Toomanywires

I was hopelessly lost. I thought it would be easy to resume my adventure after a few days away, but no. Three days removed from last playing Final Fantasy V Advance, and I had no idea where I was, what I'd been doing, or where I was headed. Bartz, Lenna, Galuf, Faris and I, confused in a cave. My memory may be faltering, but FFV isn't exactly great at giving hints or reminders. A few days away is all it takes to become utterly lost when there are no mission markers, no mission log, a very limited map, and several hundred caves that all look the same. It hasn't helped that the online guide I've been checking keeps refreshing and losing my spot on the page. I think I was supposed to be doing something in a cave? Ctrl+F "cave" - 127 results! Brilliant. I was looking for something I could sink my teeth into over the winter holiday. I wanted to make use of my Analogue Pocket, ideally while wrapped up warm on the sofa, with the Christmas tree in view. Nice and cozy....

I finished Final Fantasy Tactics - The Ivalice Chronicles last week. I'm delighted to report that Tactics remains sublime and the upgrade is outstanding. While I was playing, I did something that I usually wouldn't: I snapped screenshots. When something struck me as poignant, interesting, funny or just pretty, I'd grab a picture. Some of those images now serve as the backbone for this blog post and will provide inspiration for a bit of Tactics talk. Obviously, this post will contain spoilers . If you plan on playing Final Fantasy Tactics and have yet to do so, I'd advise giving this blog a miss. I won't mind, and I trust you'll come back once you've played it. And you most definitely should play it, because it's an all-timer. Delita on a Chocobo - The Opening Cinematic I'm pleased that the water-colour cutscenes from the PSP port, War of the Lions, were retained. They're a lovely touch that add a softness and warmth to the otherwise harsh world o...

We're getting new versions of two GOATs later this summer. Final Fantasy Tactics: The Ivalice Chronicles is due late August, followed by Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater  at the end of September. Lucky us! Lucky me. That's two of the greatest of all time - number one (Snake Eater) and number five (Tactics) on my list - and while I'm certainly looking forward to both, the wait won't kill me. Probably. I'm excited but I'm not bursting at the seams. August and September will be here in the blink of an eye, as time doesn't make sense anymore, so there's no need to count down the days. I don't have the time or the energy to work myself up the way I used to. It's different when you're young(er). Your enthusiasm is through the roof, and waits are agonising. You count down the months, weeks and days until the object of your obsession is in your possession and you have full confidence that, once it is in your grubby little mitts, it'll be exce...

It finally happened. And it happened while I was looking away. Years and years of asking for Final Fantasy Tactics. "Final Fantasy Tactics remake?", or something to that effect, posted on social media before every major showcase. That was my bit. Press send. A new entry seemed unlikely, but a remaster or remake was plausible. I'd heard whispers, online and off, and the release of the sublime Tactics Ogre Reborn in 2022 further convinced me that Tactics was on the cards. However, with each new Tactics-less showcase, I became less sure. Each time Square Enix announced a new remaster of some back catalogue, 6/10-RPG that only four people liked, I became increasingly convinced that Tactics' turn would never come. Passed over, time and time again, for lesser games. And then it happened. At the 16:38 mark of the June 5th State of Play , a little after 6:00 AM Japan time. And I missed it. I was on the school run. There's no time for State of Plays when the day's just...

It'd been more than 15 years since my last return to Shadow Moses. When I went back earlier this month, everything felt reassuringly familiar. Gaia, on the other hand, took a little more getting used to. It wasn't exactly how I remembered it, but it came pretty close to how I'd like to view it now. I recently wrapped up a delightful 70 hours with Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, and followed it up with a brief, but equally entertaining, return to the original Metal Gear Solid, via the Master Collection Vol. 1. Rebirth is an improvement over Remake. Freed from the confines of the Midgar slums, a setting that was never intended to host the player for more than a few hours, Rebirth allows us to explore a much larger and vibrant slice of Gaia. Avalanche and friends are lovingly realised and expanded upon, and the combat is up to the challenge of keeping us entertained across a typical RPG runtime. Most crucially, Rebirth successfully balances the need to meet narrative expectations w...

We needed a second Cait Sith. I'd already won one in the Final Fantasy VII Rebirth lottery, a raffle-like event that kicked off last weekend in a limited number of participating stores. You pay ¥880, pick a sealed ticket from a box, open it up and see what prize you've won. It's a fairly common type of event here, usually scheduled to commemorate a new pop-culture release. Anyway, we needed a second Cait Sith. My daughter had taken a shine to the blocky, faux PS1-effect figure that I'd won on Saturday morning. Problem was, so had I. So we decided to try and win another, and put our minds to finding the best way of guaranteeing this outcome. We quickly ruled out robbery, as I only have one balaclava. Instead, we settled on a more scientific approach: we re-boxed the figures we'd already won, exactly as they'd come, and looked for ways to tell the different ones apart, so that we could make the right choice in-store. The figures come in blind boxes, so they all lo...

You can find all of my Tokyo Game Show 2023 coverage here Final Fantasy VII Rebirth was a late addition to the Square Enix Tokyo Game Show line-up. Late but expected. The pair of TGS demos were confirmed immediately after the new trailer dropped during last week's State of Play , and we all got very excited indeed. Fortunately, Square Enix came prepared, kitting out their booth with one hundred demo stations, thus ensuring that everyone could have a go. Konami, please take note: six demo units is not enough for a highly-anticipated release! The two demos were very different. The first was a flashback concerned with Cloud and Sephiroth's ascent of Mt. Nibel, accompanied by a young Tifa and an unnamed Shinra soldier in non-playable roles. The second demo took place on the outskirts of Junon, and gifted us a full party of Cloud, Aeris, Red XIII, Barret and Tifa. This was a far more open segment of Rebirth, which encouraged some exploration and culminated in a familiar boss battle....

I finished Final Fantasy XVI last week.  Fifty hours spread over two months, and I'm not really sure how I feel about it. I mostly enjoyed my time with Clive and his mates, but I'm struggling to form a final, coherent opinion. Something I could confidently share with friends over dinner. Something that would make them say "Yes, that is a good opinion about Final Fantasy XVI. Matt's an OK guy and his game-thoughts are well-considered." "He is also handsome." In an effort to solidify my position on XVI, I'm going to work through my thoughts by comparing it directly to its predecessors. Hopefully this will provide me with some clarity. And if it doesn't, we still get to chat about Final Fantasy for a bit, which is always nice. Is XVI as good as golden-age Final Fantasy (VII-IX)? Fuck off, yeah? Can we eliminate FF I-III, as it's just too hard to make meaningful comparisons with the series pre-IV? Yes, let's do that. How does it stack up agai...

With Final Fantasy XVI just a few months away, I'm writing a  series of posts about each mainline FF.  I won't write reviews, provide in-depth analysis, or even attempt to explain why VIII is the best one. Instead, I'll write around themes or topics related to these games.   I first played Final Fantasy III on the Nintendo DS. A fairly common way to have experienced it, unless you lived in Japan in the early 90s. I lived in rural England at that time, and the only Fantasy I was interested in was  the Fighting kind. Roll a five and turn to page 61. Page 61: You have been fully eaten by a zombified Yeti until dead. Final Fantasy III launched in Japan on April 27, 1990. It was the last in the series to appear on the Famicom, and it went on to shift 1.4 million copies. Despite this success, it would be another sixteen years before it was released outside of Japan, when the aforementioned remake launched on DS. Part III might be the least available Final Fantasy. An upda...

With Final Fantasy XVI just a few months away, I'm writing a series of posts about each mainline FF. I won't write reviews, provide in-depth analysis, or even attempt to explain why VIII is the best one. Instead, I'll write around themes or topics related to these games. ****** Final Fantasy II was a sequel in name only. While certain themes and gameplay elements returned from FFI, no characters or locations were recycled for part two. No great loss. The moderate success of the first game earned Hironobu Sakaguchi and his team a slightly longer leash at Square, though they were still very much considered the B-team. Still, it would appear that they had enough support and/or confidence to make some surprising decisions, the biggest and most impactful of which was not to be tied to the plot or setting of the original. With the sequel, narrative became a much greater concern, as we were given named-heroes, support characters, and more substantial lore. Comparatively, anyway. ...

Final Fantasy XVI will be with us before you know it. While I'm not as enamored with the series as I once was, a new entry still feels like a significant event, and one worth celebrating. So that's what I'm going to do, by writing about each mainline entry in the lead up to 06/22. I won't write reviews, provide in-depth analysis, or even attempt to explain why VIII is the best one. Instead I'll write around these games, using them as inspiration to cover something related. Hopefully something you haven't read before. *********** A hairy ballsack, peaking out from the start menu. A prickly pair of nads. That was how I accessed Final Fantasy (1987). I first played Final Fantasy I via the NES emulator, NESticle, a crudely named and widely-used freeware program that ran without issue on the out-dated PC that I took to university. I left home in the autumn of 2001 for higher education. Freed from the shackles of the family PC and dial-up internet, I was excited to ha...