Press X to Win

For those of you familiar with the Backloggery, you might know that there is a massive Final Fantasy marathon going on right now. Basically, one of the members of the Backloggery decided that, since Final Fantasy XIII was soon to come out (this was back in May) it would be a fun idea to play through all of the Final Fantasy games in preparation for the release of FFXIII.

Well, considering how many Final Fantasy games I own (and hadn’t beaten), and the fact that I’m a veritable encyclopedia of knowledge about the series, I decided to participate officially in that marathon (as a matter of fact, I’m first on the list that the member in question has in his page note). Sure, I’m probably not going to be able to play FFXIII when it comes out (not owning a PS3 or a 360), but it’s still a way to slay Bak’laag. That, and you never know — I might get the game anyways even though I can’t play it, like I did with No More Heroes for the Wii and possibly for Valkyria Chronicles for PS3.

The sad part about me participating in the marathon, though, is how much of a FF nut I am. That means I burn through the games like acid on steel. … bad analogy, but you get the picture.

At the time of writing this post, I’ve beaten nine of the Final Fantasy games that I set out to beat and/or complete back in May. I’ve taken two of the games off the list just because they’re such terrible versions, and I had it listed as “[or]” in the list, those being the PS1 renditions of Final Fantasy V and VI. More than likely, though, I’m going to beat them anyways, just because. I’m tempted to give them away, but with most games like that I, I wanna beat them first (here’s looking at you Tales of Legendia). I’m also almost tempted to remove the two Crystal Chronicles games I have, since I don’t have my GameCube here (therefore I’d have to play it over the winter holidays) and Echoes of Time is absolutely terrible when you’re not playing with friends. There’s also the small fact that I’ve beaten everything around it in my list as well (except for FFVI and Crisis Core -Final Fantasy VII-, but I’ve been working on that).

Even still, from my knowledge, I’ve beaten the most games out of anyone in the marathon, including the marathon creator himself. This includes:

• Final Fantasy (NES)
• Final Fantasy I&II: Dawn of Souls (GBA — completed FFI)
• Final Fantasy Origins (PS1 — beat FFII)
• Final Fantasy II Anniversary Edition (PSP)
• Final Fantasy Chronicles (PS1 — beat FFIV)
• Final Fantasy IV (NDS)
• Final Fantasy V Advance (GBA)
• Final Fantasy VII (PSN — completed)
• Final Fantasy VIII (PS1)

I’m currently working on Final Fantasy VI Advance and a completion attempt of Final Fantasy IX, which is actually going decently well. I just have to remember where the coffees are. And if all else fails, then I just have to remember to make a save file for BEFORE you leave for the Shimmering Isle on Disc 3 (because after that, you’re stuck going to Disc 4).

Dissidia has been eating up my PSP time, so Crisis Core has been getting neglected in that field. Though, from what I know, I’m closer to beating Crisis Core than I am Dissidia — Dissidia requires the rest of Shade Impulse and I’ve only finished one chapter of that; Crisis Core has 10 more bosses, though I’m not sure how easy they’ll be since I’m only L35 (even though levels don’t matter — materia and dodging does).

After that, all I have is FFX, X-2, XII, and Revenant Wings. And people say it would take ten years to finish all of them. If you’ve been keeping up, with this marathon, I’ll have played every single rendition of the numbered entries in the series except for Final Fantasy III and the SNES versions of FFIV and FFVI. I was actually thinking of also playing the Famicon versions of FFII and FFIII just for kicks. And in that way, I can also play the SNES versions of IV, V, and VI, though those would all be emulated on my computer, and so don’t really count towards the marathon. It’d probably only take me a month constantly playing to get through all of them — maybe a month and a half. VI would take longer, since it’s the one I’m least familiar with, but playing VI Advance is kinda helping with that. Add onto that the extra glitches that are in the SNES version that were fixed in the GBA version and the game should probably take even less than the Advance version (though I haven’t been playing the GBA version as constantly as I should).

School has kind of put a damper on my speed of playing, but rest assured, this is one girl who will finish all of them. And when I say all of them, I mean all of them.