“When nine and nine meet nine, the depths of reason
shall stir. When the seal of creation is broken, a voice like thunder shall
sound, and thou shalt know -- we have arrived.”
--Ace in the Final
Fantasy Type-0 opening.
Huh.
So you know what I just realized? I have no idea what that means.
Finale: Over in a Flash
(Or: Keep
the Flag Flying)
Look. I’m
almost certain I talked about this before, but I’ll say it again. I know that there are datalogs in-game and
wiki articles out of it that explain pretty much everything. And yes, that’s overlooking the fact that a
second playthrough apparently adds more scenes that make the story beats
clearer. But it doesn’t make up for the
fact that those supplementary materials should be there to enhance our understanding of the story, not ensure it in the first
place. This point has been belabored to
death, but the fact that we’re seeing this again in 2015 means that Squeenix
hasn’t learned its lesson yet.
Sure, you could argue that Type-0 -- the official version that made it to the States -- is a
holdover from a 2011 game, and by extension a 2011 Squeenix. But it’s a stupid move now, and it was a
stupid move then. If your world,
elements, or story in general have factors that make them in any way different
from our world and our understanding of it, then explain those factors. Show it to the audience.
This is not a hard concept, and you can’t even use
the excuse of “video games have terrible writing”. One Tales
game after another has managed to explain its particulars almost without
missing a beat. And once those
particulars are set up, it not only gives the creators new tools to play with,
but puts the focus where it matters: on conflicts, on events, and on people.
But here I am, with Type-0 marking another notch on my gaming belt -- another
successfully completed game. Yet if you
sat down with me and asked about this concept or that concept, or this event
and that event, I don’t feel like I could explain what happened
adequately. Because the game didn’t
explain anything to me.
So no, I don’t know what “when nine and nine meet
nine” means. There’s a guy in the cast
named Nine, but he doesn’t do much. Take
Machina and Rem out of the equation, and there are still twelve members of
Class Zero. There are four countries. Eight chapters in the game. Four crystals. I’m betting that there aren’t nine major
storyline bosses. Nine years don’t pass;
the entire game might take place in one,
and if I actually knew the names of the months in-universe, then I could tell
you how much time actually passes. But I
can’t even count on the game to give me a calendar.
The sad thing is that that’s not the only element
the game doesn’t explain. All throughout
the final chapter, Cid mentions the Agito as if it’s the lynchpin of his plans
and efforts. But I just sat there saying
“What’s an Agito?” I mean, there’s maybe
enough evidence to assume it’s some kind of messiah figure, but at times it
sounds like it’s a person, and other times it sounds like a place. It doesn’t help that Akademeia talked about
Agito cadets, so I just figured it was the name of a rank. But apparently, it actually means
something? Like, “Agito” references some
sort of very important thing?
That’s not the only question I have. I’ve been wondering since the start what a
“Peristylium” is supposed to be, and never really got a straight answer. I assumed at one point that it was the
capital of each country, but…not really?
So that means it’s the name of the chamber the crystals are in? Or is it the crystal itself? Where are the Peristylium if they’re not the
capital? Underground? In the sky?
And even though it sounds self-explanatory, I have
to ask: what’s an Ultima Bomb? Are they
difficult to produce? Are they more
powerful than l’Cie? If the Empire has
the ability to access and deploy at least two, then why did they only use one
(to good use) over the course of the game?
Why not win the war with merely the threat
of nuclear fallout? If you’re going to risk mutually assured destruction,
why not waste everyone in one shot before they can strike back?
As if that wasn’t bad enough, bare-bones
characters drop in and out of this story so quickly and with so little fanfare
that they might as well have not existed.
Qator the “Unscathed” only implies dark days are ahead, but contributes
little besides being sandbagged by Class Zero (and spamming “reprisal” in his
final fight/moments as if to imply he had a catch phrase all along). He still fares better than everyone and everything in Lorica; it doesn’t even have a
town you can visit.
Not one l’Cie gets adequately characterized or
explained; at least one of them practically drops out of the story after his
introductory cutscene. Bafflingly,
another one gets a hyper-compressed subplot with a son Class Zero wastes in
minutes as a “boss fight” -- and it’s more about the now-dead son than anything
else. And that’s ignoring the fact that
the l’Cie mother doesn’t even look older than Class Zero.
The governments of any of these countries are a
complete mystery. How is it that the
modernized Empire feels no different from an absolute monarchy? Is Cid a dictator? Do the people single-mindedly follow his
decisions, or is there dissent among the ranks?
What’s the rite of succession in Concordia if it allows some sniveling
coward to be the next in line? What sort
of special agents would allow the queen to get killed, especially if common
sense would suggest doubling up on security while she stayed in enemy territory
during the pounding-out of a very sensitive ceasefire? What’s the organizational structure of
Rubrum’s heads of state? How much power
does the commander in chief wield?
What’s the role of the commandant?
The provost? How much political
and social freedom do the l’Cie get to enjoy if they’re living WMDs?
I don’t necessarily need every detail of the world
to be spelled out, especially in terms of the political underpinnings. It would have helped immensely if the game
wanted to go for a historical fiction/documentary affect, but it’s not a
deal-breaker. The problem is that Type-0 -- as I’ve implied again and
again -- doesn’t focus on anything on either scale. It consistently mistakes the number of
characters for the quality of characters; instead of giving us even one person
who gets sufficiently fleshed-out, even over the course of forty-ish hours, the
game would rather throw dozens who barely even go through the motions. So again, and again, and again, golden opportunities are missed.
Early on in the game, you meet a tiny girl
named Aria in Classroom Zero, who sells you some basic items. At the outset (via an introductory scene) she
doesn’t seem like the type to do much of anything in terms of socializing. She’s reserved, uncertain, and outright reels
at the sight of the cadets. Can you
break her out of her shell? Nope. Can you find out why she’s so shy? Yes --
twenty hours in.
She pops up in the Empire’s territory during the
ceasefire alongside Class Zero…for some reason.
And in an optional cutscene, you find out the truth: she only stays
quiet because her mother told her offhandedly to clam up. When the cadets tell her it’s okay to talk,
she turns into a “foul-mouthed” chatterbox.
King doesn’t even try to hide his disdain and says she should’ve stayed
quiet. My opinion of King shot way up
that day.
It doesn’t last, though -- because Aria gets shot
minutes later.
Apparently the developers remembered that Type-0 was supposed to be “the darkest
and most mature FF yet”, so they
thought it’d be cool to have her blood fly through the air as if a bottle of
ketchup exploded. Setting aside the fact
that Squeenix dramatically overestimated
the amount of concern the audience would have over this character’s death, Aria
doesn’t actually die.
She just drops out of the game. It’s never explained how a normal girl
survived getting a fifth of her torso blown apart, but it takes almost twenty
more hours for her to show up again.
Apparently, she decided to hang around with Qator, and at some point
fell in love with him or something. Don’t
worry, though. It doesn’t go
anywhere. Aria drops out for real after
that, and Qator dies making a heroic sacrifice.
It’d be pretty cool if we
actually got to know these characters, but oh well. I suppose completely ignoring them for the
sake of more wasted time is just as viable a strategy.
Once again, we’re faced with another story that
assumes that being dark and gritty (and “mature”) amounts to just throwing in
more blood and violence. Not only did
they botch that with the sporadic violence and horrifically-uneven tone, but
they missed the chance to actually be dark
in a meaningful way. When Class Zero is
branded as a gang of terrorists and left alone, they’re stranded in what
remains of Lorica. It’s not a very long
stay, because the promise of an incoming airship to take them back to No-Stakes
High removes virtually every shred of tension.
More to the point, you actually pass by a major landmark during your
trek across the world map to the goal.
Remember the Ultima Bomb I mentioned earlier? You actually see its effects on the world map
-- a deep, wide, blackened crater that stretches farther than twenty Akademeias. It would have been a perfect opportunity to
throw in a cutscene -- to make Class Zero come face-to-face with the Empire’s
actions, the ramifications, the cost of war, and the weight of death. Instead, it’s just another detail on the
map. It goes unmentioned for the rest of
the game, which applies to Lorica in general.
And remarkably, it’s not the only instance; you get to walk past the
spot where Alexander slaughtered nearly two hundred thousand people in an
instant, and the only point of interest is a cliff where you can pick up some
dog tags. For the record, they’re your
CO’s dog tags. For the record, Class
Zero doesn’t have anything to say about it.
No cutscene, no dialogue, nothing.
This isn’t just a problem of “lol,
videogames”. It’s not something that’s
the result of developmental issues, or finite resources during the game’s
production, or strict hardware limitations.
Think back to FF7; there’s a
moment after leaving Midgar where you get a short cutscene. In it, you see a gigantic cobra -- the Midgar
Zolom, the same breed of enemy your party has no hope of defeating at that
point in the story -- skewered and oozing blood. Who’s responsible? Sephiroth.
It’s a scene that helps establish how powerful an enemy he is, and that
even a brief mention of him is enough to bring all the silliness and high hopes
to an abrupt end. That game is pushing
twenty; comparatively, Type-0 is a
fifth of that age, and originally ran on hardware that could likely run circles
around that old technology.
And then there’s Class Zero.
It should have been the easiest thing in the
world. It should have been the top focus
of the game -- beyond the world-building, beyond the setup, beyond the plot,
beyond everything. Characters are what people are going to enjoy
and remember long before a full understanding of political hierarchy. And that memory -- that enjoyment --
shouldn’t just come from liking how someone looks, or what their fighting style
might be. But here we are, with a game where
not one character -- not even the main character
-- has anything even close to an arc.
They never even had a chance at one, because that would imply they had
scenes to even establish who they are besides broad-strokes archetypes.
And yet, despite all of that, the ending managed
to make me feel for them. It made me
feel for the first time in my entire run with the game -- but for all the wrong
reasons. Let me put it this way: imagine
what would happen if the cast of Persona
4 (or your game/story of choice) was put in Type-0’s ending. Imagine
what it would be like watching some of them break down in tears, only to be
calmed down by a melancholy song.
Imagine them regaining their composure, only to lapse back into their
usual selves for a last-ditch effort to be cheerful -- to face the end with a
smile. Imagine what it would be like to
see their lifeless bodies huddled into a single form, with hands clasped
tight.
I would be bawling my goddamn eyes out for the
next year. Why? Because I got to know them. They did what any character should strive to
do: take on a life of their own by virtue of the craftsmanship behind
them. When the hand of the creator
becomes invisible, and when the hero or heroine seems to act of their own
accord, it’s a sign that something has gone right. It’s a sign that, yes, you can’t spell
“character” without “care”.
Comparatively, the ending of Type-0 is utterly manipulative.
It’s manipulation that works,
mind you, but that doesn’t excuse the cheapness of the trick. I don’t have emotions because Class Zero died; I have emotions because
people died. It sounds like a minor distinction, but it’s
an important one. There have been times
where stories have made me cry, and profusely -- but this wasn’t one of them. Why?
Because on some level, I knew that I was being yanked along.
The impact of the scene was just an illusion. It wasn’t earned through countless memorable
experiences with a cast I’d come to love and respect; it was just thrown in to
try and force a sad ending. Worse yet,
the ending couldn’t even commit to that; it suddenly decided out of the blue
that the worst characters, the one I
had long since started to hate, should take center stage -- and have a happy
ending thrown in just ‘cause.
But the sad thing -- the heart-wrenching, soul-crushing
truth of the matter -- is that it made me come to a final conclusion: Class Zero deserved better. They deserved better in-universe, without
question, and in more ways than I can count.
But they deserved better beyond that.
They deserved a better story.
They deserved a better game. They
deserved a better company -- one that would treat them with the care and
affection that they so desperately needed.
Type-0 is
a bad game. The story is an
unsalvageable mess, kneecapped at every turn by an utter refusal to use the
tools practically gift-wrapped and left at the door. The gameplay has plenty of good ideas and
potential, but the sheer number of annoyances and absurd design decisions
leaves me shaking my head. The game in
general is much too long and much too unfocused, convinced that adding more
will make everything better.
The difficulty is nonexistent, save for confusing
cheapness with said difficulty. The
music is limited and forgettable, and the specialness of tracks infused with
Latin lyrics has long since disappeared.
The voice acting is woefully uneven, which leaves almost half of Class
Zero sounding cringe-worthy. The visuals
vary from moment to moment, with jagged PSP models still in use and sickly fog
applied liberally throughout -- which makes several of the good-looking
cutscenes made far uglier.
So I guess there’s a question I need to answer: is
Type-0 now the worst game I’ve ever
played? Is this the game that finally
dethrones Final Fantasy 13-2?
The answer to that is a hardy no. As rough as Type-0 can get, it’s still not as bad as 13-2. For one thing, it
actually has gameplay that amounts to more than just mashing the X button to
win fights on auto-pilot. Things
actually happen in it -- stupid things, and not nearly enough relative to the
play time, but at least it doesn’t force a mandatory fetch quest after its
dumbest moments. There are actually
characters I at least want to
like. So in that regard, Type-0 is by default the best game in
the Fabula Nova Crystallis series
I’ve played yet.
There’s more to it than that, though. For me, it was almost a given that 13-2 would be an unrelenting
disaster. That wasn’t the case with Type-0.
It gave me hope that things would change -- and the potential I saw in
the early moments would shine through.
It didn’t. In a lot of ways, that
makes it hurt far, FAR more than something like 13-2. For moments at a time,
I could see a good game peeking out at me.
I saw glimmers of something good.
Something likable. Something to bring
me back into the fold with a loving embrace.
But that didn’t happen. I got
suckered again, I wasted my time again, and it feels as if I was wrong for even
touching the game. Again.
Class Zero deserved better. So did I.
So did everyone.
But you know what?
I know why you’re here. I know
why you’re reading this -- why you’ve read everything up to this point. You’re here to see me say “Final Fantasy is dead!” or “Squeenix is
terrible and should just give up!” And
I’m not going to. I’m absolutely not
going to.
I’ve already done that. I know that my hero is dead -- and that this
game is just its desperate attempt to try and claw out of the game. Raging impotently at a company thousands of
miles away from me, and wielding a million times more power than me, isn’t
going to do any good. I made this blog
so that I could do something constructive -- to offer up more than just
run-of-the-mill, largely-impotent nerd rage.
If I’m going to say anything more about Squeenix, Final Fantasy, or anything in between, it has to be something
meaningful.
So I’ve been thinking about it for a while
now. I’ve been trying to answer a slew
of questions. “How can one company be so
incompetent?” “Why can’t they just make
a good game?” “Why can’t they fix Final Fantasy?” And really, there is no absolute, perfect,
world-changing answer. At most, all I
can do is make some broad generalizations and sweeping assumptions. Hardly befitting. Probably wrong as all get out. But the answer I’ve come to is still mine alone
-- and it’s one that you’ll definitely want to hear.
Now. Let’s
begin with an introduction.
This is Davis.
He’s a guy I came up with a long time ago -- and a guy I’ve been
refining ever since. What’s his story
going to be like when his time comes? I
don’t know. But I have a few ideas. For starters: he’s a guy that wants to do the
right thing. He wants to fight for those
that can’t fight for themselves -- to take on the strongest, vilest enemies
with pure guts, and use the power he has to ensure brighter, peaceful days.
Even though he has that burning passion, he’s a
very low-key character. Easy-going, kind,
humble, and goofy -- i.e. unabashedly corny -- more often than not. He’s got serious chops as a chef, but he’ll
still show off his fanboy side when the right TV show pops up (just ask him
about his trading cards; I dare you). At
the start of the story, he’s nothing more than a penniless drifter hoping to
rendezvous with an old friend -- but his terrible luck has thrown a wrench in
his plans every step of the way.
He’s the sort to face his problems with a smile,
though -- the irony being that he’s one of the last people who should be so happy-go-lucky. His hard-knock life culminated semi-recently
in his comrades -- a band of trained, expert mercenaries -- getting slaughtered
by monstrous forces, with dozens of square miles razed alongside them. But he survived. The scars of that battle and the losses he’s
endured (even before that one)
haven’t gone away, and don’t anytime soon.
A chance encounter with a seasoned veteran sets
his adventure in motion, but if he wants to be a hero, it’ll take more than
guts. He’ll have to come to terms with
his survivor guilt, his fallibility as a mere mortal, and the gap between
ideals and reality as he marches down his road.
Said road leads him into direct contact -- and combat -- with what’s
effectively an evil goddess.
Okay. Let’s
have another introduction.
This is Julia.
The first thing you need to know about her is that she’s big. Very big.
At the start of her story, she stands at roughly thirteen stories tall
-- and she has the strength to match it, and then some. On the surface, she’s the “gentle giant”
personified; nothing would make her happier than being able to hug others (and be hugged, even more so), but past
experiences have taught her that it
never ends well.
Whatever the case, she’s no pushover; with quiet
confidence and an iron will, she’ll stand tall against any offenders that come
her way (and they will come her way, as these things tend to go). Despite that, she’s a very reclusive and glum
person; even when she smiles and tries to offer her support -- singing to those
brave enough to approach her -- the air of melancholy around her threatens to
crush entire mountains.
The reason for that is simple: time and time
again, Julia proved in the past that she’s the monster everyone thinks she
is. For starters, she has never known what it’s like to be human;
setting aside her horns and tail, in her earliest memories she stood twice as
tall as the average man, and only went up from there. Her past is full of harassment and hatred --
that is, until it becomes full of destruction and death. At one point, Julia snapped and embraced her
power, and used it to slaughter her way across the landscape to help a cruel
emperor gain control of the planet. Her
reward for her service: banishment to the depths of the earth, alongside many
of the peoples she helped to oppress.
But the plot offers her more than just a chance at
redemption. Years after her banishment
-- during which she learned to accept as her rightful punishment -- Julia rises
again. Spurred on by the words of a cursed
child and a promise of an almighty sanctum of magic, she begins her march to
repair the world she broke in half. But said
world has changed in her absence -- and she’ll have to fight massive monsters
within and without to do her duty.
And here’s one more for the road.
Say hello to Kyoko. She’d love to tell you more about herself,
but she can’t; a run-in with a masked man -- someone thought to be a mere urban
legend -- leaves her stripped of her memories.
Dumped in the boonies with no identity and no records to her name (one
she has to create for herself on the spur of the moment), she resolves to
figure out who she was. Because as time
goes on, she realizes that the masked man targeted her for a reason.
The trick is that even if Kyoko is stuck in some
tiny little town, the world she lives in is wired beyond compare. Technology abounds, to the point where there
aren’t just high-powered computers lining the streets; humans themselves have
been upgraded to access and transmit data as easily as they would spot a cloud
in the sky.
Facilitating that is the virtual world, Gigs -- a
verifiable alternate dimension where the rules of reality stop applying, and
the cybernetic reigns supreme…as does the chance for cyber-crime. Kyoko may have lost her memories, but she
finds herself more than capable of parsing through Gigs with nigh-superhuman
skill and wit -- and so begins her mission to solve a slew of mysteries
cropping up. She wants to find the
masked man; the problem is that the number of suspects now approaches seven
billion.
Saying that Kyoko has workaholic tendencies would
be an understatement -- but in the absence of her old self, she develops a new
one alongside her blossoming cyber-abilities.
While she tries to be kind to the people that take her in (with an
emphasis on tries), her hunger for
new information borders on the surreal; she’s outright obsessive at times, and
scary because of it. She’s slovenly,
tactless, and lets her perversion slip out on occasion -- but underneath her
quirks lay a brilliant mind, an untamable spirit, and yes, even a warm heart.
So you’re probably wondering what that has to do
with anything. Did I want to just show
off terrible art? Did I feel like doing
the old “original character, do not steal” song and dance? No. I
wouldn’t have trotted these three out if I didn’t want to illustrate a
point. See, these are all characters
that I want to write stories about someday.
Three out of ten, as a matter of fact.
Are they good? It’s absolutely
impossible to know at this point.
Here’s the thing, though: these nobodies are more
than just my creations. They’re
testaments. These are all people --
unreal people, but people all the same -- that predate this blog by a wide
margin (some more than others, but even then we’re talking on a scale of years).
They aren’t the same characters as they were when I first came up with
them. Not by a long shot; even in the time
since I started Cross-Up, they’ve seen iteration after iteration after
iteration. And I’m still not even close
to done with them.
When I say “characters create opportunities”, I
don’t mean that as some ironclad rule.
You can think of it as a helpful observation, but for me, it’s something
like a personal belief -- an idea to live by.
There are times when I feel frustrated over the fact that I haven’t
nailed these characters in stone (you have NO IDEA how hard it was to get Julia
up to this state, and she’s still probably the farthest from complete), but
that’s fine. Each time I make a change
-- an improvement, however minor -- I feel better. I feel like I’ve accomplished something
before I’ve even written one word.
So what’s my point? What am I getting at here? Well, it’s simple. It’s the answer that I came up with, after
all this time. It’s what manages to
explain, however slightly, the state Final
Fantasy is in.
Squeenix isn’t having fun anymore.
Coming up with new ideas and new factors and new
elements for my characters -- for Davis, for Julia, for Kyoko, for anyone -- is
fun as hell. The same goes for their worlds. The same goes for their plots. The same goes for their themes. The idea of creating a heroic character who
believes in the path of guts is exciting, and just imagining it is fun. Working with a character wreathed in quiet
sorrow -- one who plays the Goliath against a slew of Davids -- is like getting
a hundred toys for Christmas. I want to
dive headfirst into the concepts of transhumanism and evolving technology, and
I’m so happy I might be able to do that with a character as distinctly bizarre
as Kyoko.
For me, writing is fun. Imagining itself is fun. And ultimately, creating something -- with
thoughts, with hands, with words written or spoken aloud, with any means
possible -- is fun for everyone. At
least, it should be. Being able to
explore those possibilities is part of the fun; there are times when things in
the real world don’t go your way, but with a creative outlet, everything is in
your hands. You can decide for yourself
what happens when Event A transpires, or Character B heads to World C. You can see what happens when the road less
traveled gets traveled.
Creativity itself, no matter the medium,
represents infinite possibilities -- a box full of toys and tools where you’re
never truly bound to one basic method.
If only for a moment, everything is in your hands. And if you’re not making use of those tools
-- if you’re not playing with those toys to make some magic happen -- then what
the hell are you doing with the box?
A Squeenix that doesn’t feel like playing with
those tools doesn’t necessarily mean a Squeenix that’s incompetent. It could, and easily, but it’s not a
predetermined failure. No, I think that the
problem with Squeenix -- with Final
Fantasy in its current state -- is that it’s stopped being about having
fun. It’s a business venture. A formality.
A surefire way to restock the war chest.
The Fabula Nova Crystallis project caught them unaware, and overwhelmed them as a
result. FF13’s scale was too great in terms of development, and the focus
was too narrow; too many details floated in the air for anything to come together, let alone a competent game. But Squeenix had to steer into the skid after
the failure of the money-sink that was vanilla FF14 (and probably some of vanilla FF13, I bet). So they threw
out 13-2 as fast as they could, with
no concern as to what they could do with their tools. And then they did it again with Lightning Returns. And now they’re out of bullets in the
chamber.
Type-0 is
just a victim of that mindset -- that desperate scramble to put something,
anything out there. What could have been
a strong, standalone title ended up being strangled to death by expectations,
poor planning, and a need to service the brand rather than the story. Or to put it a different way, the pressure
got to them. Squeenix just had to push
something out and hope for the best -- for sales, potentially -- so that they
could live to fight another day.
And they dropped the toolbox squarely onto their
foot -- and crushed it flat.
There was no time for exploration. No time for thought. No time for fun. Only results.
By their own hand, they forced themselves to lag behind in the race for
success and adoration. And now that
they’re playing catch-up -- with developers from the east and the west -- they
have even less time. Always rushing
towards the next goal, the next release, the next disc that will provide some
momentary relief, they’ve practically forgotten what it means to explore those
possibilities. Let alone make a good Final Fantasy game.
It’s not just a matter of skill. It’s about Squeenix missing, again and again
and again, the possibilities that lay before them. The tools are scattered on the path ahead,
just waiting to see use -- just waiting to help assemble the perfect
creation. But in their desperation, in a
mad, endless struggle to keep pace with the gaming world, they just scoop up
whatever tools they can and build whatever they can. They just make the best of what they have and
run. Run, and drop tools. Run, and hurt themselves. Run, and reach the goal with a creation well
below their means and potential.
And because of that, they aren’t having fun. They can’t
have fun. And until they realize
that they need to breathe that spirit of fun, that will to explore new roads
and avenues with a franchise that has one of the widest audiences around, Final Fantasy will never, ever be good
again.
I’m not all that hung up about it, though.
Call me presumptuous for thinking that the
creative heads at Squeenix aren’t having fun; assume the worst and just say
they’re a bunch of bumblers. But you
know what? That’s fine. It doesn’t matter if you buy into my theory
or not. What matters most is that even
if I, or anyone else, can’t count on Squeenix to deliver the fun, the fact
remains that I can have fun. I can entertain myself, and it doesn’t cost
me billions of yen. I can do something
that makes me happy, even if what I dream up never goes an inch farther than
the inside of my skull.
I guess in the end, that’s going to be my takeaway
-- from Type-0, and Final Fantasy as a whole. Once upon a time, the hoary old franchise
opened my eyes to possibilities. It made
me want to dream up worlds, scenarios, and heroes of my own. And now I can. And even if the franchise continuously
disappoints me, and even if I wouldn’t dare
call it an inspiration now, it’s still a teacher. It’s still giving me valuable lessons. It’s still reminding me of the infinite
possibilities.
Will I be back for FF15? I don’t know. Will it be good regardless? I don’t know.
Will I ever care about the brand again?
I don’t know. But there is one
thing I know. If this really is the last
time I play a Final Fantasy game --
if I have to look to someone else to give me the joy I’m looking for -- then I
have one thing to say.
WELP.
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