I enjoyed doing that Mario comic write-up so much that I’m back with a look at some Final Fantasy strips. If you thought Mario’s universe had some problems, ooo boy, then you’re in for a spell regarding this series. I have legit complaints about every Final Fantasy under the sun. Sadly, I couldn’t find a comic specifically for my top twenty annoyances. For example, why isn’t Final Fantasy XI a spinoff? I’ve written time and time again that I think it should have been called Final Fantasy Online, or something like that. It just doesn’t make sense to bring the mainline franchise online as a numbered title, especially during that early PS2 era when the Internet was just blossoming. Getting that thing online was a chore and a half. Not to mention how archaic and overbearing the gameplay was.
Suffice it to say, I have a lot of material on Final Fantasy XI alone. I should just write my own comics, but my drawing skills are very, and I mean very, poor. I freely admit that. That said, the issues I found out there online do highlight some great offenses in this franchise’s universe. I tried to grab a good variety, but most of what you’re going to see is a lot of strips about Final Fantasy VII and Final Fantasy XV. What can I say? One is very popular and one is just recent. Makes sense why there’s so much written about them. Anyway, let’s get to the jokes.
20 Dressing For Success
On the subject of Remasters, I’m over the moon excited for Final Fantasy VII’s remake. The one thing I’m the most curious to see is that early section where you have to dress Cloud like a girl. I just replayed the PS4 port of the game and it still felt weird to me. Of all the odd things that happen in that game, cross-dressing Cloud is at the top. Now imagine if Cloud was comfortable wearing that dress throughout the entire game and how awkward it’d be. His face on the last panel of this comic is priceless. Hey Tifa. Maybe he just likes wearing a dress. Ever think of that? As strange as it’d be, I’d enjoy playing as girl Cloud as an alternate costume.
19 Tension Rising
Okay, let’s back into some more controversial things about Final Fantasy XV. One of the biggest complaints centered on the new Cid’s look, or I should say, one of the new Cids. Cid is a mechanic who has a granddaughter named Cindy. She’s dressed pretty much like an adult film star and there’s really no need for her to expose herself like that. It’s not like she acts like a floozy though. She’s a competent character and I would argue, one of the cooler Cids in the series. People forget that all the dudebros are pretty exposed too. Gladio has his entire abs exposed, but no one is making a stink about that. So yeah, Cindy may be revealing, but so are the boys. Equal fan service.
18 Kentucky Fried Chocobo
Chocobos are basically giant chickens. They’ve been a mainstay in the series since Final Fantasy II. They’re cute and super useful when you want to avoid monster encounters. Plus they’ve been used as a mechanism to unlock a lot of secrets in the later games like Final Fantasy VII’s breeding mini-game. Who doesn’t love Chocobos? Yet, I’ve always wondered what they taste like. I mean, you don’t see a lot of normal animals running around these worlds. Do people eat monsters, or are Chocobos like the main source of food in the Final Fantasy universe? You know Ignis has to have a good recipe idea. As funny as this is to dream about I think I would die if I saw any of these games show off grilled Chocobo.
17 Angelo Cannon
Speaking of animal cruelty, let’s talk about the limit breaks in Final Fantasy VIII. Specifically, I want to discuss the screwed up nature of Rinoa’s. She has four techniques in total that all use her dog, Angelo, in some fashion. The first one, Angelo Cannon, is the most disturbing. Angelo hops on top of her Blaster Edge, which charges up before he is literally launched at enemies like a missile. In what world did she think this was a good idea? He’s not a magic dog. If in real life you were to throw your dog at your enemies, the dog would get injured. If you add some velocity to that combination then yeah, the dog is probably going to explode. This comic perfectly summarizes the horrors of that combo.
16 Jumping Shenanigans
Okay, I have one last gripe to settle with Final Fantasy XV. Now I think it’s great that the team at Square Enix have been improving the overall stability of the game through patches for over a year now. There’s a lot of great quality of life improvements that make the experience better, but why haven’t they changed the interact button yet. On PS4, if you press X your character will jump. If they’re next to a glowing object and you press X, they’ll gather that material, or interact with whatever it is. Why would you put that command on the same button? I look like an idiot jumping around when all I want to do is pick up a mushroom. Work with me here Noctis!
15 Zanar-Kan Do!
I’m a big fan of puns. Admittedly, they can be stupid, but it plays to my random sensibilities. The Final Fantasy games are full of them, but I think the fans can sometimes do a better job. Take this simple Final Fantasy X comic, for example. Let me set it up for you. Zanarkand is where Tidus is from and it’s also the place Yuna’s party is traveling to. Not sure why Lulu doesn’t ask Tidus to get potions instead of sodas since that’d fit in with the universe better, but whatever. Regardless, Tidus’ response of “Zanar-Kan Do!” is fantastic, as well as getting let down later on with “Zanarkan’t.” Again, I know it’s dumb, but whoever wrote this piece gets two big thumbs way up from me.
14 Sabin: Destroyer Of Trains
Final Fantasy VI has a lot of incredible moments. There’s the beautifully animated opening march, the opera scene, finding out the world actually gets destroyed, and so on. One of the incredible things that gets overlooked is the fight against the Phantom Train. Fighting a ghost train really isn’t that weird for the franchise, but there’s one thing you can do during the battle that threw me for a loop. One of Sabin’s special abilities is called Suplex. It’s exactly as it sounds. Sabin literally initiates a suplex on his enemies, but it doesn’t work on everything. So when I found out you can actually suplex the Phantom Train, well, my mind was blown. That deserves a slow clap for whoever programmed that into the game. Bravo.
13 Sorry Bro
There’s a moment that sort of gets brushed aside in the grand scheme of Final Fantasy VII. When the team tries to rescue Aeris in the Shinra Building, Red XIII is raised into her cage. Why? Professor Hojo wants to breed the two of them together. For those unaware Red XIII is basically a lion with a flaming tail. Yeah, Hojo is a pretty messed up dude. Interspecies mingling is pretty creepy even for Final Fantasy. I mean it never happens onscreen thankfully, but I love that someone actually acknowledged this obscure fact and made a comic out of it. Cloud and Red XIII surely had this conversation off-screen. There has to be fan fiction out there wherein Red XIII and Aeris do get it on, right?
12 You’re Playing It Wrong
This comic’s commentary doesn’t just apply to Final Fantasy, but games in general. That is to say, there are a certain segment of gamers out there that treat video games like a holy ritual. There’s like an unwritten Bible out there of Dos and Don’ts when it comes to games. One thing is cheating through, walkthroughs. If someone wants to use a guide to get through Final Fantasy XV, then just let them do it. Some would argue that ruins the experiences, but what does it matter? There’s no right way, or wrong way, to play through a game. The best thing about video games is that there are many ways to experience the same thing. You can’t do that with a movie. Take that, Hollywood!
11 Final Prancetasy
Of all the Final Fantasy spinoffs, Theatrhythm Final Fantasy is up there for being the strangest. It’s not just the ridiculous name either. It’s a 3DS game that came out in 2012 to celebrate the then 25th anniversary of the series. It features music and characters from the entire franchise and is a music rhythm game in the vein of Rock Band, but without funky peripherals. There’s a story to each chapter told through musical sequences and while it may be less exciting than actually fighting real battles, it’s a fun distraction. That’s pretty much the gist of the comic. Imagine if every dramatic scene was played out like a West Side Story dance battle. Yeah, that sounds silly, but you’d play it. I know I would.
10 The Chocobo Touch
Whether you’re a long time fan of Final Fantasy, or just a casual observer, it’s pretty obvious that the series has changed dramatically throughout its thirty-year history. I would argue that the PS1 generation was the last time the series was “classic” in nature. That’s not to say Final Fantasy X, and the rest aren’t good. They’re just different. The further it evolves the less it feels like Final Fantasy and more like a new RPG. Pretty sure this comic is spoofing Final Fantasy XV specifically. Except for the implementation of classic monsters like Behemoths and Chocobos, it’s unrecognizable as a Final Fantasy game. I mean it basically takes place in a fantastical version of the Midwestern U.S. Again, that doesn’t mean it’s bad. Just strange is all.
9 Stocking Up
The lack of a classic Final Fantasy feel was the least on my list of problems with Final Fantasy XV. Er, not problems, more like questions. For example, how do the four bros keep their hair so perfect? In order to keep its form, they must be using a bottle of gel and/or spray per day. That’s four bottles a day, each, which must be pretty expensive. No wonder they take on so many monster-hunting jobs. You can pretty much apply this to a number of other protagonists as well, like Cloud’s giant spikey head. On top of that, they’re running around in leather, which probably doesn’t breathe well in battle. Step one to becoming a hero: you must look like you’re doing a fashion show.
8 A Blurry Remaster
This may be a ridiculous thing to admit, but the thing that got me to buy a PS Vita wasn’t a new, exclusive game to the handheld. No. It was the promise of Final Fantasy X/X-2 HD Remaster. It wasn’t even to replay the games either. I just wanted to play Final Fantasy X’s Blitzball mini-game on the go. No kidding, I sunk at least fifty hours into that alone on my original PS2 file. It’s my favorite mini-game of all time. Blitzball, or not, both of these games are still great and they look amazing in HD. Mostly, that is. For some reason, the NPCs were not cleaned up so by comparison they really do look blurry. It’s odd, to say the least.
7 Tutorial Overload
I was a pretty big defender of Final Fantasy XIII when it came out. That said, I haven’t gone back to it since so I don’t know if my feelings would still hold any clout today. So there were two things that bothered most people. One, the linearity. It was pretty much just corridors. Two, on that note, it took about thirty hours before you entered a more classic, open world setting wherein you could do side quests. It’s a weird thing to hold out on fans. It’s not just that it takes that long to get to this point either. Most of the game has a lot of tutorials and new mechanics introduced throughout the entire adventure. Again, it didn’t bother me, but I can see where people, and this comic, were coming from.
6 Material Fusions
Okay, this comic is perhaps a bit overblown. In Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII, Zack has the ability to fuse Materia together in order to make new ones. There’s a bit of unpredictability to it though. It’s not the most obvious combinations and there’s even a bit of randomness to it. It all depends on levels and types. It wasn’t the greatest mechanic, but it was a lot better than the leveling system, I can tell you that much. Like Final Fantasy XIII’s linearity though, it didn’t bother me. I actually thought it was pretty cool despite some frustrating moments. Most people probably haven’t even played this game, as it was a PSP exclusive. Where’s that remake Square Enix? Now that’s a problem to get mad over.
5 Old School Saves
There was a brief time in video game history where memory cards were necessary to save game progress. This came into popularity with the N64 and PS1 generation, as well as the generation after. Thankfully that all got ditched with the HD generation of consoles that saved to the system’s internal memory. Anyway, this comic’s premise actually happened to my brother with Final Fantasy VII too. Well, somewhat. When he bought the console from a friend, he had no idea you needed a card to save. He got all the way through Midgar before he realized there was no way to save. No joke. Thankfully, Target was still open in our area so there was a happy ending, but it almost turned into a horror story like this.
4 Charlie’s Fantasy
Theatrhythm Final Fantasy may be a weird spinoff, but Final Fantasy X-2 is up there too. It was the first game to be a direct sequel to a mainline title. When I first saw Yuna with guns in an issue of PSM, I thought it was a joke. Good spoof guys, even though it wasn’t April. Nope. Turns out it was true. Final Fantasy X-2 is like the Charlie’s Angels of video games. It may be bananas and girl power influenced, but it’s a good time regardless for both males and females. It never got as girly as the comic illustrates, but it does get very close at times. There’s no spin the bottle mini-game, but you can give another girl a rather explicit back rub. Girl power?
3 Lest Ye Be Judged
Final Fantasy Tactics Advance gets a lot of flack. No, it’s not a “mature game” like the original. It’s more childlike, akin to The NeverEnding Story. It still had the great strategy gameplay from the first one and it looks good for a GBA game too. The downgrade of maturity wasn’t what got people riled up most though. It was the Judges. At the start of a battle, they could issue commands that would penalize you for using certain actions like attacking with swords or using magic. Following the rules could be frustrating, but it never got me fuming. Other than that, the comic also illustrates how weird it is that a stave and staff are different. I mean, are they really? I actually don’t know.
2 Jim The Black Mage
The commentary of this comic can be applied to any number of games where you can name your character. One of my pet peeves is naming a character after yourself. Yeah, I do it too, but when the context fits. If it’s Pokémon Sun then yeah a simple name like Jim is fine, because everyone in that universe has fairly normal names. I try to be unique when it comes to fantasy games even though Tristan would fit it nicely. Jim, on the other hand, is a bit odd. Jim is the guy who runs the item stand. Jim is not the name of an epic mage. Everyone can play games the way they want so I’m not really too judgmental about it. Still, a funny premise for a comic though.
1 What Happens After The Credits?
All right, let’s end on a depressing note. The comic itself questions endings. What do characters do once the big battle is over? If everything is defeated then it should be peaceful, right? What use does a world need for a fighter if there is nothing left to fight? Old Cloud rambling around his mansion, alone, is pretty unsettling. Does he look at his picture of Aeris all day? Do his former party members still visit him? Did he once settle for Tifa and eventually divorced her because his heart belongs to Aeris? These are the questions I want answered! So next time you beat a game just think about how dismal it must feel for your warriors and let the guilt wash over you.
