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Foundation: Episode III - The Top 25 Square Games
09.08.02 Kevin Leung
Last time on Looking Glass: Foundation Episode II.
Do you still have the original NES cartridge of Final Fantasy? Good. Hold it up to your ear; I think you can hear it talk:
“Listen here, kiddo. Back in my day, we didn’t need no fancy three-dee graphics! All them pretty FMV movies you see just rot your brain! It’s like candy! No good fer ya. We had to rough it out, see - it was all about the gameplay! Gunblades and Summon Monsters didn’t mean squat if all ya had was a handful of experience points! Psh, a whole lotta good that’ll do ya. What’s that? Emerald Weapon? I’ll beat him with my cane and one hand tied behind my back! Try the Warmech! Ya darn tootin’ that’s a boss! Now, there’s something that’ll put colour in your cheekbones. And when did everything get so darn expensive??? In my day, 3 gold coins could get you a sword, a phoenix down, an airship, and a good night’s sleep at the inn! You kids should be grateful for everything ya got. We didn’t have no CD-ROM format. If you pushed the power button and all ya got was a grey screen and some funny lookin’ symbols, that meant your cartridge ain’t workin’, boss. Ya had to blow inside the cartridge, ya see. Yeah, just blow in there and make sure all that space dust was gone. Speakin’ of which, why don’t you dust me off and gimme another spin, huh? Whaddya say? Then we can go listen to some real rock, none of this Linkin Park noise…”
Plays like: Your father’s Dungeons & Dragons combined with your little brother’s Lego.
“It’s the first Final Fantasy, what more needs to be said? Without this game, we wouldn’t be able to enjoy the other plethora of Square games. Period.”
Now that they’re in bed again, it seems a bit silly to think that Square and Nintendo actually had an uncivilized relationship. After all, Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicle is blooming well while a portable remake of Final Fantasy III has been announced for the GBA. During the 16-bit era, they actually cooperated and made a little wonder called Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars. Once again, Princess Toadstool finds herself to be the unwilling captive of that wacky Bowser (he just doesn’t quit). But when Mario goes for the obligatory rescue, our hero finds more action than he bargains for when seven stars and a giant sword falls from the sky. If there’s one word that describes Super Mario RPG, it would be ‘fun’ and that’s really all you can ask for in any Nintendo product. When you play the game, it’s obvious that Square scrutinized every detail of the Mario universe and translated the world’s most loved platformer into a colourful, enchanting adventure with that Squaresoft signature style. Super Mario RPG represents one of the best collaborations from two of the top videogame developers of our time. All we have to do now is cross our fingers and hope Nintendo and Square play nice for the long haul. Could there be a Pokémon or Metroid RPG in our immediate future?
Plays like: A much better game than Luigi’s Mansion.
“This game seemed like a no-brainer to me. It just had to happen but Square could actually make it good whereas Nintendo seemed intent on making the same game over and over again. In my opinion, this RPG not only took SMB out of its monotonous rut, it was also loads of fun to play as well. There were also tons of mini-games and secrets to be found that basically started Square’s trend to include mini-games in future Final Fantasy games.”
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04.05.07
04.02.07
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