Grinning Mouths (Day 205)

I'm still intent on finishing Final Fantasy II but I haven't made any progress on it today. I've been too busy watching the EU LCS, which as of me typing this only has one game left to go. Today is one of those strange days where I can't seem to really wake myself up, despite pouring a river of coffee down my throat. I felt like I was pretty alert at the beginning of my day but I've sort of sat around and done nothing since then.

I've also started up a cooperative playthrough of Final Fantasy V with a friend of mine. I haven't played this game in years. It's the only SNES game in the series that I haven't played through dozens of times--mostly because I didn't play it until I was in my late teens. Final Fantasy V was not originally released in America, of course, but it was translated by fans quite a few years back before Square-Enix brought over the PS1 and GBA ports to America. To this day, the Super Famicom fan translation is the only version I've played. I haven't found much of a compelling reason to try anything else.

I really enjoy playing through these classic RPGs with a friend. I wouldn't really have any incentive to replay them otherwise, and it's fun to chat about them with someone else who has played through them before. There's a surprising amount about Final Fantasy V that I've completely forgotten. Everything is familiar, of course, but the specifics have faded away. Now that I've played a pretty significant chunk of Final Fantasy II, I realize that Faris is sort of a callback to Leila--both of which are purple-haired female pirates.

I floated the idea of playing the Final Fantasy VI fan translation after we finish FFV and he seemed pretty receptive. That's another game that I feel like I don't have a lot of incentive to play alone, but I really would be interested in seeing how the game progresses with a more literal translation. I can't say I would necessarily prefer it to other version of the game but I would like having the perspective.

After I finish watching the LCS, I'm definitely going to start working on Final Fantasy II again. It's definitely not my favorite game in the series but I do think it's interesting. I think the gameplay mechanics are good, but poorly implemented. Leveling up spells over time is fun, but it's tedious in FFII because of how much time it takes. It also seems like many spells are unnecessary to progress through the game. It's cool that you have spells like Haste, Berserk, Shield, Barrier, and Wall but I suspect that I could play through the game without ever having to resort to them. I think if I just did a little grinding I could probably get through most fights (and even some boss fights) just by mashing the A button, selecting Fight consecutively. My opinion on this could easily change as I get further into the game, but I suspect it won't be getting much harder.