From the Memory Bank: My History with Video Games

Final Fantasy II - It Spoke to Me Across Time and Space
And SquareSoft's musically impassioned, story-rich RPG told me that video games had the power to change my life in ways that I never could have expected.

The Prelude

In the time before SquareSoft's otherworldly opus landed its vessel on the lamp table in our den, I felt as though I was fully aware of all of the ways in which a video game could personally affect me. I knew that they had the power to stir my imagination and encourage me to wonder. I knew that they could inspire me to create and shape the way in which I expressed myself in my art and my writings. I knew that I could learn a lot from them and improve my literacy by observing how they used language. And I knew that they could play a big role in helping me to form deeper bonds with my friends.

I knew it all, I thought.

So up until the day that I played Final Fantasy II for the first time, I believed that those qualities represented the limit of video games' potential to influence. And if you had told me that video games would one day expand their scope of influence and gain the power to impact my life in incredibly profound ways and even change the course of my entire life, I would have thought you were being silly.

But that was exactly the case that Final Fantasy II wanted to make.

At the time of its arrival, though, I wasn't especially interested in receiving its message. Rather, it was only a matter of seconds before I tuned out my brother, James, as he was excitedly explaining to me why his newest purchase, Final Fantasy II, was worth my time. I simply didn't care to hear it.

I was so incurious, in fact, that I wasn't even interested in examining the game's box art beyond the cover.

Naturally I had a built-in excuse for my disinterest in the game: I wasn't a fan of RPGs because of the unpleasant, unproductive experiences that I had with Dragon Warrior and the original Final Fantasy, both of which featured a random-encounter system that consistently thwarted my attempts at making progress and ultimately bored me into submission.

"I don't want to go through that again," I thought to myself. "I don't want to spend hours walking around and circles and fighting the same enemies over and over again and never advancing past the game's opening area. That's just not fun to me."

So I left Final Fantasy II on the lamp table and proceeded to ignore it.

It remained on that table for almost a week and didn't move until James asked me if he could borrow my SNES and the game along with it. After I passively agreed to his request, he took both items downstairs to his basement hangout.

That was a normal occurrence: Every now and then, I'd let him borrow my SNES for about a week or two and do so with the belief that my NES games and my art projects would be enough to keep me busy in that span of time. Though, it never actually worked out that way. Before long, I'd grow tired of drawing monsters and replaying all of the Mega Man games, and I'd start longing for my SNES, which was currently my go-to system. But of course I'd have no direct access to it.

If I wanted to be close to my precious console again, there would be only one way for me to do so: I'd have to sneak downstairs and watch my brother play it. And if I got lucky and he didn't kick me out immediately upon sensing my presence, I'd be able to watch on, enviously, from a distance.

On this occasion, however, not even a single day had gone by before I started to miss my SNES. So almost right away, I sneaked downstairs and stood in the background, by the bar area, and watched James (and his friends) play Final Fantasy II, which I didn't really want to do because I had zero interest in the game.

"I wish he'd play any other game but this one!" I thought to myself as I prepared for what was likely to be a very boring viewing experience.

And that was the moment in which Final Fantasy II began to work its magic.

I don't know when or how it happened, but at some point, I found, to my surprise, that I'd become completely immersed in the aural and visual projections that were emanating from the TV. Their powerful reverberance permeated and vibrated throughout every part of the basement, and consequently they completely enveloped me and aroused my every sense.

So much of what Final Fantasy II was exhibiting appealed to me: its vibrant color-schemes, which were a welcome contrast to the drab-looking and overly gray color-schemes that every other RPG seemed to favor; its beautifully rendered battle-scene environments, whose woodsy, sandy and cavernous backgrounds were so much more interesting than the black voids that comprised every other RPG's backgrounds; and its hauntingly wistful, highly evocative music, whose presence was amazingly overpowering.

In fact, I couldn't remember a game whose music was so soul-stirring that it had the power to drench every accompanying image with some type of strong emotional resonance. I was in awe as I listened to it and observed what it was doing.

The music told emotionally complex, though-provoking stories wherever it was heard. In, for instance, the bright, sun-soaked castles and towns, it outwardly spoke of bustling citizens who were dashing about as if all was wonderful, but before long, its melancholic undertones revealed their true plight and made it clear that their sanguinity was merely an illusion. It was a veneer that was designed to belie the reality that the world surrounding them was enveloped in sadness and that their energetic activity was actually an expression of their will to escape from their state of silent desperation.

That was how the game's music inspired me think. That was the type of power it wielded.

By the time James switched off the SNES and finally kicked me out of the basement, I was intrigued enough to where I was willing to ignore my aversion to standard RPG conventions and play Final Fantasy II and give it a fair chance. I was eager to see more of the game's entrancing world and find out what else it had in store visually and musically.

"This is going to be the first game I play when I get my SNES back!" I told myself.

In the intervening time-period, I thought about the game constantly and spent a lot of time reflecting on the questions that it left me with. "Where is the story going?" I wondered. "What else was the music trying to tell me? What is Cecil, the main 'hero,' hiding under his mask? And what happened to Kain after the earthquake rocked the town of Mist?"

So when James returned my SNES to me a few days later, I wasted no time in hurrying to my room and connecting it to my TV. Then I popped Final Fantasy II into the console and did so with the hope that it would soon provide me some answers.

And I made it no further than the Antlion's Den before I was hopelessly engrossed in the game's world. By that point (about 20 minutes in), the game had wholly absorbed me, and I had willingly become its captive.

There were many reasons why that happened, though I've never been able to clearly articulate any of them or form a coherent narrative around them. And my trying to do so has always has the unintended effect of severely understating what my early Final Fantasy II experience truly meant to me. Because sometimes words just aren't enough, and they're simply incapable of adequately conveying feelings and emotions.

So I'd rather keep it simple and say that I cherished every part of my first experience with Final Fantasy II. I love the story, the characters (heroes and villains alike) and their relationships, the music, the visuals, the level design, the many emotional moments, and the way in which the game's wonderfully intuitive systems helped me to overcome my phobia of RPG mechanics and meet challenges that I'd previously regarded as monstrous.

But out of all of those, it was the game's music that I loved the most. It was next-level amazing, and the more I listened to it, the more I'd wonder if its composer was possessed at the time of its creation.

Note for note, Final Fantasy II's was the most masterfully composed, powerfully emotional video-game music I'd ever heard. Whenever I reached a new destination, I made sure to put down my controller and listen, because I knew that I was about to be introduced to yet another incredibly stirring piece and I didn't want to miss the chance to (a) savor it and explore all of the complex, contradicting emotions that it was evoking and (b) try to interpret its meaning and thus figure out what it was saying about the newly discovered area and the game's world in general.

Final Fantasy II's music had a transcendent quality to it. It had the ability to shape even exterior spaces. No matter where it was being heard--in the basement, in the den, or in my bedroom--its resonant tones would permeate every surface and every corner and imbue the air with an overpowering energy. And its reverberations would surge through me and color my thoughts and make me feel as though the space around me had become a part of the game's world.

Final Fantasy II's music was, in short, a stirring combination of magical and heavenly.

An adult or a video-game detractor might have told me that I was being silly and that video game tunes weren't "real" music and thus didn't possess the ability to truly inspire or move someone, but I'd have known better. I'd have argued that Final Fantasy II's music was not only real; it was, in many ways, more inspirational and meaningful than the majority of songs that you could hear on the radio.

That's how amazing it was.

I was so enamored with the game's music, in fact, that I dedicated at least one future play-through to recording its entire soundtrack with my tape recorder and making a Final Fantasy II-themed tape!

Usually I didn't make game-exclusive tapes. I made compilations. But I loved Final Fantasy II's music so much that I decided to give it special treatment. "It stands far above the rest," I thought, "so it deserves to occupy its own unique space." (Originally I was annoyed that the battle themes were unavoidably riddled with the sounds of enemy strikes, but in time, I came to appreciate their presence and regard them as a "seasoning ambiance." The themes were, in that form, how I wished to remember them.)

I listened to that tape all the time, and I never skipped a track. Because each tune held the power to touch me in some way, and I didn't want to rob myself of the experience of being taken on a unique emotional journey.

And the game's music stayed with me wherever I was and even helped me to make sense of current life events. When I was, for instance, dealing with the onset of my condition--when I was on the road with my school's basketball team in an unfamiliar part of town at nighttime in the dead of winter, and I was stressed beyond belief as I tried to figure out why I was feeling so alone and detached from everything around me--I could find comfort in thinking about certain tunes like, say, the title-screen theme, whose power would away my negative thoughts and replace them with images of the friends and family members who were waiting for me back home.

"You're not really alone," it would tell me, "so keep the hope that things will be OK soon."

The game's music also served as the best accompaniment to my daydreaming sessions. Listening to it helped me to expand my imagination and give my childhood fantasies grander form. It gave me the power to be whoever I wanted to be. So I could imagine myself as a heroic knight who wandered a medieval world in search of challenges; or a superhero who was Earth's last hope against an invading enemy force; or even the star of a theatrical adaptation of Final Fantasy II, which, thanks in part to my acting efforts, would become the all-time box-office champion and be remembered for how it touched hearts and united the world.

23 years later, the music still has that same effect on me. It still gives me the same power and inspires me to imagine what it would be like to be the world's hero.

It's as magical as ever.

I was intimidated by Final Fantasy II's long length (because the types of games that I usually played were never longer than three or four hours), so I didn't replay it as often as I did my other favorites. But when I did return to it (after a couple of months or so), I'd treat the play-through as if it was a big event--a special occasion that deserved to be celebrated over a period of days.

I'd have my reservations, of course, because I knew that the experience would entail spending 12-plus hours with the game, which at that point in my life seemed like an enormous amount of time. Though, even then, I'd still be excited about the prospect of reliving one of the greatest adventures I'd ever been on. And consequently I'd become more willing to endure all of the long level-grinding sessions and the tedious side missions (like the one that requires you to repeatedly and repetitively fly back and forth between the Sylph Cave and Fabul for the sake of reviving the comatose Yang).

Really, I didn't mind spending as much time in Final Fantasy II's world as I could.

James would give me some advice from time to time. He'd tell me about the elemental weaknesses that weren't plainly obvious (like how certain slime-type enemies were weak to fire and ice spells). He'd show me where the best grinding spots were. And he'd give me tips on how to better manage my items (he'd suggest, for instance, that I remove an ally's gear before he or she departed and then sell it later on, and he'd advise me to fill my inventory with several sets of 99 Cure 2s before I entered into the game's final area).

He helped me to become a more-seasoned RPG player.

In my first play-through, though, I wasn't lucky enough to have his assistance. I had to face the game's trials on my own. And because I didn't have much experience with RPGs, a couple of those trials were absolutely nightmarish for me!

I remember struggling to kill Baigan because I kept focusing on destroying his arms, which he'd continually regenerate, and thinking that doing so was the key to beating him. (This battle is the source of my everlasting disdain for RPG bosses that have regenerating limbs.)

I recall how I almost suffered an emotional breakdown as I tried to defeat the Magus Sisters, who wiped me out so many times in a row that I seriously thought about quitting the game. (I hate to think about what would have happened had I not discovered, by chance, that you could reflect a spell onto an enemy by chanting it on a Wall-protected ally. I probably wouldn't be writing this piece right now.)

Otherwise, I couldn't stand navigating my way through the unbearably awful Sealed Cave, which was filled with Trap Door enemies that could kill my characters in one hit. And I had a absolutely miserable time trying to earn the services of Leviathan and Odin because I didn't understand the importance of being properly leveled.

But eventually I figured it all out, and in the process, I learned to see the value in RPGs. I still wasn't a big fan of the genre, no, but I understood why it was so appealing and why people loved it. And I had to respect the fact that it had just produced one of my all-time-favorite video games.

Somewhere in the World...

As I've stated: My long history with Final Fantasy II isn't something whose meaning can be conveyed via a simple chronology of events. It's honestly too complex to be captured in such a manner. So I'm not even going to try to do so. What I'm going to do, instead, is list all of the special moments that I experienced during my play-throughs and hope that their combination is able to give you a true sense of how I feel about the game.

So here's a list of my enduring thoughts and memories:

 It was a requisite that I refrain from beginning a Final Fantasy II journey until I finished listening to multiple loops of the title-screen theme, whose opening verse was always able to demonstrate for me how even a simple arrangement of notes--an arpeggio of soft key strokes--could be used to evoke intense emotions from the player. I'd spend this time absorbing its energy and letting its emanations fill me with the adventurous spirit I'd need to vigorously complete the long march to victory.

I'd always anticipate the start of the theme's second loop, which was the point when the chorus would begin lending the piece its heavenly accompaniment and infusing it with an amazingly stirring, almost-magical resonance. It was when the tune would fully envelop me with its newfound sublimity and cause me to get goosebumps everywhere.

No other Final Fantasy title-screen theme was ever able to match it.

 I loved the quest-opening scene in which Cecil and Kain silently emerged from their respective chambers, joined together in the castle's hall, and exited the castle, side by side. That was the moment when the amazing prologue theme kicked in and imposed its powerful presence and began to guide their movement and explain to you, in the most impassioned way, what they were feeling as they began their mission.

It was the game's most rousing piece, and it empowered and inspired me in a way that no musical theme ever could. It made me feel as though I was capable of taking on the world. And it did an outstanding job of setting the scene and setting the tone for the quest.

 Final Fantasy II had four of the best boss-battle themes I'd ever heard. Each one of them was incredibly invigorating and inspiriting, and each one told a distinctly flavored, deeply inspiring story of struggle, endurance and eventual victory.

The plainly titled Boss Battle Theme was the best of the four in that regard. It built toward the ultimate of crescendos and a second loop that felt all the more exhilarating as a result. It also doubled as great workout music--particularly so when I was practicing my Mr. Furley-inspired karate moves!

 All three of the overworld themes (which were heard on the surface world, in the underground, and on the moon, respectively) did a beautiful job of conveying emotion and inspiring me to stop and think about what they were saying.

Whenever I arrived in a respective overworld, I made it a requisite to remain idle for a while and let its music wash over me. In that time, I attempted to decipher the music's meaning and figure out what it was telling me about the space that it was accompanying.

I concluded that the surface world's theme was speaking of a long journey whose destination was unknown. And I determined that its increasingly melancholic strains were meant to imbue each newly executed movement with a feeling of anguished uncertainty. "I can't tell you where you're going," it said, "but I know that the journey to your unknown destination will be long, arduous, and filled with both physical and emotional struggle."

The underground theme had a similar construction, but it was a bit more optimistic in tone. It had a sanguine quality that worked to balance out the underground's sense of desolation and gloom and let you know that things really weren't as bad as they seemed. It was a commentary on the area's volcanic environment but also on its citizenry, who were, surprisingly, happy to embrace their seclusion and their shadowy world of magma-formed surfaces and sunless skies.

The moon theme's intro had a quirky, playfully weird quality to it, and consequently, it suggested to me that the rest of the piece would be equally bizarre and alien-sounding in nature. But that, I soon learned, wasn't what it was meant to do. Its true purpose, rather, was to acclimate me to my strange new surroundings and temporarily put me at ease so that I'd be centered and thus prepared to (a) absorb the intensely melancholic strains that played in following and (b) remain composed enough to clearheadedly understand and interpret their story of human struggle and sacrifice.

What can I say? These themes had a divine way of conveying emotion, and thus they did an extraordinary job of connecting me to the game's world and helping me to understand its plight.

 I remember how the amazingly exhilarating aircraft themes would fill me with heroic spirit and provide me a much-needed escape from the doleful overworld spaces.

The Big Whale theme, in particular, would lift me up and fill me with a sense of triumph. It would make me feel as though I was the king of the world, and it would give me the courage to believe that I was capable of taking on any challenge the game could throw at me.

 I was devastated by Kain's betrayal and how he coldly and callously stomped Cecil in their one-on-one confrontation. At the time, Kain was my favorite character (I felt that he was the cooler of the two knight characters in terms of look and demeanor, and I enjoyed wrecking enemies with his jump attack), so it became my fear that his turning toward the dark side meant that I would never again be able to play as him.

In the following hours, all I could do was continue to imagine scenes in which I was able to meet with him and talk some sense into him. "Please tell me something like that is going to happen eventually," I kept thinking.

So you can imagine how overjoyed I was when he rejoined our team after we freed him from Golbez' control in the Tower of Zot!

 One moment I always looked forward to experiencing was Cecil's becoming a paladin at the summit of Mr. Ordeals. Mostly, I couldn't wait to hear the incredibly invigorating confirming ditty, which to me rivaled the "Link obtains the Master Sword" tune in how it could rouse my emotions and fill me with energy and spirit.

It was one of the most powerfully vitalizing "victory" tunes in video-game history.

 In my first play-through, I watched on with delight as Tellah, in a crazed state, used his Meteo spell to cut down the meddling, antagonistic Golbez, who until that point projected an air of invincibility.

That event represented a critical turning point (despite its costing us our best magic-user). It showed us that our main nemesis did have weaknesses and could actually be beaten.

As Rocky Balboa's manager, Duke, would have told us: "You cut him! You hurt him! You see!? He's not a machine! He's a man!"

It was an inspiring moment.

 I remember how sad I felt the first time I entered the underground area's Land of Monsters. Its musical theme was so heartrendingly somber in tone, and it seemed to suggest that my crew's sense of desperation had never been deeper. As I listened to it, all I could do was imagine the types of people who occupied the underground caves and wonder if they lived with the same sense of despair.

It was the most depressing-sounding video-game tune I'd ever heard. And even though it was a great piece of music, I couldn't wait to escape from it so that I could stop feeling so sad!

 The moment I gained access to the Giant of Babil, I heard what quickly became my favorite tune in the game. This area's theme music, more than any other, was able to capture and encapsulate the mix of disparate emotions that I was feeling during my Final Fantasy II adventure.

It was a beautifully composed, emotionally complex piece that evoked feelings of sadness, joy, distress and hopefulness and consequently told an incredibly moving story. It told us that our long journey was still far from complete and that there would be more hardship and loss in the future, but it also encouraged us to know that our victory is inevitable. "No matter the cost," it said to us, "you are going to succeed in hunting down and destroying the source of all evil."

In that moment and in every future play-through, I took as much time as I could to absorb and savor this powerfully evocative theme and draw inspiration from it.

 Golbez' turn reminded me a lot of Darth Vader's redemptive turn in Return of the Jedi (the game's creators obviously drew inspiration from the Star Wars movies). And I was very happy to have him on our side.

One of my favorites scenes in the game entailed his teaming up with the Lunarian FuSoYa (who was basically Tellah on steroids) and continuously unleashing top-level spells on the ultimate evil, Zemus. It was the moment in which the big boys finally took control of the action and went to work. And I had fun watching it!

I wasn't quite sure, though, why Golbez suddenly became a little chibi midget (I was taking those battle-perspective scenes a little too literally, I guess).

My only disappointment was that I never got the chance to take control of him.

But it wasn't a bad consolation prize to instead gain the temporary service of FuSoYa, who was absolutely packed. He had all of the top-level Black and White Magic spells and plenty of magic points to boot. I felt invincible when I had him in my party.

 I loved the epilogue's cheerful-sounding renditions of the surface-world tune and Rosa's Theme of Love. In their altered forms, they spoke of a world that had finally been freed from its dolorous chains, and thus they helped to create the most appropriate capper to our long, emotionally wrenching adventure.

Every aspect of the ending was brilliant, for that matter. They combined to create one of the best endings a video game ever had.

 I felt that the credits theme was a little too futuristic- and Star Wars-sounding for a game that was decidedly medieval in character, but still, I couldn't deny that it was a great tune and that it climaxed with the most awesomely composed, rousing outro I'd ever heard. It perfectly encapsulated the amount of effort and emotion that went into making the game.

After watching the credits, I'd always wait around for the main theme to kick in. I'd do so because I liked to take time to reflect on the experience, and I felt that the main theme, with its powerfully evocative and wistful energy, was the perfect accompaniment to such a session. It provided some important flavor to my thoughts and visualizations, and it made me feel at peace with the idea that my time with this amazing game and its unforgettable characters was over.

"I look forward to seeing you again one day," I'd think as I put the controller down and prepared to switch off the SNES.

The Epilogue

As my teenage years ended and I entered my 20s, I could no longer bring myself to play Final Fantasy II (which from this point forward I'll refer to by its proper title: Final Fantasy IV). Because I wanted to remember it as the special game that it was. I didn't want to play it constantly and consequently reduce the entire experience to an repetitive, empty exercise.

Also, I was afraid that if I replayed it too many times, I might have naturally started to focus on its flaws. I would have been forced to acknowledge that (a) its English translation was kind of poor and sometimes worked to diminish the impact of certain exchanges and (b) it wasn't exactly a graphical powerhouse and featured overworlds whose visuals were barely indistinguishable from the 8-bit Final Fantasy's.

So to prevent that from happening, I decided not to play the game anymore.

As an aside: RPG die-hards might argue that Final Fantasy IV's "low difficulty" is another notable flaw. And while I would agree with them that the game isn't super-difficult, I'd stop short of listing its lack of serious challenge as a "flaw."

I mean, I like to be challenged by my video games, sure, but I don't consider it to be a big deal if a game doesn't push me to the limit. Because sometimes a game is so good that its value simply can't be diminished by a middling score in one of eight or ten cliched categorical rankings.

That's especially true in the case of Final Fantasy IV, whose greatness can't be properly explained by numeral-scores. Such numbers could never convey the true importance of its music, its story, its characters, and the wonderful experiences and memories that they combine to create.

For a game that wields that kind of power, a "lack of challenge" doesn't really rate as a concern.

Out of curiosity, I made an exception and played through the Japanese version of Final Fantasy IV--the so-called "hard version"--sometime in the early 2000s. And honestly, despite my being warned of its higher difficulty, I didn't find it to be that much more challenging than the North American version.

So that claim turned out to be overblown.

In the end, the slightly higher difficulty didn't mean anything to me, and I concluded that Final Fantasy IV was an amazing game no matter what form it took. (I can't speak as to the quality of the PlayStation, GBA or DS versions of the game because I haven't played any of them.)

All I know is that I wasted way too much time in the Lunar Subterrane in my hours-long attempt to encounter the elusive Pink Puffs and thus gain the opportunity to obtain the apparently invaluable Pink Tail, which according to VGMuseum owner Mek and a few others was worth getting because it could be traded for the game's strongest armor.

I put in so much effort, and I didn't even manage to get a hold of the item!

So that was a bummer.

Sadly I don't have much of a history with Final Fantasy beyond that. What I've written here is about the extent of it.

I did try to make a deeper connection with the series: After I played through Final Fantasy IV and fell in love with it, I opened my mind to the idea of following the series, and then I eagerly embraced Final Fantasy III when James introduced me to it. But I had a change of heart after I sampled the game and quickly lost interest in it. I just didn't find it to be as engaging or as fun as IV.

A while later, I bought Final Fantasy: Mystic Quest and did so because of how much it resembled Final Fantasy IV. And I enjoyed it for what it was (I was especially fond of its gorgeous setting and highly evocative music). Though, I couldn't ignore the fact that it wasn't anywhere near as ambitious or as engrossing as IV. Its gameplay was dumbed down in multiple ways, and its world was disappointingly limited in scale, and for those reasons, I wasn't able to form a deep connection with it.

So neither game convinced me that I needed to closely follow the series.

What they did, rather, was make me realize that no RPG could ever replace Final Fantasy IV or fill the same space in my heart. I knew, after playing them, that no other RPG could ever hope to wield that same type of power.

Because Final Fantasy IV is simply too indelible. It left me with so many amazing memories and touched my life in so many profound ways, and thus it can't possibly be supplanted by something "better." Because there's no such thing. There's no RPG that can top what it did for me or speak to me in the same way.

Final Fantasy IV is unquestionably the best at what it does.

I haven't played Final Fantasy IV in over 12 years now, yet still its spirit strongly resonates with me. I continue to think about its unforgettable characters and its wonderfully evocative world. I continue to draw inspiration from its richly layered, emotionally stirring story. And I continue to listen its soundtrack on a regular basis (via YouTube and my decades-old MP3 files) and consider its highly evocative, wistful tunes to be the best accompaniment to my periods of contemplation and reflection.

Obviously, though, it's the game's music that resonates with me most. It's still as magical as ever. So much time and so many hardware generations have passed, but still Nobuo Uematsu's brilliantly composed 16-bit soundtrack hasn't lost any of its power. It continues to have the ability to completely enrapture me and stir my emotions in the most intense way.

Nobuo's work will forever stay with me and serve to remind me of my incredible experiences with Final Fantasy IV. And thus it will continue to evoke memories of an inspirationally great RPG that contributed as much to my personal evolution as it did to the video-game industry's.