The Final Fantasy Project: Final Fantasy IV, part 1
Artwork from a sketch by Yoshitaka Amano
There’s no game in the series that’s had a more tortured path coming over to non-Japanese markets than Final Fantasy III, but Final Fantasy IV certainly deserves a nod, especially as it’s the subject of a lot of rumors and aspersions that simply aren’t true. Everyone knows that it was released as Final Fantasy II originally, that the version released in the US was easier than the one released in Japan four months earlier, that a lot of it was censored… you get the idea. And, unfortunately, even with the ability to clear up a lot of misconceptions now, they persist just the same.
Let’s start at the beginning. Final Fantasy IV started development after Final Fantasy III‘s release simultaneously with Final Fantasy V… sort of. Square was working on two titles for the two Nintendo consoles: Final Fantasy IV for the Famicom, Final Fantasy V for the Super Famicom. Limitations of resources meant that the idea of another Famicom game was scrapped, and instead all of the resources were brought over to the retitled Final Fantasy IV. The Famicom game was apparently about 80% done and some elements were supposedly reused, but it’s never been stated what, exactly, got reused. (I have speculations, but that can come later.)
This isn’t a post about Zoe Quinn
In fact, she’s not even mentioned after the opening here and in the final two lines of the piece.
If you don’t know who Zoe Quinn is, that’s fine; this post isn’t about her. If you do know what happened recently, that’s good too. Although I’m using a very loose definition of the word “good” here, because what happened to her is another example of a problem that’s run rampant in gaming for years and just keeps getting more problematic. But she doesn’t want her personal life being dragged out for discussing something that’s completely unconnected to what she does for a living, and the fact is that asking that is beyond fair. Her personal life is hers. The whole “scandal” was, essentially, someone violating that boundary.
And there’s been a lot already written about it, many pieces within days of the event, and they all had the same tone to them. Hell, some of them had probably been written beforehand and were just sitting around ready for use as soon as something happened, because something was going to. It was inevitable. There was always going to be another one of these situations, and the same wave of “I can’t deal with this again” began to break.
Some people clocked out more or less as soon as it started happening. Because exhaustion had already set in.
Telling Stories: This is the world we live in
Here’s the funny thing about games: at one point, I realized that my shaman in World of Wacraft was essentially a superhero. She summoned fire, lightning, and wind to do her bidding. She was superhumanly fast, strong, and intelligent. She could walk on water and breathe beneath its surface, shroud herself in deadly electricity, and even speed up herself and her allies faster than the eye could see. Put her in some spandex and give her the same set of powers and no one would bat an eye.
Except, of course, she wasn’t a superhero; she was a shaman. Because that’s the sort of world she lived in.
The fact is that there are a lot of assumptions that go into a genre, and a lot of assumptions about the ways that the world works. You’re aware of them, but you probably don’t know exactly why, for the same reason that you know a shaman isn’t a superhero despite her ability list. Because the world of a fantasy game works differently, even with the exact same abilities. Even in World of Warcraft, it’s a lot more lethal.
Who wants to play my idea?
“Megaman without Capcom” is a pretty solid idea, admittedly, but it’s still just an idea.
You there! Would you like to play my idea? It’s a really great idea, and you can play it on whatever system you choose to play games on. It’s cool, too, especially as it has separate but linked components for your smartphone, consoles, and desktop computers. It’s got all sorts of exploration, a dynamic set of objectives that it can generate, and a deep and moving storyline that you’ll want to complete your way. And you can! There are romance systems and important decisions and epic combat, it’s great!
Oh, and if you like all of that, you’ll love my idea’s voxel support and robust physics engine, because those just make the game even better. And it has online or offline co-op! It’s the best idea you’ll play all year!
You’d like to play? Great. I’m going to need to see the cash up front, sixty bucks. Great. Have fun with my idea! What do you mean “how do I play it?” That’s not my department, dude, I just make the idea. What do you mean you don’t like playing it?
Challenge Accepted: Competitive vs. mechanical balance
We like to think it’s like this, but it’s really more this with a smaller set of scales beneath each hook, and another set there.
When we talk about balance, we’re really talking about two different things, because not all balance is identical.
In one sense, games like Street Fighter II are pretty balanced. A good balancing patch requires going through the game as a whole, evaluating what characters can do, and making sure that moves operate correctly and don’t create too few or too many answers to another. In another sense, games like Mass Effect 3 are pretty balanced, wherein every tactical choice you can make with your character is about as strong as every other choice you can make with your character. But the two don’t line up quite right.
There’s no PvP in Mass Effect 3, but it doesn’t take a lot of work to see how certain classes in multiplayer would be helpless without other classes – yet the whole thing is fairly balanced. Because it’s not balanced the same way as a game like Street Fighter II. That’s what I want to examine and talk about today, the way that the two sorts of balance don’t always play well off of one another and how the style of balance makes a big deal for the game.
Recent Work
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Chocobo Dash
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Eliot Lefebvre 