The Stack

Like many people, I came to the Final Fantasy series late. I was in fact completely unaware of its existence until FF7, which got a bigger marketing push than usual and was available for PC. I played that when it was new, and the PC version of FF8 well after it became old, and somewhere in between I started playing through the Playstation remakes of the earlier games. I’m up to episode 5 by now.

I’m doing this mainly because I’m a completist (obviously), but also because it’s fascinating to me to see how the franchise evolved. Final Fantasy I was basically just another Ultima-style ¹ “Ultima” means “final” in Latin. Coincidence? Probably. tile-based fantasy RPG in a quasi-medieval setting, with monsters lifted straight from D&D, turn-based combat, ciphers for heroes, and a shadow of a plot organized around defeating four elemental “fiends”. How did it get from there to what I know from the later episodes — the playful mishmash of genres, the bizarre monstrosities, the lengthy examination of player character backstories?

Piece by piece, that’s how. By FF5, we have distinctive characters and most of the basics of FF7/8 gameplay (including the “ATB” combat system), but the milieu is still standard high fantasy, and the plot is still based around the four elements. The monsters are starting to get weird, though. The real acid trips tend to come at higher levels, but I’ve already encoutnered skullclouds and cats that fly by means of batwings strapped to their forelegs.

Coincidentally, the ever-popular Penny Arcade has been doing a whole lot of Pokémon-related strips lately. I note in particular that the latest strip makes a joke about a player trading pokemon with himself. This is something that reads differently if you’re familiar with the game. As I’ve pointed out, there are legitimate reasons in the game to prefer a traded to an untraded pokémon, and there are probably people who really do buy two gameboys and two Pokémon cartridges in order to take advantage of this. To one who doesn’t know the game, trading with yourself seems pointless. To one who is, it just seems sad.

They’re presumably into it because of the recent release of the “Diamond” and “Pearl” editions for the Nintendo DS. From what they say, it’s clear that the complexity has been kicked up several notches from the original: they talk about things like breeding pokémon. In the version I know, pokémon are just generated spontaneously from grassy areas by the friction generated when you walk through them. There’s a variety that comes in what are identified male and female forms, but there’s no real reason to believe that they do anything about it. But apparently nowadays breeding your own pokémon is an essential way to get specimens with certain special properties. I remember a sub-game like this in Final Fantasy VII, breeding chocobos in order to get ones that can win races more easily, but also to get special ones that can fly over mountains and oceans. But that was a minor aside in a larger game, whereas Pokémon is all about acquiring special creatures, so it sounds like this is a core part of the game mechanic now. The whole idea seems daunting, but it’s probably more intellectually involving than the level grind.

It also raises the interesting possibility that chocobos might be a lost tribe of pokémon. Must investigate further.