Whose Story Is This?: A Defense of Final Fantasy XII

[Note: Cross-Posted at my tumblr Endeavor's Reward, which focuses on adapting Final Fantasy Tactics to novel form. Please forgive any formatting errors due to the cross-post.]

I’d originally intended to write something like this closer to the release of Final Fantasy XII: The Zodiac Age, but I actually had someone reply to this tumblr with a request for it (thanks, @beeperdoop-hiatus  ) so I’m doing to do this now and reblog it later.

It can be really tiring hearing people repeat the same tired criticisms of FFXII’s story. As a particular fan of that game, I wanted to clarify some details on that score. Let’s get into it.

–Caveat

This article is not intended to be a comprehensive look at the game’s flaws, nor is it meant to suggest the game is above reproach. FFXII is extremely flawed. I think most fans of the game are willing to admit as much, though their reasons may differ. How the game handles race is “problematic” at best and the pacing is very chunky, particularly following Mt. Bur-Omisace, which is almost certainly when Matsuno was officially no longer in the driver’s seat. Some characters (such as Penelo) are significantly underserved and only half the cast truly have arcs. I’d argue the game still says and does more in terms of storytelling than any of the other numbered entries in the franchise, and if your argument is that this speaks less of XII and more of the flaws the others have, that is your prerogative. I’m still inordinately fond of it, however.

This is also not an article about gameplay, as it is solely focused on the game’s overlying narrative and its character journeys. Finally, this article has spoilers for all of FFXII. This game is ten, eleven years old now, but the HD re-release is only months away, so I’m putting the courtesy notice here.

Happy 19th Anniversary, Final Fantasy Tactics

I.

The March of the Black Queen

It was over four hundred years ago.

In those days, recall, that our continent of Loar largely consisted of a kingdom that we then also called Ivalice; a kingdom separated into six regions all too soon to be unified by the great hero who began Ivalice's next “golden age.”

In the continent's center lay Lesalia, the royal seat; the others branched from that center, be it Fovoham to the north, proud Gallione to the west, broken Zeltennia to the east, or Limberry and Lionel to the south west and south respectively. These were political divisions, rather than geographical; but in spirit if not in deed they all carried three great similarities: they answered to the Royal City of Lesalia and their king Ondoria III, they all knelt before the Church of Glabados, and they were all desperately poor. For in that time, the kingdom had not yet recovered from the scars of The Fifty Years' War with Ordallia to the east.

This last fact was held in contention for some years, as written documents of the era were largely recorded by learned men and the nobility – and there was no greater time to be noble than in the wake of a war. Coffers were overstuffed in the case of those who sent others to fight. One particularly noteworthy example was just months before the official declaration of the end of hostilities—the church, a wealthy body itself, hosted an opulent baptism ceremony for the newly-born royal baby, and it seemed all of Ivalice's ruling class was in attendance, even as many fields lay fallow and bones bleached in the dried Lake Poescas beds.

***

The wheels turned, and the goldleaf herald, the twin lions, emblazoned on the carriage's door was spattered with mud. Inside, a powerful woman brushed her long blonde hair back behind her without tipping her crown; she prepared to seize her destiny, unknowing that it would seize her instead.

The War of the Lions began and ended each with a miracle.

Rebuilding: SMTIV, Part Four (The Rot)

I've been occupied with other matters - The Singing Mountain is one, my illness is another - but I wanted to say more about this before I left it abandoned.

Shinichiro Watanabe, on the creation of Samurai Champloo.

To address the plot of SMTIV, we have to acknowledge one of the biggest elephants - a real Girimehkala - in the room with this game; that it is, to put it most kindly, politically narrow-minded.

The Singing Mountain, Part I (Introduction)

One of the reasons that I decided to set up shop again, intermittently posting random thoughts on games and miscellany, was that I wanted a place to host an aimless project that I'd been tinkering with mentally for a while. At the moment it's little more than disconnected character sketches and location concepts; I've been unable to lock down the exact method for telling the story.

It'd serve as an RPG itself, but the labor is prohibitive; a comic or visual novel is just as problem-laden, as I'm not in the right place for hiring somebody anymore (and partnerships are... I'd as soon not go down that road again any time soon). A Twine game or a prose novel, then, but it's a fundamentally visual idea, so I don't know if those media can support what I'd try to do. Even the scraps and inklings I have thus far are enough to let me know that much.

It's a story of where the heroes go after it's all over. I call it "The Singing Mountain," after this one:

Adaptation Scenes: FFT-1

"Adaptation Scenes" are attempts to keep the other muscle flexed from time to time. There's no illusions here - this is fan fiction - but specifically the goal is to adapt games to prose or comics - these are scenes that could exist in a canonical adaptation by design only.

Scene Title: "Staff of Life"

Game: Final Fantasy Tactics: War of the Lions

When: On the morning that Ramza's cadets will first encounter the Corpse Brigade; meant to lead into the Barbaneth Beoulve flashback

Rebuilding: SMTIV, Part Three (Exploring a Space)

In putting up P:B Flashback pieces, and getting to Kentucky Route Zero, I'm left wondering what the Hell I'm doing here. To spend this much time on the potential of this goofy ol' racist anime game when legitimate works of art like that game exist, it leaves me questioning everything about my entire life. But we're here, so we might as well go through with all of this!

Here's a positive note that I won't be able to put anywhere else: the soundtrack to SMTIV is pretty great. It's not the best in the series, by any means, but it's catchy and it fits the mood pretty consistently and they did a pretty good job. I enjoy it, it's in my rotation with other game scores.

Anyway, let's get into this mess. Welcome to Tokyo!

[P:B Flashback] Dialogue: Kentucky Route Zero

This co-authored piece reappears with the permission of Joe McCulloch.

I had to go get a routine (for me) blood test recently. My insurance situation had changed, so I had to go to a new location, at a hospital that I’d exited once but never entered. So on my way there, on a hot and too-humid morning, I kept getting turned around on side streets, even though I had directions right in front of me. The street zig-zagged at one point, you see, so I didn’t trust my bearings. I live in Chicago, but suburban areas can feel downright rural just from the contrast with the heavier sprawl even a few blocks away. Even a familiar place, with the sun in your eyes, can be another world for a half a block.

When I finally arrived, I ascended the west tower of the hospital’s office building and went up to a tiny window, where they claimed I didn’t have the right paperwork. I wound up trying to broker an arrangement between my doctor’s office and this laboratory using myself on the phone as a go-between, only to learn that the person who had looked for my file had made a typo or something, and the paperwork had existed all along. And then the way back, a minute’s walk at best, because I knew the path.

This can be what Kentucky Route Zero feels like. It can also feel like something wondrous, the flight of a giant eagle over a Baudrillard map, a pedal-wheel spinning through a fourth-dimensional wormhole, or the flats of a stage production falling away to reveal the shadow world beyond its walls. The joy and terror of being lost, but also the banality, I suppose. It’s a story about debt; living with it, and in a world changed by it. It’s very funny, and also very scary. Or vice versa.

Kentucky Road Zero is a five-act episodic game for the PC, which also includes free “demos” which are in fact interstitial chapters. You can find it here at the site of developers Cardboard Computer, and it comes highly recommended.

Another fan of the game is critic Joe McCulloch, a friend, infrequent P:B contributor, and sometime bassist for the band Foreigner. You can find him writing every week over at The Comics Journal and having fun with manga over at his tumblr. Joe and I decided to dig in deep and hash out this extraordinary game series, which at the time of this writing has reached Act III. We talk about everything; KR0 being a game of discovery, that may be worth considering before you progress. That said, it is as always and honor and a pleasure to host - and to write with - Joe; and this was a subject with plenty of meat for both of us.

A poem is the password...