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Axe of the Blood God Episode 3: Inaugurating Our RPG Canon with a Classic
Kat, Bob, and Jeremy return to Final Fantasy VI for our inaugural Canon of the Blood God segment. Plus, an interview with Robert Boyd and a mailbag!
Article
by
Kat Bailey,
03/13/2015.
What are the essential RPGs that every devotee should experience at least once? The canonical games that define the genre? Ask this question, and you'll get a million different answers. So we're inaugurating "Canon of the Blood God," which is an opportunity to comb over some of our favorite RPGs and talk about how well they hold up today.
With Final Fantasy Type-0 HD and the Final Fantasy XV demo just around the corner, I thought it would be fun to kick off the series with a look back at a critical and fan favorite from the series — Final Fantasy VI. In this segment, Bob, Jeremy, and I share some trivia, dissect the battle system and sound track, and talk about how well this all-time classic holds up today (Spoiler Alert: It holds up pretty darn well so long as you're not playing it on mobile).
In addition to revisiting Final Fantasy VI, we also have an interview this week with Zeboyd Games co-founder Robert Boyd, who is currently hard at work on Cosmic Star Heroine. We talk about the nitty gritty of designing an RPG, and also wonder why Sega CD RPGs don't get a bit more love. Afterward, Bob, Jeremy, and I reconvene to discuss some of the listener comments on our "What is an RPG?" episode, and to talk briefly about Code Name: S.T.E.A.M. It's a really packed episode, so join us!
As a sidenote, we'd love to hear from you. If you want to talk about Final Fantasy VI, Cosmic Star Heroine, or just RPGs in general, drop a line in the comments below. Conversely, you can reach me at kat.bailey@usgamer.net. We may read and discuss comments we like in an upcoming episode of Axe of the Blood God.
If you enjoy the show, you can find Axe of the Blood God on iTunes by following this link. Please subscribe, rate, and review the show! The more we're rated, the more visible we'll become. If you don't like us, then... er... don't do anything!
Our RSS feed is here: http://bloodgodpod.libsyn.com/rss. If you want to directly download the episode, you can find it here. We're also on Soundcloud along with Retronauts and our flagship podcast From US to You.
Show Description
Kat, Bob, and Jeremy inaugurate the "Canon of the Blood God," where they decide whether to add Final Fantasy VI to the canon. Plus, Kat interviews Robert Boyd, creator of the upcoming retro-styled RPG Cosmic Star Heroine. Bonus: A quick mailbag!
Music from Axe of the Blood God is courtesy of Leif Chappelle, who has also contributed the themes to Active Time Babble and Roleplayers' Realm. I also use music from the RPG Music Pack over at rpgmaker.net. Check it out!
Next week: I have no idea! But Bloodborne, the Final Fantasy XV demo, and Final Fantasy Type-0 HD are coming up fast!
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Comments 30
Personal anecdote, there have been a few times in my life where I've tried to ease someone into the JRPG genre. FF VI usually goes over very well for someone who isn't already familiar with the genre's conventions and doesn't want to commit 40 or 50+ hours. Specifically, I think the game does a good job introducing your to job-style archetypes without dropping you in the deep end. It does take a while for all the systems to be rolled out (Espers and the moderate customization that comes with it), but in the mean time it gives you fairly balanced teams to play with, then experiment with, before the game gives you the opportunity to potentially break it's systems. That said, the game is too easy, some kind of "hard mode" in a remake would be welcome. Or better yet, FFVI Zodiac Job System Edition (ala XII).
The interviews are very interesting gimme more please.
Anyway, one thing I feel wasn't mentioned is that the story and characters have more to them than just save-the-world (though still not particularly high-literature). I used to think that it was kind of empty and a mess, but upon typing up a response to someone to that effect, I ended up convincing myself that there was more to it.
It's quite thematic, I think, focusing around despair and hope. Through the game, most of the characters, as well has the entire world, end up depressed and without hope, in one way or another. Terra has to deal with being unable to understand her emotions and inability to love. Cyan is faced with the loss of his family. Strago thinks he loses his granddaughter. As the story progresses, though, they all find some resolution to their problems and find hope for the future (except Shadow). They all even require other people to help them out of their despair (importantly, except Shadow), showing that some problems are too much for a person on their own.
I also don't feel that the game falls apart with the WoR. It turns from a generally-linear, directed story to one split off into smaller, character-based stories. They're just sidequests, but I think the structure of the WoR, and the fact that many of these sidequests are necessary to rerecruit characters, makes them more important than sidequests usually are. Far from falling apart, I think the game finds a new strength.
The battle system, though, is disappointing in ways. As you said in the podcast, "customization" in it tends to result in a homogenic, give-everyone-magic approach. Sure, some characters have their own unique traits that they can use well (Edgar and Mog and their spears, for example), but magic is always the superior option. FFV kind of had that problem as well, with how Freelancers/Mimes with !Rapid Fire or !Dualcast were the obvious ways to go, butI think splitting things up into classes also made it a bit easier to experiment. With FFVI, though, why use Lore when it's essentially a worse Magic?
(Also, I like Rage and hope it finds a refined form in a future game).
Also, great interview about Cosmic Star Heroine! I really like BoDVII and Cthulu Saves the World, and looking forward to getting into CSH.
Nice point about the openness of WoR; the theming of this game soup-to-nuts for both the heavily linear WoO and WoR is a mandatory course for world-building and character development being influenced by the plot and world of an RPG.
Interesting interview with Boyd; I can't wait to get ahold of that one "Gun Mage" in CSH (so boss!)
Can't really agree with Jeremy on VIII or XII, those two, along with X and XIII, really soured me on the series. I was really hyped for the sequel to VII and I got this teen angst love story, the fighting was meh' at best, Square brought it back with IX, though. Then they lost me again with X, another love story with horrible VO (Tidus mainly), although the grid sphere was cool. But the real kicker for me was XII, after playing Tactics and getting introduced to the world of Ivalice and then getting stuck with Vaan and Panelo; I'm not 100% sure how many hours I was in, somewhere past the desert after meeting Balthier, who should have been the main character, and Fran, I believe in the mines, where I just stopped b/c I wasn't having any fun.
Looking back at them, I feel that the weaker FF I mentioned had their memorable characters, Waaka, Auron, Balthier, Basch, and Fran, but they were always relegated to sidekicks and we had to follow the cliche goings on of Squall, Tidus, or Vaan.Edited March 2015 by detten17
I just watched the alpha footage of Cosmic Star Heroine and it looks really cool overall. It's great to see someone attempting a 16-bit RPG, even if visually it looks a little inconsistent. I'd love to see them hire a great pixel artist for their next game to help smooth things over a little.
If I remember right (sorry if not!), Jeremy's written before about briefly falling out of gaming in college, and having one particular game, Secret of Mana, pull him back in. FF6 was that game for me, in high school. As@Thumbscar and others have said, I've also found it to be a great introduction to Final Fantasy, RPGs, and just gaming in general for new players. I had never considered how the structure and pacing of the game contribute to that accessibility, but those are excellent points.
I also laughed when Kat mentioned that she got her SNES from a coworker at KFC. That must happen a lot. I spent a few years at a certain major doughnut retailer, and was given used copies of both Chrono Cross and Breath of Fire 4 by coworkers. I also gave a DS and a Phoenix Wright game to a kid who was trying to save up for her own. It would be cool if she grew up to be the next Kat Bailey.Edited March 2015 by hal9k
Two points :
1) Is the PSN version of FFVI that bad? I'd wait for the Wii U VC version but Square apparently hates money and the NA market.
2) Thank you to Jeremy for teaching me how to pronounce Cait Sith. I've been living a lie for decades!
Speaking of which: I know the mobile version is bad, but these days what's the best way to play FFVI? Especially for those of us without handheld systems?
(That would be my one recommendation for the canon discussions -- maybe a brief discussion of various versions and/or recommendations for how best to experience the game in this day & age.)
Blame Wada. In fact, for 80% of SE snafus over the last 15 years, "Blame Wada".
It's honestly not, I would say that the Chrono Trigger port is more annoying but that barely puts a damper on two great games, I have almost all the classics on my Vita