Welp! Back in the “Let’s Play Final Fantasy” saddle after a real life “ack, the ‘rents are visiting!” hiatus.
(This chunk will be a bit short. You don’t mind, do you?)
As per Galuf’s last wishes, it’s time for us to launch his long-delayed assault on Castle ExDeath. I would pretend that this is the endgame, except that I’ve played FFV before, and cannot help but be aware that this is really the “Let’s go to Zanarkand / City of the Ancients / Lunatic Pandora / OOPS there’s more plot” dungeon. Still, here we are.
To recap our lighthearted romp through FFVland: three Crystals are kaput, our first ship has sunk, Faris is still the most glorious pirate, Lenna is a friend to everything with fur and scales, Galuf has regained at least some of his memories, and Butz is still a charming goofball. So, can our erstwhile Four Warriors of Light save the remaining Crystal?
Quick recap from the Advance introduction to FFV, to set the mood with zany plunky-plunky-plunky Uematsu music:
So our four heroes have been drafted as the Warriors of Light (WoLlies really need to form a union) and are off to the next Crystal, as soon as we can escape the Kiddie Pool Inner Sea.
As usual, I’d like to start my Let’s Play Final Fantasy with (1) a link to Moogle University’s FFV write-ups which inspired my own playthrough and (2) the opening FMV from the PS1 remaster (Final Fantasy Anthology, 2003, which is what hooked me on this game despite the flatter-than-Data’s-poetry localization):
Thoughts:
Dear Squeenix, when you turn Amano’s concept art into 3D, you do not have to leave their skin the color of a piece of paper.
It’s amazing how quickly graphics look dated, isn’t it? But Uematsu’s music still soars.
I adore the outrageous spines and jewels sticking out of everything, especially that pirate ship.
Black trenchcoat? Check. Katana? Check. Bishie badassitude? Check. Sephiroth, you are a cheap imitation of the ORIGINAL appearance of this character design. Nyah nyah.
Now let’s start the iOS edition.
Okay! I’m not entirely happy with the stretched iOS redraws of the original character sprites. So, while I’m going to be screencapping from iOS FF5, I’ll be featuring some original-game sprites from videogamesprites.net for snark & commentary. Also, just to be even more confusing, the iOS version appends Amano’s original character portraits to speech boxes — concept art that the in-game sprite designers sometimes completely ignored!
Note: Boldface is actual game dialog, non-bold is my paraphrase, or…er…embellishments.
Before we go gadding off in our new airship Enterprise, let us pause a moment to admire our Four Warriors of Technicolor.
The colors are fantastic — including Cecil’s blue lipstick — but I can’t help noticing that all the female characters have now dropped out of the party for one reason or another.
Cidface: 🙁
But first! Nothing says “sidequests” quite like “The clock is ticking, and your girlfriend or maybe even the entire world is facing imminent destruction!”
Last time on Let’s Play Final Fantasy IV, our Batman angstbucket hero made lots of friends.
And lost them.
Let’s review Cecil’s Very Bad Week.
slaughtered innocent civilians while stealing their Crystal, feels remorse
lost his position as proud leader of the Red Wings air brigade
lost faith in / betrayed by the king who raised him as a son
too stupid to realize the king was using him again for dastardly deeds
accidentally burned a village to the ground and killed a bunch of summoners
including the mother of a sweet child he’s now guarding in atonement
except now he’s lost the child and she’s probably drowned or dead
attacked by an Octomammoth, which means that somewhere, in some fanfic, Cecil is stuck in tentacle!porn hell
failed to save the kingdoms of Damcyan and Fabul from assault by the troops he used to command
three out of four Crystals now in enemy hands thanks to his failures
best friend has betrayed and tried to kill him
girlfriend nearly died, then kidnapped by villain just to torment Cecil
shipwrecked on the way to rescue said girlfriend
as far as Cecil knows, the friends he dragged along on that rescue mission are dead
girlfriend is gorgeous and underdressed, yet he’s trapped inside armor that requires Jaws of Life to remove, so they probably haven’t even made it to first base
Now that we’ve had a taste of the current generation of graphics, here’s a quick glance at the 1991 original SNES graphics of Final Fantasy IV (released in English as FFII, since the previous two games weren’t):
I’m glad that old-school players were able to fall in love with FFIV despite the choppy translation. Then again, I adore FFV, even though my version is the uninspired PS1 translation.