game we got that day. It was nice that our parents were so concerned that we had a variety of games to play.
This game would eventually become my favorite thing in the world, but at the time it made no sense. It was different than any of my other games. Back when games started up instantly I was shocked that the prologue took so long. It was almost eight minutes before you actually got to play. The fighting made no sense either. The monsters didn't even move. How could the be taking away so much life? Once I found out that you could run I ran from every battle. I think I got to the second or third boss and then gave up on it because my level was too low and I didn't know what that meant.
So I let my cousin borrow it for a year or so, and by the time I got it back I was a much mature eight year old who was ready for complex stories and thoughtful, deliberate gameplay. I was instantly hooked after that, and still to this day RGPs are my favorite type of game. I know that makes me sound like a nerd, but in my universe the nerds are the cool ones. It's all about context.
Of course the things I loved about this game are the same things that kind of bug me about RPGs today. I would say that at the time this game had the most complex story of anything on a console at that time. You had dead people coming back to life, good guys becoming bad guys becoming good guys, an occasional trip to the moon, and a brooding protagonist who sees the errors of his ways. As a kid I was completely engrossed. I wanted every game to be this complicated. It also took me upwards of 50 hours to beat it. I wanted every game to take this long. I would make up games in my head that fit this formula even if they weren't in the same genre. I would think of fighters that had 50 selectable character, or platform games that had a hundred levels. Maybe I was just ahead of my time.
All of this was great about FF2, but now it's 2011 and just about every RPG is overly long and complicated. Most of them don't even get started for a couple of hours. The action gameplay in Kingdom Hearts is fun, but for the first hour you're just walking around a tiny island looking for supplies. By the time I'm finished with that I hardly even want to play anymore. Final Fantasy VII makes you play for close to 10 hours before you even get to the overworld. In Dragon Warrior VII you play for close to four hours before you fight in your first battle. Luckily that game is amazing so I can forgive it. The biggest offender might be Final Fantasy 13. That whole game plays like one big prologue. It seems like after every room you're interrupted by character development. I really just want to run around, gain levels, and find hidden treasures.
So it's a little ironic that I look back at Final Fantasy 2 and long for its simplicity. At the time it was the cornerstone of video game storytelling. It had a slower pace than just about any other game, but it was completely engrossing. I spent my free time drawing overworld maps and thinking about how cool Cid was. I had my group of friends at school who would get together and talk about what level we got our characters to the night before. Today this game still plays great. It has great music, great characters, and it is easy to learn and get hooked on. It laid the groundwork for practically every RPG that came after it. At the time I hoped that this was the future of gaming. For better or for worse I was right. I just hope that someday I can figure out why I enjoy level gaining so much.
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