Table of Contents

Final Fantasy - This article is part of a series.

Part 0: This Article

Part 1: Retro RPG Review: Final Fantasy I

Part 4: Retro RPG Review: Final Fantasy IV

I’ve played games in the massive Final Fantasy series off and on over the years. It was a huge part of the SNES era for me after some more restricted experience with the first game on the NES.

The Super Nintendo Games also led to more diverse games: I’d give them credit for getting me to play such classics as Chrono Trigger or Super Mario RPG.

I burned out on the series around Final Fantasy X, but even before that signs I was losing interest were clear. I remember finishing VII, but can’t guarantee I finished VIII or IX. X was just aggressively not fun to me in a way I was disappointed with, so I focused more on other games and experiences.

Why?
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I’m playing these games and writing reviews for several reasons:

Self-Care
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I started this series of sorts to review a few games I was playing to help keep myself from fixating on the current stream of bad news from the world. My intent is to fill in the gaps here, but I won’t hesitate to shift coverage to other games that catch my eye and fit my own current interests. I’ve added placeholders for the main sequence of games from I to X, but even then I couldn’t see ignoring a personal favorite like Final Fantasy Tactics due to some need to stick to the self-imposed rules.

Writing Exercise
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I’m also using this as a chance to stretch my writing abilities. As a recent example, my coverage of Final Fantasy Legend was initially much longer than the current posted version: I realized it was a boring, rambling, not-fun rant and edited it down. Then I did it again. The current version is probably still too long, but only marginally so.

The “Retro Reviews’ are meant to be a review of each game along with my thoughts on how the game was part of my world at the time I played it and later. It is not as focused as proper video game critics, not as angry as an Angry Video Game Nerd, nor as meandering as Boss Fight Books’ authors tend to. It’s my thoughts on the games.

Discussion of Game Design
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I want to use this little tiny pulpit to discuss game design more. Things I like, things I don’t like, and ideas that were simply wrong for the game they’re in.