Songs without Words

I’ve recently been replaying Final Fantasy VII with my girlfriend, which has gotten me thinking about all the Square games I’ve played.  I think it’s worth going through and quickly reviewing them all, just to put in perspective the opposing hordes, one of which laments the fall of the “golden age” of console RPGs and the other which is enamored by the newest tales in their respective series.

The Square games I’ve played are: Chrono Trigger (finished), Chrono Cross (finished); Final Fantasy IV (unfinished), VII (finished), VIII (finished), IX (finished), X (finished), X-2 (unfinished), XII (finished), Tactics (unfinished), Legends II (finished), and Legends III (finished); Xenosaga Episode I (finished).  I of course wish I’ve played Xenogears and Final Fantasy VI, but nope, I haven’t.  I have also watched The Spirits Within and Advent Children.

Itemized reviews:

Chrono Trigger

There is an incredible fan-following for this game, and I think its many quirks and innovations and intriguing storytelling technique do justify the hype, although I don’t feel like it’s quite as life-changing as some make it out to be.

Battle 85 – the battle system which makes use of physical arrangements of characters (not utilized by the FF series, but also appearing in the Lunar series) is refreshing, and it’s fun to see people actually move around instead of sitting in place.  Also, one of the marvelous parts of 2-D RPGs is that the battles are quick – they focus on strategy, not pizzazz of pre-rendered sequences which are the equivalent of TV – enjoyable but unchallenging.  I take off points because the spells do get old and so do the common enemies.  But the bosses have some of the greatest “gimmicks” (that’s my term for unexpected behaviors and patterns that force you to adapt).

Gameplay and Graphics 85 – Quite nice environments and straightforward layouts.  The sprites were very detailed and conveyed a lot of emotion which I think actually has since been lost as the difficulties of recreating emotion in 3-D models has presented a persistent paucity of character depth.

Music 75 – there are some great songs, such as Frog’s theme, Spekkio’s theme, and the Zeal kingdom theme, but there is also a fair share of bland tracks.  And there’s an inevitable comparison to Chrono Cross’s soundtrack, which I feel is where Mitsuda really found his niche and perfected his art.

Story 80 – The story is fun and compelling, but I didn’t find it all that memorable or breathtaking, either.  The time-traveling device is the high point of creativity here.

Characters 85 – The characters are fun .. didn’t ring a close emotional tone with me, though.

Chrono Cross

Battle 75 – Unfortunately does away with the battle system from Chrono Trigger in favor of a pretty standard battle system that I didn’t particularly find exciting.

Gameplay and Graphics 85 – A very lush and beautiful world.  It’s a great pleasure to travel through all the different places.

Music 90 – An outstanding, breathtaking soundtrack that really immerses you in a world and flavor that seems to come from another world than other Square games.

Story 80 – I actually quite enjoyed the storyline of this game.  It has its share of intriguing twists, and I feel there was this air of enigmatic mystery throughout.  However, I wonder about this lasting impression of something missing from the way the story concludes itself.

Characters 75 – There were WAY too many playable characters and far too little time spent developing them.  If there were more job “classes” or specialties, I would have more support for this large cast, but as it stands, there were just too many.  Way too many.  It felt like Pokemon at times.  But, the main characters are pretty cool!

Final Fantasy VII

Battle 80 – Not great, not terrible.  The weapons and armor system is underwhelming and largely ignorable through most of the adventure, with materia being the main focus.  The idea of materia leveling up is refreshing, and the plethora of summons which do not have excessively long animation sequences is also rather nice.

Gameplay and Graphics 85 – I don’t understand why people complain about pre-rendered graphics.  I actually highly prefer pre-rendered graphics, which often have artistic renderings, unique touches, and gorgeous coloring palettes, to the new fully 3-D environments which are made up of redundant motifs, endless sands/identical grass, and bland architecture.  Final Fantasy VII, VIII, and IX have, in my opinion, the most beautiful background images of all RPGs I’ve ever played.  The playable sprites are atrocious blobs that look like Michelin men, but I actually prefer them to the popsicle sticks in FFVIII and whatever the heck Zidane was supposed to be in FFIX.  Only in Final Fantasy XII do I think the 3-D characters actually look as good as my imagination can make out of Final Fantasy VII’s coarse brush-strokes, which at least are kind of cute.  And I really don’t mind running around without being able to see my character.  Not everything in this world of value is visible.

Music 90 – There are very few bad tracks in this expansive score.  The use of themes and leitmotifs is on par with Star Wars, and never since have I been so in tune to the subtle and overt uses of sound cues to signal characters and ideas.

Story 90 – The scripting is sometimes poor – but then again, Final Fantasies don’t usually sport outstanding scripts (at least FFVII isn’t as pretentious about its script as FFVIII).  The strength lies in the story itself, which is brilliantly paced and which has so many twists and turns as well as compelling elements.  The humor is also top-notch.  Although individual elements are certainly not original, I feel like the final product is hard to dislike.

Characters 90 – The characters, with the exception of the optional ones, have decently well-developed personalities.  Although they fall into clear archetypes, I think they really are the cream of their respective crops.  The introspective nature of the game and dialogue can be a turn-off to some, but I think it makes for a fun marvel.  Especially fun is the psychology behind Cloud and Sephiroth.

Final Fantasy VIII

Battle 70 – Ugh, there were many things wrong with the battle system.  Despite great spells, this system is really done in by (a) the difficulty of obtaining money, (b) the enemies that get stronger and stronger, (c) the inane magic “drawing” system, and (d) the eventual imbalances in the different party members.  The summons are great fun, though.

Gameplay and Graphics 90 – Stunning and leaps and bounds beyond FFVII.  The cutscenes were shockingly realistic and detailed when they came out, and still set the standard for cinematics in games.

Music 95 – I regularly go back and listen to tracks from this CD.  While many taut FFVI as the pinnacle of Uematsu’s work, I instead think that this is his greatest masterpiece.  From the 5/4 battle theme to the gorgeous renditions of Eyes on Me and the Sorceress motif to the quirky organ and harpsichord piece (“The Castle”) to the dizzying “Compression of Time,” there is just such variety and unbridled emotion that really lends character to every locale and event.

Story 80 – The story is a bit messy and the love focus can be forced at times, but it wasn’t bad … except the random Laguna alter-ego “flashbacks” which got plain tedious.  Overall, I don’t think the story flowed as well, perhaps owing to the over-dramatic but ultimately uninspiring dialogue at times.  Still, it’s not a bad story by any means, and I definitely played from beginning to end without feeling like I had lost interest in what happened to the characters.  Moreover, the decision to incorporate love as a central theme makes for a rather fuzzy and heartwarming experience, even if Squall’s misanthropic character is irritating at times.

Characters 85 – With the exception of Squall and Seifer, the characters were actually pretty fun.

Final Fantasy IX

Ah, the very first RPG I ever played!  And boy did it inspire me :)

Battle 85 – The battle system goes old-school … which in this case I think was a good move.  The battles are on the whole fun and fast (as long as you don’t summon too much), and whoever was complaining about Auto-Potions …  just don’t use it!

Gameplay and Graphics 95 – Taking place in a high-fantasy world devoid of the industrial clutter of FFVII and FFVIII, there is a color palette here that I think goes unmatched.  I found the environments to be tastefully and congruously designed, and meticulously detailed.  The super-deformed characters can be a bit jarring, but aside from Zidane and Eiko, I think the effect is actually quite pleasant.  The cutscenes are great fun.

Music 90 – You can sort of tell that Uematsu was probably getting ready to move on to something new.  The soundtrack is gorgeous as always, but not quite as memorable.  Aside from Melodies of Life, which I think is the best vocal theme for any Final Fantasy released thus far, a lot of the songs seem like imitations of previous game themes used to similar effect.  Nevertheless, the chocobo theme is amazing, as is Kuja’s final battle theme.

Story 85 – A simple story that wasn’t going for anything complicated or dark or twisted.  I think it’s pleasant and cute and never really overbearing.  Minus a few points for a poor final boss choice, though.  Final Fantasy VI and VII probably have the best “villain storytelling” and continuity.

Final Fantasy X

Battle 80 – They wanted to try something new that wasn’t ATB-based.  But of all things to turn to, why a turn-based battle system??  I do think the Sphere Grid was an innovative idea and definitely a fun incorporation of a more “table-top” kind of feel which is not as artificial as a level system.  Still, it was excruciating at times to try to traverse the Sphere Grid, and Final Fantasy XII definitely made much better use of the concept.  Being able to switch your members in and out eliminated the awkward excuses previously made for having only a small part of your party active at any point in time, and also helped to iron out the gross level inequalities inherent in small-party adventure.

Graphics 80 – I’m giving points mostly for the cutscenes which were mindblowingly awesome, from Blitzball to Yuna’s death ceremony.  More than just eye-candy, I genuinely felt emotionally moved by the sequences.  The voice acting was … unnecessary, though.

Unfortunately, with the end of the overworld and the end of pre-rendered graphics, I feel like there was a MAJOR problem: the difficulty of capturing the quirky and sometimes Escher-like worlds that used to define Final Fantasy.  Everything became so … regularized and repetitive.  The colors became literal and the whole world was so linear.  There was no sense of scope and expanse and unknown that characterized the previous games, including the 2-D ones.

Gameplay 90 – I’m making this a separate category because gameplay starts to become more of its own thing after the PS2 transition.  Of note is Blitzball, which is actually kind of fun but which should have been in 3-D, not 2-D.  More importantly, though, the puzzles!  The fight-free puzzle sessions before every dungeon were a real treat and genuinely challenging.  For me it became a whole-family affair, with my mom joining in, too.