Two of my favorite franchises in video games are The Legend of Zelda
and Final Fantasy. The two have several things in common. They’re both
extremely popular and long-running series. They both tend to shun traditional
sequels, kicking off each title with a different setting and story. They also
both have a second entry that tried something drastically different and ended
up as the black sheep. I played both black sheep years ago, gave up in
frustration, and eventually revisited each of them for reviews.
But upon further examination, their similarities dry up. The Legend of
Zelda may hit the reset button almost every entry, but there’s a lot that stays
the same. Up until its most recent title,
the biggest criticism anyone could level was that it was formulaic. It dealt in
presenting new lands, challenges, and incremental tweaks. Iteration rather than
innovation. But Final Fantasy?
The most you can say is it stays roughly
within the same genre.
And
then there's the spinoffs, which are often ARE different genres. For better or
worse.
Everything changes. Each Final Fantasy alters the setting, the
characters, and even the tone of the writing. The combat is completely
overhauled, and so are the systems of progression and character advancement.
Though much of the series has had the same visual and audio directors, they
made an intentional point of using different aesthetic and musical themes for
every game. It walks a tightrope of genre conventions and general themes to
stay just close enough to count as a
series. Some would contest even that.
This is one of the most genuinely beautiful things about Final
Fantasy…and one of the most contentious. There might not be any other series in
gaming with a fanbase so divided. And you can hardly blame them, because
they’re fans of drastically different products. You can pop on to any forum on
the internet and find someone passionately advocating why Final Fantasy A is
the greatest game of all time and Final Fantasy B is hot garbage. Then you’ll
scroll down and the next post will be, completely independently, arguing the
opposite. Sure there are some games that are more often praised,
like FF6.
There are also some commonly derided, like FF8 or FF13. But you can still find
staunch opposition towards 6, and fervent defenders of 8 and 13. Every game has
its haters and its fans.
And yet, in all my time on the internet…I’ve never heard someone whose
favorite game was Final Fantasy 2.
I’m sure they exist. I have heard people defend the game. But it’s
never with quite the same enthusiasm other titles inspire. People will make
their case, but it will be subdued. Almost apologetic. And after spending a
couple dozen hours with the game*, I think I see why. Final Fantasy 2 is an
admirably ambitious game that broke from the mold and attempted all sorts of
new and interesting things. But the execution?
*Specifically, I played the GBA
remake Dawn of Souls
Well, let’s just take things one step at a time, shall we?
Story and Writing
The writing is a good place to start because its issues are fairly
self-contained. Final Fantasy 2 had a notably more involved story than its
predecessors. Unlike previous games, all the protagonists had names and
character traits. Admittedly not strong character
traits. They can basically be summed up: protagonist, girl, protagonist, coward
for 2 lines of dialogue, protagonist, arr I’m a pirate, protagonist, antagonist
forgiven way too easily, and beaver whisperer. But it was something, and though it doesn’t hold up well I’ll give it points
for the time it was written.
There are several characters who die throughout the course of the game,
which was a pretty fresh concept for the day. Not just generic NPCs either,
though a hefty chunk of those are axed before the credits roll. We’re talking
actual named individuals you speak with, sometimes even party members. The
scenes in question are even handled somewhat competently. Granted, they don’t
tend to linger on the deceased for long. I’ll also admit most of the deaths are pretty arbitrary. But hey,
there are honestly worse examples later in the series.
You may notice I haven’t actually told you the premise yet. That’s
because said premise is as bland and unimaginative as a metaphor for something
bland and unimaginative. There’s an evil empire, and you play some recently
orphaned young adults who join the rebels. That’s it. In all seriousness, most
of the game is an excuse plot. You go this or that way in search of a chain of
plot keys and quest triggers, but very little happens that changes someone’s character
or your overall goals. The emperor is evil because he just is. He never makes a
case for himself and he’s literally the only person in the game who grew up in
the empire*.
*Their capital is just a castle
dungeon, no town to be found
I
suppose it depends if you count random encounter soldiers as people…or golems.
What do you think the golems do when there's no one to fight? Do they just
stuff them in a closet? Think they get vacation time? Do they polish those
unnecessary rock-muscles themselves?
So the story is generic, lacking in character, and often non-existent.
But even in terms of story, FF2 was willing to push some neat new ideas. And
the idea in this case was Key Terms.
Ask
Learn <
Key Terms <
Item
You have learned the key term Key
Terms.
Ask <
Key Terms <
Learn
Item
Key Terms were a feature
that FF2 added to dialogue that actually made it, well…a dialogue. In the
previous game the NPCs took zero input from the player. You’d interact with
them and they’d spew out some random paragraph of information, most of which
was painfully blunt exposition. In FF2, the way it works is simple. Sometimes,
NPCs will speak in Red Text. Then
the game will bring up a menu.
Ask
Learn <
Key Terms
Red Text <
Item
You have learned the key term Red
Text.
In
the olden days, we couldn't afford the color red in dialogue boxes, so we had
to settle for brackets.
Ask <
Key Terms
Red Text <
Learn
Item
When Red Text appears, it
means you can learn a Key Term. If
you repeat a Key Term to someone,
they may offer More Information on
that term. However, more often than not they’ll have nothing to say. Or they do
have something to say, but finding the right person or term involves Adventure Game Logic.
Ask
Learn <
Key Terms
Red Text
More Information <
Adventure Game Logic
Item
You have learned the key term More
Information.
Ask
Learn <
Key Terms
Red Text
More Information
Adventure Game Logic <
Item
You have learned the key term Adventure
Game Logic.
Ask <
Key Terms
Red Text
More Information <
Adventure Game Logic
Learn
Item
Sometimes asking about More
Information will lead to the essential details on where to go or what to
do. Other times it leads to the character giving a bit of backstory or flavor
text that’s neat, but ultimately perfunctory and unimportant. And sometimes, a
character will respond to your request for More
Information, but all they’ll say is some variant of “I know nothing about
that”.
For
example, I know nothing about what this line is trying to tell us. I guess
something about flowers? Who knows what we're supposed to do with flowers.
Ask <
Key Terms
Red Text
More Information
Adventure Game Logic <
Learn
Item
Frequently you’ll ask someone about a key term like Adventure Game Logic, but they won’t
provide any new terms to learn or answers to direct you. But they will give some vague information on who
can provide the answer. For example, they might tell you that the Next
Paragraph has the info you seek, and you should seek its council to the
southeast of this text.
*You travel southeast*
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|---------------------------------------->Hello there! They call me
the Next Paragraph! What can I do for you?
Ask <
Key Terms <
Red Text
More Information
Adventure Game Logic
Learn
Item
?
Ask <
Key Terms
Red Text <
More Information
Adventure Game Logic
Learn
Item
?
Ask <
Key Terms
Red Text
More Information <
Adventure Game Logic
Learn
Item
It’s always pleasant to find the rare occasions when asking for More Information provides you with
extra dialogue not essential to the plot. But such statements are far and few
between, very short, and not the best written. I can only think of one instance
in the entire game where asking something led to an optional gameplay reward of
any kind. Mostly, it’s just exposition.
Exposition
like this cryptic statement. What could it mean?!
Ask <
Key Terms
Red Text
More Information
Adventure Game Logic <
Learn
Item
Adventure Game Logic refers
to the logic needed to navigate old text or point-and-click adventure games. These
games had to work with a limited set of items or terms. Coupled with occasional
sloppy writing, they became infamous for sequences of events that would make no
sense in anything approaching reality. Stuff like throwing pies at bloodthirsty
yetis, or luring a cat to a fence to get its hair to glue to your face to match
the moustache you yourself drew on a fake ID*. So rather than try and untangle
these bizarre chains of half-baked reasoning, players would just try using
every item and every dialogue option on every character.
*Yes these are real examples, from
King’s Quest 5 and Gabriel Knight 3 respectively. I first discovered them in
this article,
which is now almost a decade old. Time flies.
I'm
glad I played a remake, because it seems like the NES translation would make
decoding this adventure game logic even more…"fun".
And for all their potential, such is the fate of Key Terms. It’s mostly just a string of linear exposition chunks to
keep the plot running. Since who and what to ask is often confusing, all this
system really accomplishes is padding the game with more filler as you wander
in search of the right person, item or term. And as we’ll see later, the game
already has a problem with padding.
Leveling System
The most noteworthy difference between Final Fantasy 2 and its
contemporaries was its unusual system of character progression. In FF2, there
were no traditional levels or classes. Instead, anyone could use any weapon
type or spell, and repeated use would make it stronger for that particular
character. Basic stats like health, strength or magic also improved based on
frequency of use. Similar systems would later be used in a handful of games
like the Elder Scrolls series, but it was even more uncommon back in the day. Of
course, anyone who’s played or read up on FF2 knows where this is going. This
system is ambitious and interesting. We all admire it…but few defend it.
As I see it, there are four major reasons the FF2 leveling system
fails. The first is trade-offs inherent to the system. Second is that leveling
is exponential. The third is too much randomization. Last of all is how easy it
is to break the system. Let’s go through these one at a time:
Inherent Disadvantages
There are inherent disadvantages to this style of progression. It seems
great at first that any character can be anything. But when you get down to it,
this freedom is undercut by most options being inferior. The more specialized
character will always be more effective than one who spreads their skills
around. Granted, there’s some fun to be had in putting extra time into weird
character builds. But part of the joy of RPGs is optimization. Not just
building your own custom monster mulcher, but doing so efficiently. Constraints aren’t just necessary, they often help
encourage creativity and problem solving. Giving someone a specific subject and
palette to paint with is typically better than dumping a blank canvas on them.
Your
materials are literally anything. Your theme is "Don't suck". We'll
be intensely judging your results. Good luck!
On less philosophical grounds, an open leveling system makes the actual
progression harder to follow. There are no clear signposts to give you a
general idea of your strength. Are you overpowered for this area, or are you
underpowered? This is hard to tell to begin with, due to strange or inconsistently
balanced enemies. With this leveling system it becomes a total crapshoot.
Though from experience, I can tell you the answer to whether you’re over or
underpowered: Yes.
Exponential Leveling
Some RPGs give flat bonuses each time you level up or increase in
power. When Darren the Boogiemancer is level 20, his dancing skills will be
twice as fresh as they were at level 10. These linear scales are simple and
effective, but many RPGs don’t follow them. Instead, they have power scales that
work exponentially or logarithmically, with steadily rising upgrades. So, for
example, Larry the Pastry Knight can bake 10 explosive pies a day at level 10,
but then 50 a day at level 20 and 400 a day at level 30. As you become more
powerful, the amount of each power
increase also rises.
Why choose this system? As I see it, there are two major motives. The
first is that it puts a narrower range on the areas you can explore. In an
exponential system, when you go someplace you aren’t supposed to you’ll FEEL
it. Enemies will be far too strong to handle or too weak to bother with. This
limits the amount of places a player could reasonably go at a given level,
making balancing easier on the designer. The boundaries are less harsh in a
linear system. This can lead to the game feeling less tightly balanced. A level
20 player could end up in an area intended for level 40 and not realize it,
complaining all the way and generally having a rotten time. These fuzzy
boundaries are a necessary drawback to the freedom of a linear scale.
The second motive for exponential leveling? Well, let me pose a
hypothetical scenario. A noble knight comes across a fearsome Clown Dragon, and
what follows is a humiliating slaughter. Crushed by a hundred explosive pies,
strangled by a thousand barbed balloon animals, the noble knight fails again
and again to defeat the beast. But then, it finally happens. The knight weaves
through the field of poison gas whoopee cushions and slices over and over into
the lizard's comically-sized overalls. Rising up through a spray of foul
seltzer water breath, they land the final blow! The dragon is slain, and
fatigued, the knight moves on. And then, hours of adventuring later, he comes
across a familiar sight: Another fearsome Clown Dragon.
And he kills it in a single hit.
Apparently
I'm not the only one to think up Clown Dragons. I'm strangely disappointed that
I'm not first to a terrible idea.
Any player of RPGs is familiar with this scenario, because it’s one of
the most fundamental and enjoyable aspects of the genre. Seeing character
progression reflected in fights with former foes is an amazing feeling. And if
your game has exponential leveling? That happens all the time. Since your range of level-appropriate enemies is
narrow, you constantly leave foes that used to give you trouble in the dust. In
a linear system, it might be half the game before you can conquer earlier
challenges with ease, if it happens at all. In an exponential system, it
happens every few hours.
Now let’s bring this back to Final Fantasy 2. FF2 does not have linear
leveling. HP (Hit Points) are increased when you lose them, but so is a stat
called Stamina. When your HP increases, how much it does is determined by your
Stamina. It’s the same way with the MP and Magic stats. Another example is Agility.
You increase the Agility stat by dodging attacks, but your chance to dodge
raises with how much Agility you have. So why is this a problem?
Well, it means that despite how open the system is, specialization is
made even more appealing. A character
that mixes spell-casting and brawling isn’t going to be half as good at each. Instead,
the gap between them and the specialized is only going to increase as time goes
on. This mostly defeats the purpose of an open leveling system. But there’s
another problem that makes this exponential leveling even more of a hassle:
Paradoxically, you don’t have enough control over your character's development.
Randomization
You’ll notice in the last section I said your HP increases when you get
hit. The sharp among you will see the problem with this right away: Getting hit isn’t something you control.
Who gets more HP is dependent on who gets randomly struck by enemies*. It’s the
same way with Stamina, and Agility in the form of dodging attacks. This means half
of your stats are purely determined by the actions of enemies. Unfortunately,
it gets worse: Every stat increase only occurs by random chance.
*Fun fact, HP and Stamina raise
based off how much lower your HP is at the end of a fight. So healing in the
middle of battle to stay healthy ACTIVELY HURTS your character development!
And
when you're hoping enemies will hit you, you know something has gone wrong.
The chance increases the more you perform actions in a given fight, but
whether you obtain stats at the end is ultimately a die roll. You could get the
hellish beating of a life time and see nothing for it, then next fight get tapped
on the shoulder and snag an HP boost. The chance of some stats raising is so
low that it feels like you have almost zero
impact on when your character buffs up. That you have no clear and visible
influence means that even when you do increase stats, it never feels quite as
satisfying as other leveling systems. You know, deep down, that it’s the dice
in charge here, not you. All you get to do is weight it.
As a final knot in this tangled web, the randomization makes the
exponential problems even worse. Since you can’t influence several stats, it
means the law of averages takes hold. Your party members have different
starting stats. For example, Guy (yes that is his real name) has more Stamina
than Firion, and Maria has less. Since you have no control over who gets hit,
in all but the most extraordinary circumstances those stat differences will remain
and even exaggerate over time, forcing these characters into certain
archetypes. Now there is a way to manipulate stats any way you want, but it’s,
well…
Breaking the System
You hit yourself.
That’s what it all boils down to. You can’t control which party member are
hit by enemies. You can’t burn through spells and MP if the enemies die right
away, and the same goes for dodging. The most surefire way to level up your
characters, by far, is as follows:
1. Find an enemy so weak you can ignore it.
2. Beat the crap out of each other whatever way you see fit.
3. End the fight whenever you feel like.
Infuriatingly, even this isn’t a guarantee of stat ups. But it’s far
more certain than battling normally. Since the most efficient way to level is
screwing around with weak foes, most fights feel completely pointless. Sure you
get some gold, but the economy and number of encounters* mean that you’ll
rarely be wanting for cash. The game has some jumps in difficulty, which makes
you think you have to grind. But the exponential leveling means it’s easy to
overgrind and become ridiculously overpowered. The whole system is just a mess.
*Don’t worry, I’ll address this
later. I’ll address the HECK out of it.
Hm…this
boss doesn't seem threatening enough to kill us right away…quick! Stab me in
the face a few times!
These leveling flaws aren't even a comprehensive list. But I’ve covered
all the big issues and this article is getting a little long in the tooth. There's
plenty more to say on Final Fantasy 2 though, so…
Everything Else
Originally, I thought I could fit my thoughts on this game into a
single article. I agree, that was
stupid of me. Since there’s too much to cover here for even the most reasonable
attention span, this article is being split in two. That this gives me extra
time to finish writing it is pure coincidence. Join me next week, when we’ll
talk about Enemy Design, Dungeon Design, Music and all the miscellaneous points
in between. See you then!
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