Maybe I would feel differently if I played the original Alex Kidd as a kid and had some nostalgia for it, but I can’t think of legitimately anything good to say about this. The main problem with the game is the controls are some of the worst I’ve ever seen. The jumps don’t feel like you have much control and it’s hard to judge how you’re going to fall or where you are going to land. Also the game couldn’t feel more bland in my opinion. The enemies are just kind of there waiting for you to literally punch them in the face. This is a game I’m certain I will never come back to and can’t recommend this to anyone.

Final Fantasy XII is a game I slept on for far too long and am so glad I finally got around to knocking it out. It really shook up the formula once again and almost every thing was a hit with only a few misses.

The main strength of this game is the world of Ivalice. The world is beautifully crafted with different races, beautiful cities, rich history, power hungry empires, many wars, and political intrigue. Like every other Final Fantasy game for me, the story had me excited and engaged from beginning to end. While still fantasy and over the top, this one felt more grounded than most of the series due to much of the plot being about war and politics. I loved the cast of characters in this game with Ashe and Balthier being the obvious stand outs. I also loved Larsa. Larsa is far and away my favorite Final Fantasy character of all time that wasn’t either a main villian or main party character.

I’ve said this in pretty much ever Final Fantasy review and this game is no different, the music is sublime and the art was outstanding for the time of release.

I wanted to rate this game as a five star and wouldn’t question anyone who does but there were two obvious flaws for me. First is this game is painfully easy. Once you get enough levels and gambits the game can quite literally play itself even being able to defeat almost every boss by itself. I only had a game over once and it’s because I fought the T Rex in the first level thinking I could kill it being as it was in the first level. Other than that I breezed through everything. My only other problem and admittedly this isn’t a huge deal to me but the job classes felt to similar and I was hoping for more of a variety than there actually was.

Another absolute home run in the series that I would recommend to any RPG fan.

A solid Metroidvania that excels at nothing but also doesn’t fail anything either. For a Metroidvania there was very little backtracking. Which to me is not a plus but I know there are many that would be thankful of that. The combat while not super fun or innovative is tight and controls well. The closest thing to a true failure this game does is the story which is just bad in my opinion. This is not a game I would recommend to everyone but for someone who enjoys platformers with Metroidvania qualities it’s not a bad way to spend 3 or so hours.

Sometimes the simplest things can be the best. You take a ball and can rollover things to make the ball bigger but they must me smaller than the ball. This grows the ball so you can pick up bigger things. I know that probably doesn’t sound great but it’s addicting and super fun. The story is the one of the strangest things in gaming. I would explain it but I don’t know how. There is star god”? I think, and some people and giant octupus and Godzilla and a lot of other random things. You roll around and collect stuff so the star god can bring the stars back.

I realize this review makes no sense and makes the game sound dumb as hell. But you also need to realize it’s really funny and worth a few hours of your time.

I have to be honest, for the first several hours I wasn’t very interested in this games mechanics or story. I actually asked Chordata3 if he thought I should just give it up and he said it’s one of you favorite franchises I would keep going. I’m so glad I listened because by the end it had one of the best leveling systems, battle systems, art, music, atmospheres, characters, and stories in all of gaming.

I find it almost impossible to talk about what’s great about this games story and characters without spoiling the major events of the story. So I won’t go into much detail. As I previously said I wasn’t into the story much at the beginning but, wow, it gets so good so quick as you slowly see the layers peeled back and answers and plot twists are revealed. Every party member plays an important role in the story. Many, and I mean many, RPGs even many of the Final Fantasy’s have some party members you could throw away and the main story wouldn’t change a bit bit. Here though if you take away any characters story the game just doesn’t work. The story it self is one hell of a ride. What is so unique is there isn’t a true main villain. Seymour is the closest thing but he is not the final boss. The main threat in this game is a corrupt religious group, a cycle of death and sorrow, brought on by a monster that came about as a result of a war, and lies that keep this cycle to keep continuing. If you haven’t played the game I’m sure that sounds, well not great, but I promise the story is so good. The sub plot of Tidus and Yuna’s love story is by far the best love story in the series and also in my opinion the most believable. This game also has the most emotional empact along with FF6 in the series. This is section is easily the most important reason for the 5 star rating.

The battle system is easily my favorite in the franchise. Each character can be swapped out for any other party member during the battle with no penalty or wait time. This makes the game feel more alive than just 3-4 members doing all the work while 1-10 more party members just seem to be following them around doing nothing. The party members only get AP (EXP in other games) if they performed an action during the battle. Players use this AP to upgrade their members in the sphere grid. Instead of regular leveling this game uses the sphere grid so that you can level players how you see fit. I won’t explain the process here but it is one of the best if not the best in FF.

I’ve said this a lot in my FF reviews but there isn’t much to say about the art, music, atmosphere outside of it’s fantastic. The series especially the first ten games were way ahead of everyone else in the industry in these categories.

What started off as a game I thought I may not like became one of my all time favorite games. It will be very high on my top 100 games list when I add it to the list.

I've said before that "this game was hard to rate because" but never has it been truer than it was for Final Fantasy 8. It is well known that it is one of the most divisive games of the Final Fantasy Franchise and arguably one of the most divisive games of all time. There doesn't seem to be a lot of wiggle room on opinions of this game. You either love it, hate it, or love and hate it. I fall into the latter. There were moments where I thought I was playing a masterpiece of a game but there were also moments where I was so confused why they had something good cooking then suddenly the story would jump the proverbial shark.

I'll start with the negatives so we can end this on a good note because obviously at 4 stars I do think that this is an excellent game.

The Junction system was a cool new concept that unfortunately, in my opinion, accidentally counter attacked the developer's own intentions and is detrimental to new players. You see in most Final Fantasy's, and all the Final Fantasy's before this one, when you fought battles, gain EXP, which would lead to your party getting better at attacking, magic, health, speed, etc. You still do this somewhat but the stat increases are so minimal that it's barely noticeable. Instead with this game you can level up your GF's ( Summons of the past games) so they can add abilities to allow you to buff your stats by being able to equip magic to your stats. Two quick examples. You can attach fire to your attack to gain more power in your attack and also add elemental damage. You can add cure to your HP to generate more HP for your characters. In my opinion this isn't the worst system in the world but a lot of players notoriously hate this system. In my opinion, where this fails is in three facets surrounding the battles/leveling/junction system. Before we get into the problems it's important to note here that the developers have said they wanted to change the system so players wouldn't have to grind to level up characters. Firstly, the game teaches you that the best way to get magic is to draw it from an enemy. Every enemy in the game will carry some type of magic with it and each character can draw magic from them basically stealing some at a rate of 1-9 per turn with a small chance of completely missing and getting 0. Well let's say you want to upgrade your HP with cure like we discussed before. You can have a maximum of 100 stocked magic per spell. If you attach 1 cure you hp will go up such a minuscule amount you won't even realize it has been upgraded but with 100 it will be so astronomical you will have thought you gained 20 levels by equipping it. So, to do this most people will find an enemy with cure and draw it from them over and over until all three party members have 100 a piece. This takes the "you won't have to grind" and throws it out the window. In the time it takes you to get those draws to 100 you could have fought 10-15 regular battles. Secondly once you've junctioned the cure to your HP you are not going to want to ever cast cure because every time that you do your max HP will go down. This leads to hoarding magic and either using mostly physical attacks or watching a long drawn out GF movie every time you want to summon one in for big damage (THANK GOD for the 3x speed option in the Remaster.) Thirdly this is more about battling than the junction system but I feel the need to ask why are battles even in the game other than to draw magic or to be a distraction to fight through for the story. I say this because every single enemy AND BOSS in the game scales to your level. So, if you somehow manage to be level 7 at the end boss well it will also be at level 7. Well maybe it's to get money right. No, Squall ( the main character) gets his money via a salary periodically throughout the gameplay (which is actually a big plus to me as you always have ample money.) We also know from earlier that leveling up doesn't even really matter as far as buffing your character as the junction system does it for you. So, I ask again why are we even bothering with fighting anything other than to draw/grind which they wanted to eliminate .

Last thing about the junction system. There are ways to avoid many of the problems such as modding your cards from the card game but the game never mentions this and has to be found out on your own. This is me looking at the game critically and through the lens of someone on a first time playthrough. I personally am not hugely bothered by the junction system but these are flaws that many have been upset with.

Story and characters are the most important thing in JRPGs. This is why I truly think this game is so divisive. The story has some brilliant moments and twists but also some moments that leave you saying wtf. For every bad moment there are 10 good ones, the problem is the bad ones do seem to really stick out. I would go deeper but don't want to spoil anything just know there are at least two completely "jump the shark" moments. I do believe though the good heavily outweighs the bad in the story department. There are many memorable scenes and moment that are up there as the best in the whole series. The battle of the gardens FMV is one of the bad-ass scenes easily in Final Fantasy. While parts of the game and especially ending are very confusing. I really love it though because it opens up so much room for interpretation. It also lets fans run wild with theories with two main ones being very compelling. Once you complete the game look up Squall is dead theory and Rinoa is the main villain theory. I don't believe in either of them but they are very fun non the less. I love that the story is all connected through a small group of people and literally no one in the main cast of party members, main cast of NPCs, and villains are throw away characters. Every single one of them is tied together somehow and has a real purpose in the game which is rare in the genre. For the most part it was beautifully crafted outside of a few "shark" moments.

As for characters many are turned off by this game, as was I the first time I played this as a kid, by Squall. Instead of being a stoic charismatic lead he comes off as very rude and stand-offish emo kid. Well yea that is kind of true. But the guy has a tragic backstory as an orphan, is an introvert that wants to be left to himself, doesn't want to be the leader of anything but himself, is thrust into a war, becomes the poster boy of the war, is asked to lead a military school while the original leader ( the only adult) asks him to take the role and then abandons the place and all of this at the age of 17. Squall may be moody and confused and stand-offish but he is extremely relatable. I do not understand the hate for his character.

The way they tied the FMVs (that look great by the way) and seamlessly rolled them straight in the gameplay was awesome for a game from the 90's. It felt very natural and made the scenes feel more alive. The music is top notch. I've already added the whole soundtrack to my Spotify gaming playlist and will be listening to it for many years to come.

There is much more I want to say about this but this review is already getting long and I don't want to ramble or spoil anything story wise in the game so I will stop here. While this game is flawed it is also a magical journey with twist and turns no one would ever expect. It is worth your time and doesn't deserve most of the negativity it receives. Its not for everyone but if you like JRPGs you owe it to yourself to at least give this game a shot.

When you look at a list of Final Fanatasy games ranked this is arguably the most polarizing one. Sometimes you see it near the very top and in others it’s a bottom tier of the franchise. While I understand people that have it towards the bottom for its campy, tongue in cheek story I simply disagree that this isn’t one of the strongest entries in the entire franchise.

While I agree that the story is tongue in cheek and campy I also found the story to be somewhat charming adventure with characters I didn’t expect to love but ended up caring about very much. In fact the only cast of characters that I find better in the whole original 6 classic games was in FF6. I truly grew to love the five main characters and the story wasn’t always comedic (see where you gain your fifth party member.) While I loved most of the characters, liked the story, I admit Exdeath is as bad a villain as his horrible name. The motivations and back story for him were just flat out lacking.

The star of this game is the gameplay and more specifically the job system. The job system single handedly gives this game so much replay potential. The job system from this game is still the baseline for every RPG that contains a job system. I was blown away with how good it was for being a 30 year old system. The replay system is good enough on its own but you could even do self imposed challenges where you only use certain classes to make this game a challenge for any vet.

The music and art is well Final Fantasy so it’s spectacular and always one of the best for its time of release. The battle at big bridge theme has to be a top 5 song in Final Fantasy history.

It’s criminal that this game was not originally released world wide. It makes me sad knowing this easily would have been one of my favorite games as a kid but I never had the ability to play it. While this game is polarizing in the FF community to me it’s nothing but one of the best the franchise has to offer and I cannot recommend it enough.

This is where Final Fantasy truly came completely into its own. The twist, the turns, the characters, the ups and downs of the story, the atb battle system, the beautiful music, Final Fantasy IV built off the strides of the NES trilogy and made the first truly great game that helped make this series a juggernaut in the industry.

This is the first time the characters had real depth to them which made you care more about them and the story as you want them to succeed. The story has many twist and turns and over arching theme of redemption. It’s honestly very average overall but mind blowingly deep for the year it came out.

This is the first time the music was FF level masterpiece level. The art obviously going from NES to SNES was a huge upgrade over the original trilogy. The character sprites are some of my favorite in the entire series.

The ATB battler system was revolutionary for the JRPG genre. It was adopted by most RPGs and stayed in Final Fantasy for well over a decade.

I played this game as a kid after playing FFVI and VII so it felt like I was going backwards and as a result I didn’t have great memories of it. However as an adult I actually not only enjoyed it a lot more but was able to see its importance in the genre and the small details that truely make this entry shine. This is a must play for any JRPG fan.

In my opinion this is clear cut and far away the best of the NES trilogy. It took the best aspects of Final Fantasy (the job system and leveling) and the best of Final Fantasy II (better characters and story), upgraded those strengths, and left out a lot of the things that hadn’t been working. Obviously it’s still not the Final Fantasy story telling and well ironed out gameplay that we eventually come to expect but you can see the formula coming together in this one. It’s a shame this wasn’t released in the west 30 years ago because it is easily one of the best NES games of all time. The only negative I have is the last dungeon is an absolute beast that goes on far too long and has 5 to many bosses. It’s a small negative in a game that is clearly beginning to find its stride as a franchise.

Final Fantasy 2 is consistently talked about as the black sheep of the Final Fantasy games. Now I can only speak on this Pixel Remaster as this was my first experience with it. But I always heard about this extreme grinding you had to do to complete the game and I don’t get it. I never had any problems during any point of the game. I do get the leveling system is different and not a great way of going about it. I think they did the right thing trying something new to further their franchise it just did not work out for them in a very similar fashion to Zelda 2, Mario2, and Castlevania 2. While it wasn’t the best it’s is not nearly as bad as people make it out to be in my opinion.

The story was a major upgrade from the original as were the character. The originals story was told in like 10 minutes at the very end and was convoluted. This story, while not the best, at least played out throughout the game and made sense. While the characters didn’t have any real depth, they were at least named characters with some dialog. The 4th rotating character was a cool idea and I enjoyed all of them outside of the final character you end the game with. The music was also better in the 2nd attempt as well.

This isn’t the best game in the series but is is severely underrated and worth a playthrough.

I never got to experience this classic game on the NES. While I realize the major upgrades they made on this remaster I feel as though this was ahead of its time and one of the best NES games of all time. The story isn't anything special that you expect from Final Fantasy over the last 30 years but it set the stage for so many things that have been staples for Final Fantasy. The battle system stays somewhat the same for the next several years. Many of the enemies and job classes are used in most of the future Final Fantasy games. The music doesnt reach elite status that man future titles do but it is extremely solid and better than most games on the NES.

I love that they let you make the game harder or easier making it accessible to any player. You can make the GIL and EXP come at a rate of 0.5%, regular 1%, 2%, or 4%. This allows you to cut out grinding if you want. It allows new players to have an easier road on learning how to play. It even allows Vets that dont have the time they use to to fly through the game if they just want to see the game through one more time. On the flip side you can also challenge yourself and make the game even harder than intended. The game also allows you to turn off random battles which is great when you just want to re go through a finished dungeon to make sure you didnt miss anything.

This game probably isn't to many peoples favorite Final Fantasy game but it set the base for one of the greatest series in the history of gaming and that alone makes it special.

Final Fantasy VI has always been one of my favorite games of all time. I hadn’t played FInal Fantasy VI in many years so when I bought the remastered collection I was curious if in 2023 it was still the masterpiece I remembered or did I have nostalgia goggles on. Let me tell you even though I had the game ranked 9th on my all time favorite games list, I was surprised of how I would feel in this playthrough.

The three things I remembered loving specifically was the characters, the story, and the music so I will start there.

Obviously in this story section there will be some 30 year old spoilers, but regardless huge SPOILER WARNING from here on out.

When I was younger I understood that the story was riddled with sadness and tragedy but I don’t think I fully grasped the true meaning and impact throughout the game. To me it was a game that while I understood some of the tragedies and sadness I just thought of it as heroes doing what they had to do to stop an evil in a war. But really it is much more of the characters inner battles with the tragedies in their own life. It’s after being completely broken to find the courage to put themselves back together, find hope, trust in friends, lean on and be there for those friend, and fight for themselves and others so that they could put the world itself back together and help people find hope. The game is simply about loss and pushing through life after loss.

I’m going to dive into the story much more than I normally would so I can explain the characters and what makes the story so special to me.

We spend the first half of the game as a groups of oppressed people from all over the world fighting against the evil Empire led by Emperor Ghastal and his two right hand men General Leo and Kefka. In a world where there is no magic the empire has learned not only to use it but can also infuse it through machines. Later on in the game we find out there is a mysterious race known as the Espers that sealed themselves off from the human world. Espers are where magic comes from in this universe. The Empire had been draining the life out of some Espers they managed to capture before the Espers sealed themselves away from humans and in turn used them to infuse their leaders and magitech armor with magic. Our group befriends some of the Espers and hope with their help they can stop the Empire. The empire sets up a way to trick the Espers, kill many of them, and steal their power. Kefka uses this power and the power of the gods to turn on Emperor Ghastal to take the world for himself. While Ghastal wanted to rule the world Kefka just wanted to destroy everything. Kefka did what no other villain I can think of does. He achieves every goal he sets out to do, including destroying the world as you know it while killing most of the population and leaving the survivors helpless. Now the heroes are scattered throughout this new wasteland of a world.

That is a very loose version of the first half of the story but it hits enough of the points I need to explain what makes this game special.

Every character goes through tremendous growth and the game uses this helplessness to achieve its goal of showing the power of hope, love, and picking yourself up and pushing on.

Terra is the only half esper half human in this world. When the Empire originally found the Espers before the seal was set Emperor Ghastal killed Terra’s human mother and captured he Esper father and stole Terra at the age of two to train her to be a weapon for the empire. Being that she was half Esper Terra was the only human that could use magic naturally with this power Ghastal knew he had a weapon that no one could stand up against. Terra was being controlled by a device that made her basically dead to the world and to only take orders from the Empire until she was rescued in Narshe when the game begins when she is 18 years old. Throughout the games, before even knowing she is half Esper, struggles to relate or fit in anywhere as she has basically been a mindless drone for 18 years. When she finds out about her being half Esper she feels even more alone. She stuggles to feel human or Esper and wonders if she is even capable of being or feeling loved. After Kefka ended the world she finds herself in a village where all the adults are dead. There are only a handful of young children and two teen lovers that are pregnant. She becomes their protector and eventually they even call her mama. She finds love for the first time in her life but loses the will to fight because she wants to be there for her newly found kids. She eventually realizes that she is capable of not only being loved but also loving. She realizes she had that with her friends she’s met along the way as well as with these kids and even though she lost the will to fight she must so they and her can all have a future in this world.

Locke is a man whose parents died when he was a young age and had to resort to becoming a thief. He later met Rachel and they began a relationship against Rachel’s father wishes due to Locke being a thief. Locke took Rachel to a cave and promised to protect her as they looked for a treasure. While on an old bridge that Locke was standing on gave out Rachel jumped onto it to push Locke off resulting in her falling and going into a coma. Locke brought her back to town where she awoke but had no memory and was uneasy of him. Rachel’s father told him to leave town. Not too long after she began to regain her memory but unfortunately the town she was in was attacked by the empire. Rachel died and her last word were Locke I love you. Locke couldn’t forgive himself for saying he promised to protect her only for her to go into a coma and then not being there to save her when the Empire attacked. Locke tells Terra and Celes (we will get to her soon) that he will protect them many times throughout the game in an attempt to right what he feels like was a wrong with Rachel. He finds away through the Esper Phoenix to bring Rachel back but only for a moment. She tells him to forgive himself and forge ahead.

Edgar and Sabin Figaro were the princes of Figaro. When they were young their father was poisoned by the empire leaving one of them to become king. Neither were ready and they were grieving their father. Sabin asked Edgar if he wanted to just run away from the kingdom together and be free. Edgar told him that someone needed to protect the people his father died to protect and told him they would flip a coin. If it landed on heads Edgar would stay and tails Sabin would stay and the other could have their freedom. Edgar wanted his younger brother to be free from the burden and used a double sided coin to ensure that Sabin would have that freedom. Edgar was forced into the roll of a king and had to forge and alliance with the same empire that killed his father to protect the people of Figaro. Sabin’s freedom came at the cost of feeling like he let his brother down and ran from his problems even though it’s later revealed he was training to become stronger so he could come back and protect his brother from any threats. Not only did they lose their father but in a way they lost each other.

Gau’s mother passed away while giving birth to him causing his father to go insane. He blamed Gau for his wife’s passing. He believe Gau was a demon that killed his wife and was no better than the monsters that have been plague on this world. He decided to not only abandoned Gau at an early age but he threw him into the Veldt. This is a place where only monsters roam. Gau found a way to survive but with no interaction from humans he became a “Tarzan” type of human.

Cyan was the strongest warrior in all of Doma but when the river around Doma Castle was poisoned by Kefka he was unable to use his power to save his people, his king, his wife, or his young son. He’s powerless as he watches their souls leave on a phantom train. He blames himself and doesn’t grieve properly leading to a demon that feed on sadness actually feeding on his soul.

Shadow has a criminal past of stealing and assassinations with his best friend Barim. He is willing to be an assassin under any assignment if the price is right. One time Barim was injured so badly he couldn’t move. Shadow tries to move him but with the Empire after them Barim tells Shadow to leave without him but to mercy kill him so that he isn’t tortured or enslaved. Shadow can’t bring himself to kill his own friend says sorry and runs off. Trying to start a new life he falls in love and settles down in Thamasa a small quiet town far away from every other city. In fear of his enemies catching up to him and harming his family he feels forced to leave his wife and baby daughter Relm behind. He believes the only way for him to live is by being alone. He even says at one point “There are people in this world that have have chosen to kill off their emotions.” Years later during the events of the game every time Shadow is around Relm they show Shadow physical uncomfortable or unable to look directly at her. He loves his daughter but won’t put her in harms way. He constantly has nightmares about Barim and leaving his family behind.

Celes was a general in the empire’s army that was infused with magic from an Esper. When Locke finds her she is being beaten by Imperial troops that says she was a traitor (we never find out what she did) and her execution date is set for the following day. Locke without hesitation saves her and tells her he will protect her. Celes is confused by this as she has always just been used by people for her magic and prowess on the battlefield. She has never been cared for or treated in this manner. She and Locke fall for each other throughout the game. But at first Celes has a hard time believing anyone could love her. Especially after being a general in the army and all of the bad things she had been a part of. The opera scene is one of the best moments in the game as her lines are for the opera but they are exactly how Celes feels about her new found feelings for Locke. “I'm the darkness, you're the stars. Our love is brighter than the sun.
For eternity, for me there can be, Only you, my chosen one.” She is the darkness and Locke is the light.

Now that we have some background on the main core of the cast, you can see they have clearly been through a lot. Now add on the fact that they went from being so close to winning a war against the empire only for Kefka to destroy the world. The villain has won and our heroes failed.

After Kefka destruction we come back to a completely ravanged planet with little population, little plant life, little hope, and a lot tougher monsters roaming. We take the role of Celes who wakes up out of a coma after one year due to her injuries. She wakes to the news that the world was in fact destroyed, she is on an island, and only her and Cid (a “granddad to Celes from her time with the Empire) are left on this island. She learns that CID is sick. There is a path you can take where Cid lives or a path where he dies based on your decision making. While the plot moves on if you save him and that is the happier route the death route really fits the tone of the game and gives you one of the best scenes in the game. If he dies Celes will give up and run to the highest cliff on the island and attempt to commit suicide. As tears fly from her face as she is falling off the cliff you can’t help but 1.) Obviously be depressed but more importantly 2.) will immediately make of you think of the opera scene. Here is the rest of the lyrics from the opera scene that Celes sings. Oh my hero, so far away now. “Will I ever see your smile? Love goes away, like night into day. It's just a fading dream. I'm the darkness, you're the stars. Our love is brighter than the sun. For eternity, for me there can be, Only you, my chosen one... Must I forget you? Our solemn promise? Will autumn take the place of spring? What shall I do? I'm lost without you. Speak to me once more! We must part now, my life goes on. But my heart won't give you up. Ere I walk away, let me hear you say, I meant as much to you... So gently, you touched my heart. I will be forever yours. Come what may, I won't age a day, I'll wait for you, always...” Again clearly this is about her and Locke. In the opera when she says the last line she throws flowers off the top of the castle. The castle at the stage at the opera is in the same focus as the cliff is during her suicide attempt and he body falls in the same way as the flowers that were thrown off the edge. Luckily Celes attempt fails and she is washed back up onto the beach. When she washes up there is a bird who had been injured. Its wing is tied up with Locke’s signature bandana. Celes immediately picks herself up, finds a way to carry on and find Locke and her friends. She boards a raft and sets out with hope that some of them are still out there.

Of course eventually the crew is back together.
Terra finds love and the courage to fight again with the hope that one day her adopted children will live in a safe world. Locke finally comes to grips with the loss of Rachel and forgives himself for his mistakes. He continues his promise to keep his promise to protect his friends and follow his heart and love again with Celes. Celes finds she isn’t just a war machine and lets herself fall in love with Locke. Edgar and Sabin reunite as brothers that would die for each other. Gau meets his father who still believe he is a demon. Gau has the most mature response saying he’s just glad his father is alive. Gau is ok because he now has a big family of friends. Cyan has the demon removed from him with the help of his friends and lets go of the grief and guiltiness of his families death. He decides to live life to his fullest while carrying his family inside of him. Shadow for the first time in his life is doing the right thing because it was the right thing without being paid.

But to counter all this hope and love there is arguably the best written character not just in the game but in all of Final Fantasy, Kefka. We don’t know much about Kefka before the events of the game. We aren’t sure if he’s always been a nihilistic psychopath or if he was normal at some point. What we do know is he was the first person to ever be endured with Esper Magic. It’s possible with him being the first test subject that could play a role in his behavior but that is speculation. What we do know is he is a maniac and a true problem that is clearly a big threat from the very beginning. Even though he was only Ghestals right hand man it always seemed like he was going to be the one to watch. The game does a great job of making you see his atrocities and making you fight him several times to keep him fresh in you mind. Thought the game we see Kefka burn a city to the ground, cowardly poisoning Doma, killing Espers just to gain power, manipulating everyone allies and enemies, killing his two biggest allies, and literally destroying the world. Like I said earlier he literally achieves everything he set out to do. By the time you fight him you want to help the heroes kill him.

When you fight him at the end he truly thinks he is right. He asks why the heroes continue to fight in a world with no hope. The heroes all give their own answers and say humans will always love, survive and rebuild. Kefka can’t understand this thinking. He knows every building eventually falls apart, every one eventually dies and wonders why humans hang on to stuff they know won’t last. Kefka being the nihilist he is has grown tired of the world he created as there is nothing left to destroy. Side note Kefka also has some of the best creepy quotes of all time.

Once the heroes inevitability beat Kefka they have to escape as Kefkas tower falls apart. This is where the credit begin and we see the gang working together to get out. Before we get to the happy stuff there is one realistic sad part to the ending. Shadow splits off from the group believing he has done to much bad in this world and feeling by stopping Kefka he may have atoned for his sins he decides the world doesn’t need someone like him in it and allows the tower to come down with him in it. As a kid I hated that he stayed behind. It’s an emotional depressing moment but as an adult it felt all too real. As for the rest of the group they get away on their air ship and see people rebuilding buildings, planting flowers and trees, and living their lives with a new found hope.

To me this is arguably the greatest story in all of video games. For a game from 1994 to have teen pregnancy, assassinations, a woman getting beat, the world ending, a nihilistic maniac, with a story of loss and hope was beyond ambitious. I loved it as a kid but appreciate it much more as an adult who has experienced much more sadness than younger me.

Every.track.is.AMAZING! Each character has their own track as well as a melancholy version of the same track. All locations have their own track. It has one of my top 5 OSTs of all time with my favorite song being Kefkas Final Boss track Dancing Mad. I also love that in the credits they did something subtle but awesome. They play a different arrangement of each characters songs. They do Relm and her song blends in almost as an opening for her father Shadows song. Celes and Locke’s songs harmonize with each other. It’s just another great touch to this game.

The pixel art is about as good as you are going to get for a SNES game. I love that they matched some relationships with color pallets like Edgar and Sabin matching as well as Relm and her adopted grandfather Strago both donning red.

The gamplay is, well, what you would expect from an old school Final Fantasy game. I do like the streamlined the battles. Cyans Bushido is no longer a waiting game to get the attack you want you just pick it and it goes. Sabins Blitz shows you the input so you didn’t have to memorize every blitz.

There are a few minor flaws in this game. One is that while each character has their own unique class that is valuable in the early game by end game everyone is pretty much just using the best magic spells making class irrelevant. My only other problem is while the core characters get fleshed out so well there are handful of optional characters that we know almost nothing about.

If you are a fan of JRPGs at all this is a must play although I’m sure most JRPGs fans already have. All in all with my new understanding of the story as well as the streamlined battles this game is an absolute master class of the medium and has moved from 9th on my all time list to somewhere near the very top. I’ll need a day or two to really think hard on where it need to be. I know I’m not the best writer in the world I’m just a person that loves video games and if you read this far thank you.