The Final Fantasy Project: Final Fantasy IV: The After Years, part 2
Artwork from a sketch by Yoshitaka Amano
As much as it surprises me to say so – and it does surprise me quite a bit, let me tell you – I’ve been enjoying The After Years up to this point. Sure, Ceodore’s only got the thinnest sketch of character motivation, but he’s not exactly alone in this fact, and the general feel is of events cascading quickly out of control while at the same time not feeling forced. He’s lost a lot, possibly everything, but he still has the will to push through.
Of course, will doesn’t make monsters not attack you, and not too long after his dying order from his commander, he’s being accosted by beasts. The first two are barely even relevant, but the third one has him on the ropes until someone mysteriously jumps into battle. Someone with narrow features and a portrait that makes strong eye contact. Someone with long blonde hair and a penchant for appearing dramatically. Someone who is referred to as only “the Hooded Man,” despite the fact that his identity is immediately obvious to anyone familiar with the original game.
Do we have to pretend we don’t know him? We… we do, don’t we.
The Final Fantasy Project: Final Fantasy IV: The After Years, part 1
Artwork from a sketch by Yoshitaka Amano
So, let’s recap briefly. Long after the original Final Fantasy IV release, Square decides to greenlight a remake of the game for the DS. Seems straightforward enough. But someone had an idea that tied into an experiment with episodic gaming. What if there was a sequel, one that told a new story altogether? What if players could download new installments as they came out, picking out individual episodes or watching the whole thing unfold at once? What then?
Well, we don’t have to wonder; that’s what happened. A new story was written, new characters created, and the episodes began coming out. So here we are with the PSP version, which collections all of them into a single packaged form. I mentioned back when I started the interquel between the two that I quite like the fact that rather than a straight sequel, this one puts quite a bit of distance between the events of the original and the events of the sequel; they’re connected by world and by several characters, but not by conflict.
A helpful guide to Western and Eastern RPGs
This game tries to trick you into thinking it’s one thing and then it becomes something else. Surprise!
As you have probably been able to ascertain from the fact that I have an entire series of columns on this very site dubbed “The Final Fantasy Project,” I have a bit of a thing for RPGs. They’re fun! And I’ve played a lot of them over the years, some of them from the Land of the Rising Sun, others from the Land of the Rapidly Diminishing Water Supply (better known as “California”). Or the Land of the Snows and Hockey (Vancouver?). The point is, there are two different distinct design systems at work when it comes to computer RPGs, that’s what I’m getting at.
Pop culture being what it is, of course these two philosophies have to be at war with one another, and you are expected to have passionate points of view on the matter about which one is better. But some of you might not have time to carefully play through earlier installments of beloved franchises to pick out which one is better, and quite frankly no one should ever be forced to play through several portions of the Ultima series or the Fire Emblem series without the promise of a paycheck. Thus, I’ve assembled a quick guide to both sides, helpfully explaining what these things are with an eye toward pissing everyone off equally.
I would be thankful
If you’re in America, like me, you’re eating one of these today.
For a couple of years, I had a regular column that inevitably ran on Thanksgiving. Never one to pass up an opportunity for an easy gag that tickled my fancy, the joke was that every single year saw me wishing readers a happy every-holiday-other-than-this-one. I didn’t have enough time to eventually move into St. Swithin’s Day, but given enough time I am certain that would have happened. I can, in fact, be dreadfully predictable every so often.
This year, I do not have that duty. Instead, I’m sitting here and thinking of the many things I do have to be thankful for this year – a successful first year of marriage, the excellent reception I’ve gotten for this project thus far, Final Fantasy XIV, Defender’s Quest, BoJack Horseman – along with the many things that I can’t be thankful for because they aren’t, strictly speaking, real. They should be real. I think all of them are pretty self-evident, inevitable, and we’ll be happy when they come around. But the sooner these things pass into the desert of the real, well, the more thankful I’ll be.
The Final Fantasy Project: Final Fantasy IV -Interlude-, part 2
Artwork from a sketch by Yoshitaka Amano
I had really wanted to get through the whole of -Interlude- in one part, but alas, it’s just a little bit too long. You’d think there’s be a more solid sense of progression as a result, but instead it’s kind of scattershot and all over the place, starting you in the middle of leveling with an odd assortment of gear and no super-clear picture about how long you’ll be here. It’s an odd duck, is my point.
Last time, we left off with Rydia acting as if she is far too drunk to be near crystals and loaded onto the Falcon, which is weird enough in and of itself but still leaves the question of why monsters in the Sealed Cave were acting up in the first place. Also, apparently Edge is doing something, although it really hasn’t tied into the game in a significant fashion yet either. I really hope these plot threads start coming together soon, there’s not a whole lot of interlude left.
Sorry, not a whole lot of -Interlude-. That title formatting looks really ugly. Did anyone point that out?
Recent Work
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Chocobo Dash
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Eliot Lefebvre 