Pat's Top 25 30 Games of All Time
by Pitchfork

I have played this game

so

many

fucking

times

and it's still a blast to me. Even though I pretty much have it all down to a science at this point. If Square was Marilyn Manson, Final Fantasy I would be the Spooky Kids demos -- unpolished and still trying to figure itself out, but gleaming with innovation and potential. Eat Me, Drink Me, would probably be Kingdom Hearts II. Or maybe Dawn of Mana. Terrible games. Terrible album. It's all such a damn shame.




So tired. Starting to feel woozy. Ungghh...okay. Third Strike. Right. What's there to say? It's pretty much the best thing Capcom ever did in its life. Third Strike is such an amazing game that the Character Select Rap is a good song simply by proxy. Everybody now!

LET'S GET IT ON NOW

SELECT TO MAKE YOUR FIRST PICK

LET'S GET IT ON NOW

TEN, NINE, EIGHT

SEVEN

SIX

Unghhh. Why did I ever think doing this all at once would be a good idea? My mind feels like burning rubber. I'm never playing another video game for the rest of my life.

...Unless that game is Third Strike.

LET'S GET IT ON NOW

CHOOSE AND PICK THE BEST ONE

LET'S GET IT ON NOW

FIVE

FOUR



One short catnap later, I AM ONCE AGAIN LOCKED AND LOADED. LET'S ROCK!

Oh, man. What can I say about Secret of Mana without repeating myself? To this day, it's still the most beautiful video game I've ever played. It's the reason I finally had to cave in and get a Super Nintendo after years of being a strict Genesis fanboy. It's the SECOND game I would recommend to the non-gamer after they finished Chrono Trigger and wanted more. I wish Square could still make games this good. I wish anyone could still make games this good.

I think, once again, my feelings about this game could best be expressed through a picture.





King of Fighters XI for me was like....

Hmm. Give me a moment to think of a comparison.

Okay. I got it. Imagine you met this REALLY hot girl through a female friend of yours (named Capcom). You're into this chick and she's kinda into you, but she's maddeningly inacessible. At length, you hit if off okay -- you cuddle, maybe make out now and then -- but that's it. You're starting to feel teased.

Then she starts giving you handjobs. You can't help being dissatisfied that it's not going any further, but you're still so into this girl that you'll gratefully take what you can get. Now imagine this goes on for...let's say...THREE YEARS.

Then out of nowhere one day she tells you that you are her are going to have sex. Not today. Not tomorrow. But someday. Could be six months from now. Could be a year. Could be two years. Who knows? You'll just have to wait and see how it plays out. You're still getting handjobs, but now it's incredibly hard to be satisfied with them because all you can think about is that glorious day when you will FINALLY engage in coitus.

Then five months later she walks up to you and says OKAY I'M READY LET'S DO IT LET'S GO LET'S GO and you screw and it's amazing and you keep screwing sometimes more than twice a day and over a year later it still hasn't even BEGUN to get old.

Well, that's sort of like how my experience with SNK and King of Fighters XI played out. I hope the metaphor wasn't too difficult to follow.

Rumor has it that KoF XII is going to be cell-shaded 3D fighter, which would make XI the final 2D game in the series. If that's true, it's really disappointing...but at least 2D KoF concluded on a such a high note.



Well, here we are again. Surprise, surprise!

Another side effect the information has had on gaming is that there's no mystery anymore. Two days after a game comes out, you can go on GameFAQs and get a hundred-page comprehensive list of everything that is (and isn't) in a game. It's convenient, sure, but having a virtual checklist of everything to do and every secret to find in your new adventure game or RPG at your immediate disposal sorta kills the mystique sometimes.

There was a brief period when the Internet was just starting to take off that it served to fuel the rumor machine rather than completely squelch it. I remember seeing all sorts of bizarre claims on the old Nintendo message boards back in '96 or so. There were supposedly a pair of optional Espers, Magma and Leviathan, who would fill the two empty slots in the Esper list. There were supposedly ways to ressurect and recruit General Leo and Emperor Gestahl (for some reason). There was a way to get Rydia from Final Fantasy IV (of course, in those days we called her "Rydia from Final Fantasy 2") in your party. There was a way to fight the CzarDragon. There was a secret way to turn the Cursed Ring into a Paladin Ring. The list went on -- and this was before everybody was so jaded that they didn't immediately repost GTFO TROLL. People were actually giving these rumors the benefit of the doubt. (Though this could have been because it was an AOL message board. AND SAY WHAT YOU WILL ABOUT AOL BUT IT WAS INTRUMENTAL IN THE RISE OF THE INTERNET.) Final Fantasy VI being what it is was also a factor, I think. With games like Elder Scrolls on the market, Final Fantasy VI's world doesn't seem so massive anymore, but in the 16-bit era it was HUGE. Even when I played through it for the umpteenth time for this Rise and Fall of Final Fantasy business, I still managed to come across things I'd never noticed before.

At any rate, the rumors I allowed myself to chase back on were the ones involving Shadow and Relm. You knew this was coming. It's ALWAYS Shadow and Relm with me. The S&R link is really a rather minor part of Final Fantasy VI, but it's always been the most fascinating part of the game for me. At any rate, sometimes a rumor would pop up that there were ways to access secret cutscenes and alternate endings. In addition to the legendary "sixth dream," I heard there was a way to access an image of Relm petting Interceptor and crying during the "THE END" screen. Another myth went along the lines of "get a secret Key Item in the World of Balance by doing X exactly Y times, then put Shadow and Relm together in a party by themselves and get swallowed by the Zone Eater. When you get to end, Gogo won't be there. Walk up to where Gogo was standing, and a cutscene will be triggered in which Shadow comes clean with Relm. This will also slightly change certain bits of dialogue and parts of the game's ending."

There were a couple other similar rumors, too -- all false, of course. But I still tried them all.

Aeris's death wasn't so tragic. Tidus and Yuna's ill-fated romance wasn't so moving. I forget what kind of dramadramadrama went on in Final Fantasy XII, but that probably means it's not worth remembering in the first place. Square hit the nail on the head perfectly with this tiny little subplot in Final Fantasy VI, and I don't think it even remembers how it did it.

Square Enix (at least in the American localizations) has been trying to channel Shakespeare lately, and anyone who's actually familiar with the Bard and his language will tell you that they're making idiots of themselves. The Shadow/Relm link is the closest Square's ever come to capturing that particular sort of Shakespearean pathos, I think. Let's use, oh, Othello as an example. You know how it goes: Othello marries Desdemona, Iago tricks Othello into believing his new wife has been unfaithful, Othello murders the innocent Desdemona.

In Final Fantasy VI, the evidence of the Shadow/Relm link becomes so overwhelming that there really can't be any room for doubt: Shadow is Relm's lost father. He knows it; she doesn't. But YOU know it. And you, the meddling player, have already done so much: you've reconciled Sabin and Edgar, introduced Gau to his father, helped Cyan overcome his personal demons, helped Locke get over his dead girlfriend once and for all, given the children of Mobliz hope for the future...you little Amelie, you! Every time Final Fantasy VI shows you where a problem exists, it lets you go in there and patch it right up.

But THEN you get to Shadow and Relm. You know Relm's father abandoned her after her mother died and the kid still has some issues about that. You know that Shadow is actually Relm's father, and there he is, just standing there a few yards away from his estranged daughter on the airship. You know it's so, and there isn't a thing you can do about it. It's a little like being an audience member in the scene where Othello's approaching the sleeping Desdemona, his mind made up to kill her -- taking it slow, giving you all the time in the world to stew in your seat thinking YOU FUCKING MORON SHE'S INNOCENT DON'T DO IT. YOU NINJA BASTARD, ACT LIKE A HUMAN BEING FOR ONCE AND COME CLEAN WITH THE DAUGHTER YOU DITCHED. But it's no good. Othello's always gonna kill Desdemona for no good reason, Shadow's always gonna die one way or another, Relm's never gonna know her father, and there's nothing you can do about it.

I'll say it again: the fact that Square could have tricked me into caring so much about pixelated imaginary people with oversized heads really is amazing. ERAU QSSI DLRO WEHT. ERAU QSSI DLRO WEHT, indeed.


Jesus Christ...finally. My fingers are so sore I was on the verge of trying to write those last few paragraphs with my face.

Now I am going to pour myself a glass of warm milk, mix in five or six crumbled Melatonin pills, and spend the next week or so sleeping this article off. If my boss calls, tell him I got Internet poisoning.

Night, all.