FUCK THAT CALF!

In which we slay the things others hold dear.

Final Fantasy Series

Final Fantasy VII is arguably the best RPG of all time. I’m more of a Chrono Trigger fan myself but I do recognize what an excellent game FFVII was. FFVI was also great and the series is general is known for innovative game mechanics, beautiful artwork and inspiring music. Or at least it used to be.

The series definitely hit its peak with FFVII. People hate on FFVIII but I thought it was pretty fun. FFIX was a cartoony piece of garbage with one of the most frustrating in-game mini games that’s ever been invented. I don’t even like collectable card games in REAL life. FFX was pretty good, making use of the sleek then-new hardware that was a PS2. I wasn’t much a fan of Blitzball but it had solid gameplay and mechanics. Things have been going pretty much downhill from there.

Final Fantasy X-2 was basically a joke. All female characters who switch dresses to gain different abilities and enhancements? Did the good people at Square forget that 99.9% of people who play their games are male? For me, this is where the end of Final Fantasy begins. FFXI was the series’ foray into the MMORPG world and while it met some critical success it came nowhere near even denting Blizzard’s hold on the MMORPG world. Giving Japanese players an unfair advantage by being able to play before American players could even buy the game as well as a grind-heavy leveling system sank this ship.

I’m going to be honest, I haven’t played FFXII. Maybe it’s good, maybe it’s bad, I don’t know. What I do know though is that FFXIII is an almost unplayable piece of shit. If you’re going to make a game that is half cutscenes you need to make characters that I actually care about. The battle system makes for extremely redundant encounters and boring gameplay. Who wants to control only one character in an RPG battle? Not this guy.

Now we come at last to the first nail in Final Fantasy’s coffin: FFXIV. Another MMORPG, this game was probably the most unplayable Final Fantasy ever released, if not the most unplayable game ever released. What Square was thinking releasing this game when they did I don’t know but it was so bad and glitchy that it got pulled from shelves, Square officially apologized and they’re now developing a re-release in the probably vain hope that it will recharge the series.

Final Fantasy died when Hironobu Sakaguchi jumped ship in 2003. The series has been faltering ever since and it is on its way out. Fanboys are the only thing that’s been keeping it alive for the past decade and they are getting older, getting married and having kids, three things that don’t jive very well with video gaming. It was good while it lasted but now it’s done.

PS Random encounters are the worst.- SB

Fun.

           Seriously, fuck Fun.. About a week before the album “Some Nights” came out, a friend of mine got an advanced copy and was so excited about it that he sent it to me to get my thoughts. Earlier that day, another friend posted the video for “We are Young” on my wall on Facebook. After listening to both, I felt this twinge, not because it was so bad, but because I just knew that they were about to blow up, and that they were going to get way bigger than the quality of the album warranted. I have to admit, the album as a whole is way better than the song “We are Young” lets on, I even really like one or two songs. But I just hate, hate, hate that song. First off, listen to the lyrics, it’s about the lead singer beating his girlfriend. That and the change in tempo right before the chorus annoys the hell out of me. It’s not clever, it’s just unnecessary. As unnecessary as the period that follows the band’s name. Why is it there? It’s hipster nonsense. At least when Billy Corgan gave us empty metaphors, they were clever. I bet dollars to donuts in five years everyone is going to claim to have hated fun.. Ug, I’m over it.-SR