Final Fantasy
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in GamingFinal Fantasy Went Back to Basics With Its Handheld Spinoff The 4 Heroes of Light
By the time 2009 rolled around, the Final Fantasy franchise was more than just a popular RPG series; it was a worldwide phenomenon. The PS1 era games brought a renewed interest to the series in the west, and with the success of its next-gen PS2 entries, it was clear that Final Fantasy was here to […] More
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in Gaming
Final Fantasy X: Distinctly Japanese, Universally Relatable
“This is it. This… is your story. It all begins here.” It’s been some years since I originally played Final Fantasy X, and truth be told, there was little I could recall about it. Replaying it now, I’m shocked at how thought-provoking and impactful its story actually is. Perhaps I was too young to appreciate […] More
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in Gaming
The Retro Charm of Final Fantasy IX
We’ve come a long way traversing the history of the Final Fantasy franchise so far. From its humble beginnings on the NES, to the next gen beauty of the SNES era games, up to the PSX era entries, the series’ visual flair was ever changing. Some might argue that the Playstation era games (VII through […] More
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in Gaming
Final Fantasy VIII: A Tale of Teenage Love & Angst
“I’ll be waiting… for you…so… if you come here… you’ll find me.” When it came to replaying Final Fantasy VIII for this retrospective, I was spoilt for choice. It’d been notably absent from the Final Fantasy remasters for the longest time, leading to speculation as to whether we’d see a re-release at all. Thankfully, the […] More
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in Gaming
Final Fantasy Tactics: A Strategy RPG for the Ages
Early Final Fantasy titles such as Final Fantasy IV and VI pushed the boundaries for what was possible for role-playing games in terms of storytelling and character development. Final Fantasy VII blew our minds, expanding the scope of what an RPG could be. Then came Final Fantasy Tactics. On the surface, it would appear that […] More
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in Gaming
Final Fantasy VII Was Messy, Clumsy, and Wonderful
When my co-editor and friend, Collin Henderson, wrote about Final Fantasy VI, he added a disclaimer that he would get spoiler-y, and I feel compelled to do the same. I won’t spoil a lot, and the things I will spoil are—at this point—common knowledge and fair game for a title released for the Playstation Uno […] More
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in Gaming
Final Fantasy VI Remains a Shining Example of Just How Good JRPGs Can Be
Author’s note: This article will be discussing full spoilers for the events of Final Fantasy VI. The author believes that this is a quintessential JRPG that should be played by any fan of the genre, and as such, would like to warn anybody who might be reading this that they should absolutely play the game before […] More
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in Gaming
Final Fantasy V Brings the Series’ Best Battle System to a Traditional Adventure
After the runaway success of Final Fantasy IV, Square decided to go back to the drawing board for the popular RPG’s fifth installment. By this point in the series, each main entry was well known for its own main gimmick. The first entry was a straightforward adventure where you choose your party of four, the […] More
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in Gaming
Final Fantasy IV’s Storytelling Elevated It Above Past Entries
I hadn’t played Final Fantasy IV since 1991 when it was called Final Fantasy II on the SNES. Western audiences didn’t get the true Final Fantasy II and Final Fantasy III until much later in the form of PSP and DS games. As much as I love a good RPG, I rarely ever replay them […] More
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in Gaming
Final Fantasy III Was a Back-To-Basics RPG…with a Twist
Final Fantasy II saw Square experiment with narrative and level-up mechanics within the confines of the RPG space to mixed results. That game had some nice ideas that weren’t executed in the best way, and that would continue on into the third main entry in their at-that-point massively popular role playing series. Rather than making […] More
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in Gaming
Final Fantasy II Was an Early Sign of Square’s Creativity
The original Final Fantasy was a worldwide hit, in that it pretty much single handedly built Square as a monolithic company that was here to stay. How do you follow up a hit like that? In America, players had to wait several years for their version of Final Fantasy II, which was actually the much […] More
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in Gaming
The Original Final Fantasy was Almost a Finite Adventure
The original game in the now-massive Final Fantasy franchise was neither original, nor final. It’s a long running joke now that no game in the series is finite in any way, shape, or form. The original title was to be Fighting Fantasy, but there was already a series of role playing gamebooks under that name, […] More
