eww
If I'm remembering it right FF9 has you fighting against an expansionist imperial empire.
And FF7 starts you off as literal eco-terrorists fighting a corporate oligarchy.
...Has Final Fantasy been based this whole time without me noticing?
Then your peasant-born buddy becomes king and turns into a class traitor.
FF12 and FF15 are also about fighting empires, but unfortunately it's in the name of monarchies. Killing god in FF10 is cool though
FF12 was about the cycle of violence between warring states, which benefit a few powerbrokers at the expense of everyone else.
FF15 was literally just Entourage: The JRPG, and was probably one of the worst entries in the franchise even before you consider how the game collapsed on itself in the later chapters.
yeah there's a lot of that in ff. ff4 has you banding together to tackle a corrupt government which leads to discovering a crazy conspiracy where the world is being taken over by aliens.
ff6 banding together to tackle a corrupt imperialist government abusing/enslaving minorities, having the world get nuked and having to band together again to take down a global dictator.
The whole crux of that game is that the anprim stuff preached by the church was cover for the fact that they were all corrupt zombies who had consolidated power after Sin's appearance and were using religion to keep the masses enthralled to the whims of a parasite god that needed to eat cities to survive.
...you could interpret Yevon/Sin as capitalism, and the church as neoliberals, and it kinda works.
Yes, sometimes! FF4 has the main character turn against his corrupt king
Sure but I feel like this has also become a huge trope in all forms of capitalist entertainment. The bad guy is always trying to create a "perfect society" and the lesson you're supposed to learn is "if you try make things better that deviates at all from all our preconceived notions of "how things work", you will only fail and somehow make things even worse".
Or also, people who want to change things are evil, incompetent, have an ulterior motive or all of this. And every attempt at making change is bad, it must all be small and incremental. And also as a bonus try to think how such a mindset would start working in ones personal relationships...
And also as a bonus try to think how such a mindset would start working in ones personal relationships…
"You shouldn't be trying to improve me if you love me the way I am"
Ahhhhhh that's enough of those memories. Probably not gonna date a lib again.
That is an example. Or even when they want to change, guess how well that happens in a culture, where the concept of change is demonized from early age.
The bad guy is always trying to create a “perfect society”
Lots of them are just trying to become God.
And usually the main villain is an anarchist/communist-coded character whose goals are relatively sympathetic and line up with a lot of your own (wonder why?) but OOPS! They do something completely irrational and awful near the end that gOeS tOo fAr. Usually the rationale is something like "I want them to suffer like I/we have," (Eg: Menendez from Black Ops 2, not technically a villain but Rebecca Thorne from Mirrors Edge Catalyst) which I've literally never heard any leftist say irl. The CIA's got its tentacles in all popular media, but sometimes they don't even have to do anything because we're all so propagandized we'll do psyops on each other.
Persona games coming so, so close to making a bold statement (or even interesting gender and sexuality elements) but dropping the ball at the last second and taking the most milquetoast road is the most frustrating part of the series for me.
I'm hoping in at least one game or spinoff they'll just go all the way and really sink their teeth into bigger change/ideas.
I tried playing Final Fantasy Tactics Advance once, and once the game got out of the tutorial I had twenty characters and thirty different mission options and zero idea what was going on or how anything worked.
FFTA was just "Why not do an FFT franchise of FF12?" and my response has always been "Who asked for a sequel to FF12? I need to kick them."
It also has the advantage of being one of the best goddamn son of a bitchin' TRPGs ever made even if you don't like the story
Try the most refreshing little JRPG themed mints ever made, Final Fantasy Tictacs
And here I am hoping that when they do a Valkyria Chronicles 5, it'll basically be the Russian Revolution but with magic and laser beams
It's actually really good and self aware enough to work imo
FF7 is really great, there's a reason it's on so many people's top games of all time lists, not played the remake but hear it's good, I'll be getting it if it ever hits PC, or might even rent a PS to play it at some point if needed
Can confirm. Got it on the PS4 and it plays more like Kingdom Hearts than the original, but it's probably the best FF title released since 9. Fleshing out some of the Midgard storyline, weaving in elements from the FF7-spin-offs without being too heavy handed about it, alluding to the rest of the world... it's a good story told well, and fun to play.
If anime stuff bothers you I would suggest playing the original over the remake. Not only will you get the whole story and not just the first couple hours stretched way too thin, but there's no terrible english anime voice acting constantly making you cringe.
But I would suggest playing the original. It's pretty great.
