Final Fantasy II (1988)

The Emperor of Palamecia is bent on world domination. Having already conquered and subjugated much of the world, his eye is fixed on the kingdom of Fynn, who stand in fierce opposition against him. After leading an all-out assault with an army of monsters from Hell itself, Fynn is finally conquered. Four youths, Firion, Maria, Guy and Leon, are cut down by imperial soldiers as they flee their fallen kingdom. Revived in the town of Altair, the youths join the Wild Rose rebellion, the last vestige of hope against the Emperor’s plans. Together they journey across the world to defeat the Emperor and the Palamecian Empire…

 

Think of your favourite story. It can be from any media. A movie, a book, a TV show, video game, whatever it may be, just think on it for a moment. Who are the characters? Who’s the hero, the villain, the sidekick? Is there a supporting cast? Is there a love interest? What kind of story is it? Action, fantasy, romance, horror? How does it start? What happens in between? How does it end? Think of the moments that made you fall in love with the story in the first place. A moment of intense action, or two characters interacting with one another on a deep and meaningful level. Was there music playing? Or maybe you had music playing in your head to suit the mood? Now think of how that story was constructed. Who came up with the idea? Who wrote it down? How did it come to be? Got all that? Okay. Now ask yourself; why is it your favourite story?

 

As a child, I used to be engrossed in all different kinds of stories. I can vividly remember visits to the cinema to see the latest family film, often one made by Disney, or catching one of the many Saturday morning cartoons that kicked off the weekend following another gruelling week at school. I also remember the multitude of books and comics that introduced me to a wide range of genres. Goosebumps and Point Horror with its variety of horror stories and tropes, the wonderful and cautionary tales written by Roald Dahl. Even Sonic the Comic, the UK adaptation of Sonic the Hedgehog, managed to tell compelling stories whilst stamping a firm British identity onto Japanese property (Sonic’s transformation into Super Sonic turned him insane and the Chaos Emeralds having the bizarre side effect of turning people into hippies being two examples).

 

And yes, this also included video games. Games today have a strong focus on stories, but it’s worth noting that even games in the 80s and 90s took time to tell a good story if it had one. Adventure games such as Simon the Sorcerer, Beneath A Steel Sky and The Secret of Monkey Island are still etched firmly into my mind, including the sometimes-ridiculous puzzle solutions. The run-and-gun adventures of Turrican and Shadow of the Beast came packaged with manuals that detailed stories of loss and revenge alongside the required ‘how-to-play’ instructions. Sonic the Hedgehog, a game whose main goal is essentially to keep pressing the Right button until you reach the goal, was about the titular hero saving his friends and home from the machinations of Dr. Eggman; a story of nature VS industry that the likes of Tolkien told decades earlier.

 

When it comes right down to the essentials of a story, you’ll find that almost all follow the same pattern. A character’s life is thrown upside down by another person or events out of their control, and we follow them on their quest to overcome the obstacles thrown their way. On their journey, they’ll meet more characters who’ll join them on their quest or offer support from the side-lines. We’ll visit strange new worlds and learn more about how those worlds function. Eventually, all comes to a head in a dramatic conclusion where the main character’s life is forever changed. If it sounds dramatic, that’s because it is. The drama is the hook that draws us in, but the setting is what makes it unique. It could be something as grandiose as a band of fantasy characters setting forth to destroy an evil artifact or a woman running from her wedding day to reconnect with old friends. Neil Gaiman, author of American Gods, Coraline, The Sandman and many other works, once said this about stories:

 

“We who make stories know that we tell lies for a living. But they are good lies that say true things, and we owe it to our readers to build them as best we can. Because somewhere out there is someone who needs that story. Someone who will grow up with a different landscape, who without that story will be a different person. And who with that story may have hope, or wisdom, or kindness, or comfort.”

There is a story for everyone. And though the story may not be real, what it teaches us is.

 

The first story that had a great impact on me at a young age was Star Wars. A story that featured fantastic space battles, a vast galaxy of planets and aliens, a small rebellion squaring off against an oppressive empire and duels with space swords. How could an impressionable 6-year-old resist? Within a short period I’d seen the original trilogy on repeat, started a collection of Star Wars memorabilia which I still have to this day, read books set in the Star Wars universe and of course played games that expanded on the stories of the trilogy. Luke Skywalker was my first hero and I looked up to him with appropriately starry eyes. Darth Vader was my first villain and his mere presence sent a chill down my spine. Han Solo, Princess Leia, Obi-Wan Kenobi, Chewbacca, R2-D2, C-3PO, Grand Moff Tarkin. All characters firmly etched into my memory. The battle of the Death Star, Luke’s training on Dagobah, the inevitable clash between Vader and Luke, father and son (spoiler, I guess). Star Wars is one of the few properties that I can quote, recall and relive over and over again.

 

Yet at its core, the original Star Wars, or Episode IV: A New Hope as we know it now, holds the very fundamentals that make a great story. So fundamental in fact that it is used today in film and literary studies to outline the ‘hero’s journey’, where a character is thrown out of his normal environment to pursue a quest that will change him by the end. So successful was this story that many, many, MANY other stories have tried to emulate the formula Star Wars perfected with varying degrees of success. Even to this day, you will find a large-scale property trying to build upon the foundations that Star Wars had laid down.

 

Why bring this up? Because Final Fantasy is one of those properties. The whole series is peppered with references to Star Wars, from lines of dialogue to character names. A majority of the main numbered entries feature an empire acting either as a primary antagonist or a universal one, whether it be the Garlean Empire from XIV or the Gestahlian Empire in VI. Some even have empires in all but name, like the Shinra Corporation in VII. We’ll talk more about those as we come to them. But if anything, some entries are so much like Star Wars that it’s quite apparent even on a surface level. A popular talking point is that Final Fantasy XII is the most like Star Wars out of all the main entries. I respectfully disagree. In my opinion, the entry that can be most compared to Star Wars in Final Fantasy II.

 

Reading into the production of II, it makes the most sense. Released hot off the heels of its first entry, Square had big ambitions with the blossoming Final Fantasy franchise. The initial pitch for the second entry was a conflict over the succession in a royal family, a tale of political intrigue that would later be recycled for the Romancing Saga series. Rather than this, Square seemingly opted for a story that would be more familiar and popular. A tale of a brutal Empire set on world conquest, eliminating any and all in their path. A tale of a band of rebels brought together by the Empire’s machinations and dedicating their lives to see them defeated. The central villain of the whole piece simply being called The Emperor. It doesn’t really get more Star Wars than that, does it? It sounds like I’m being overly critical of II because of this, but it’s hard not to talk about these similarities when they are so apparent. One of the major events in the game involves infiltrating the Dreadnaught, the Empire’s airship and superweapon whose main purpose is to subjugate the world population through its mere presence alone. Does that sound familiar to you at all?

 

It's arguable, of course, whether or not Square Enix borrowed or outright lifted scenarios straight from Star Wars or not. But you can hardly criticize them for using a formula that works. An underdog story is one that always gets us rooting, and what can be more underdog than a small group of teenagers rebelling against the oppressive reign of their elders or rulers. Whether it be the Rebel Alliance against the Galactic Empire, the Wolverines fighting the Russians, or Kevin Bacon showing the power of dance to ignorant adults, the idea of rebellion is one that hooks us in right from the get-go. It works in movies, in television, books, and it certainly works in video games where you can take control of the rebels themselves. So yeah, why not borrow from one of the grandest stories of all time? Why the hell not?

 

And it’s not as if Final Fantasy II is the only entry in the franchise that does this. As mentioned above, it’s a story beat that is often repeated in the series and one we’ll come across again as this playthrough goes on. But why this story in particular? And why has this story persisted and endured for as long as it has? If I were to borrow from my own experience, it would probably be down to the idea that deep down we all have a part of us that wishes to rebel. That wants to speak up or speak out against our betters, elders or authority figures, fight back against oppressors or regimes. Like a wish fulfilment, if you will. And this can be in our personal lives or ones imagined in our head where we’re some kind of hero. This is where videos games and Final Fantasy succeed by allowing us to fulfil that wish.

 

But even more so than the wish fulfilment fantasy, there’s the drive of a good story. We have the setting and the goal in mind, but what good are they if the story falls flat? How many times have you watched, read or played a story that engrossed you from the beginning only to completely flub it at the end? Or a story that has a fantastic beginning and end but meanders aimlessly in the middle without much development or action? A story told badly sticks with you just as much as a good one. Why is that? Maybe because you can imagine how better the story could have been told. How many times have you been unsatisfied with how a story turned out and proceeded to rewrite it in your head? Or maybe you even delved deep into fan fiction to find an alternative telling of the fiction you’d just read?  Moreover, have you ever tried a different story, something that you’re not entirely familiar with, but found yourself returning to one you’ve read before or to another that is essentially the same one but with different coats of paint?

 

Not that that’s a bad thing to do at all. Say what you will about Final Fantasy II (and from a gameplay perspective, I certainly have!) but it took a familiar formula and played around with its expectations just enough to make it unique. Yes, there’s an evil Empire set on world domination. Yes, there’s a rebel group whose determined to stop them. Yes, there are characters of questionable reputation who may or may not help you in your quest. But at least in Star Wars, Darth Vader nor the Emperor summoned monsters and abominations from Hell itself to subjugate the world. Nor did the final battle that had the world at stake take place in the palace of Satan. However, Star Wars didn’t give you much time to mourn or contemplate the destruction of Alderaan at the hands of the Death Star. Final Fantasy II, on the other hand, has many towns and cities you visit destroyed in the blink of an eye by the Cyclone, another of The Emperor’s weapons of mass destruction. And should you try to go back to visit one of those cities? You can’t. Nothing happens. The houses, the buildings and the people living in them are gone for good. There’s nothing you can do about it.

 

This is one way in which video games are more effective in the wish fulfilment of stories. After this happened in the game, I felt motivated more than ever to stop The Emperor and bring his destructive campaign to an end. Alongside this, however, came a sense of dread. The Emperor had shown his hand and willingness to wipe out the world just because he could. He could just as easily wipe out the friends and family you’d come to know and love, something that became even more pronounced when he assumed the throne of Hell. Yet there was a compelling drive to see this through no matter what, even if I felt scared or apprehensive. It’s a common beat in many stories, the ‘all is lost’ moment where the hero or heroes suffer a devastating loss that they must overcome for their own sake and the sake of the world at large. Do the heroes cave and give in to their fear and anxieties or will they overcome?

 

The more I think about it, the more I realise that many of my favourite stories follow the atypical hero’s journey. How the main character of the story comes from humble beginnings to rise and become a hero, or is thrown into a situation or conflict beyond their comprehension and must overcome through arduous trials. Whether it be Tony Stark building a suit of armour to not only protect the world but to keep his heart going or Frodo Baggins resisting temptation whilst carrying the Ring of Power to Mordor, these stories persist and endure past their mediums and into the public consciousness. We know all about Iron Man and Frodo Baggins, but it’s not just grandiose and bombastic stories that endure. So many feature grounded settings and characters that are far more relatable, from rom-coms to sitcoms, serial dramas and historical epics. Yet through each of these stories we can see the same journey taking place in some for or other.

 

And why does this journey endure after so many years? Why have so many different forms of media relied so heavily on this structure? Again, it could be a wish-fulfilment on our part, or it could be that the formula just works. For me personally, it’s because the hero’s journey is one I’ve relived over and over again for mainly the same reason. The idea of overcoming one’s failures, trials or hinderances, of leaving the safety of your comfort zone and becoming something or someone else entirely. Yes, the stories that I’ve come to know and love are mainly of a grand nature, whether they be a story of rebels fighting against an empire or superheroes seeking to end a world-domination plot. But at their core, the messaging and thematics are more or less the same but written in different styles. It’s why I’ve seen, played, read and experienced these stories so many times on repeat, as I’m sure you may have done with your favourite stories.

 

Returning to what Neil Gaiman said earlier, stories are lies we tell ourselves to learn the truth. What better truth is there than you can overcome? You can become more than what you are now? Firion, Maria, Guy and Leon all lost their home and families at the hands of The Emperor, but they overcame their tragedy to take up arms and ultimately defeat him. And even on the journey they took to get to there, they experienced even more loss and devastation by losing friends and seeing the world almost ended. Yet they persisted. They gathered the courage they had to see their story through to the end and save the world. It's bombastic in its storytelling yet it speaks a truth we all should know.

 

And for many years, despite my relying on these stories as a form of escapism or wish-fulfilment, I was too sunk into my comfort zone to ever even consider doing anything out of the ordinary. ‘It’ll never happen’, ‘There’s no point’, ‘Why bother?’. All thoughts that entered my head at the mere prospect of doing something different. It wasn’t until many years had passed that I realised that there was a point, that it could happen, that I should try. All it takes is one step after all. A leap of faith, if you will. But the courage in taking that step took years to bear fruit. Yet here I am, typing these words out on a computer screen in the middle of a rainstorm and under a warm, heated blanket in the Japanese winter telling you that it was worth the leap.

 

I think back again to my favourite stories, to the moment where the hero decides he has to do something and make a change that will impact the rest of his life. Is that what happened? Is that where I am now? I’ve no idea. My story is still playing out. Hell, everything I’ve just said still feels surreal in a way. And of course, I have spiced it up to make it more interesting to read. ‘We tell lies for a living’, thank you, Neil. But the principle remains. We need stories to give us hope, comfort or just to excite us if only for a little while. That is in their very nature. Whatever your favourite story is, it’s your favourite story for a reason. I hope that it helps you in some way or another, that it gives you the comfort you deserve. And if you ever do decide to take that leap forward because of it, I wish you nothing but the best.

 

Now if you’ll excuse, I’m off to watch Star Wars for the umpteenth time. Or maybe I’ll play more Final Fantasy. Those empires aren’t going to topple themselves.