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| Originally Posted by Kriegaffe One that I think falls into both Best and Worst is Final Fantasy XII. |
Seriously…it warms the cockles of my heart to see such appreciation for FF XII in this thread. In a world where Final Fantasy VII is rhapsodically jerked-off to by a legion of Sephiroth-worshipping nudniks, the twelfth game was simply a revelation. Frankly, I had no idea that SquareEnix were even capable of delivering such a storyline ever again.
At least there are mature adults here on CHUD who appreciate the subtle nuances present in Final Fantasy XII’s storytelling. Everything about that game is restrained, classy, and underplayed, which makes for a pretty strong contrast with the bombast of most of the other later entries in the series. The voice acting is regal, the storyline extremely political and complicated, and – for probably the first time ever – the final villain of the game is simply a man, not some mega-overpowered Esper Sin-Creature.
Even the game’s so-called fan-service “bunny chick” receives a character arc that becomes completely different from fandom expectations by game’s end. Namely, she gains wisdom. She actually comes off as a mature, adult WOMAN. She faces some difficulty in dealing with her departure from her village, but she’s ultimately sure of her choice, and sure of who she is and where she belongs. For me, she was a confident, likable character; her understated, platonic relationship with Balthier only adding to this.
A sublime, elegant experience. It ranks right alongside Final Fantasy VI as my favorite FF game.
Prior to FF XII, Final Fantasy VI was perhaps the pinnacle of FF storytelling. Cyan in particular truly stood out for me as a character. In a game mostly about young freedom fighters, here’s this old guy who was a legendary hero to his kingdom, but it didn’t mean anything, because the people who respected him died. And not only that, they died in a way that he couldn’t have done anything about.
I’ve always been impressed with the way the writers handled his pain, via the whole writing-letters-to-Lola business. What he did was flawed, touching, and heroic. It was wrong of him to do, but he wanted to spare her the pain he himself was enduring, and in the process, it gave his own existence some temporary meaning until he could finally learn to put the past behind him, as he would later do. That sort of potent and inspired storytelling just doesn’t exist (or at least, it’s much more rare) in the later Final Fantasy games. In that way, Cyan represents to me what it is that makes FF VI’s cast one of my two favorites of the series.
The World of Ruin was amazing to me in that way. In a genre where saving the world is almost always the point, FF VI presented a scenario where people lose the things that give their lives purpose, but suggests that if you keep hope alive, then maybe you can still find something worth living for. Celes’s attempted suicide after Cid’s death, for instance. Or Terra’s sudden, unlooked-for chance at motherhood, for another. In FF VI – more than any other game in the series, except for XII – it’s the characters which add life to the world, with the contrast of the WoR (and Kefka) serving as the game’s way of hammering that point home in a most bold and effective way.
