Friday 19 January, 2007

I’m in the Tomb of Raithwall and I fought the optional boss Demon Wall. I have a strategy guide that advises otherwise, but it said I could get to a treasure weapon unlocked by killing him. I was out of MP for Quickenings, and was desperately switching party characters, before I remembered to use some of my many ethers. I beat him even without Vaan, whom he teleported away from the battle. This game is so all-consuming! I just realized that I played it for an hour more that the requirement…Oh well. In any case, I fought the non-optional Demon Wall next. It was about the same as the first, but I was able to get more hits in my Quickenings, so it didn’t take as long.

I was thinking about what makes this game so popular and I think that I settled on it. There are a few connecting threads, such as Chocobos, Moogles, and Phoenix Downs that connect these many games and worlds and this along with the name Final Fantasy, has become a part of our culture and has a certain comfortable familiarity about it. We can talk about it with many people our age and discuss our experiences of gameplay with one another. However, the characters in each Final Fantasy are new and unconnected. This means that there are new characters to add to our cultural dialogue for each new Final Fantasy. We have new favorites and villains and evil twin brothers to keep us entertained. That, and since the graphics get better and game systems can handle more, Final Fantasy gets more and more visually stunning. If you happen to see a friend playing this game, it is very easy to be drawn into it by the beauty of the graphics. All of a sudden you’re playing the game and gaining the cultural awareness until you become well-versed in the language of the game and can pass it on to others.

It's funny that you mention that... I recently finished FFI and FFII and there are no Moogles or Chocobos! (ok, there is 1 chocobo in FFII...but I think it might have been added later, since I played the GBA version). Phoenix Downs did exist though! :-)