#chocobo's mysterious dungeon

[pitagain]

#365DaysOfVGM Day 100:

Home, Sweet Home/Home Sweet Home [Dear Friends]/Ulla Pirttijärvi, Tuuni Länsman, & Ursula Länsman - Harukanaru Kokyou/Manami Kiyota - Evanescence (Final Fantasy V, including the “Final Fantasy Fables: Chocobo’s Dungeon” Memories of a Bygone Day version [1992/2007/1993/2004])

An apt track with an air of mystery + nostalgia merging into comfort, like reaching a milestone (And therefore a good choice for reaching Day 100!). And with such good atmosphere, comes one of the longer entries of the list.

Make no mistake, these are all the same base melody, just drastically different in focus when it comes to the 2 vocal tracks, which I’ll link a page of the lyrics for here: https://finalfantasy.fandom.com/wiki/Home,_Sweet_Home_(Final_Fantasy_V_theme) 

“Evanescence” fulfills my personal criteria for top favorite and as my personal choice for what an ending theme in a Final Fantasy V rerelease should sound like; it’s that good!

(Length before loop [Original & Memories of a Bygone Day]: 1+ minutes, [Harukanaru Kokyou]: Nearly 3.5 minutes, [Evanescence]: 4.5+ minutes)

[linnaealyn]

Got a magazine in the mail the other day. Hasn't gotten a scan anywhere online afaik, but I shared a bunch of stuff from its Xenogears half, if anyone here's interested in seeing that.

[kplays]

Finals

Ok, now it's time to take all the winners from the previous polls, big or small, as well as the ones that never made it on to the brackets, and have the last poll for favorite final fantasy game.

*XV added as it was pretty popular and I wanted to fill the poll

Feel free to give reasons or fond memories in the notes or reblogs

[anonymouscommunous]

I want a mad man to make a complete timeline of the entire Mystery Dungeon series.

[temporal-nebula]

[jamjammy]

MYSTERY DUNGEON FANS PLEASE HELP!

Aside from Shiren, Chocobo, Torneko, and Pokemon...what other Mystery Dungeon games are there? Lots aren't listed on wikipedia and I'm trying my best to find every single "Fushigi No Dungeon" game and play them all!

Here's some to start off!

[starduststarcrossed]

Palom and Porom are best FF mages, but so are Y’shtola Rhul and Croma. C: 

[ignitedquils]

Just a chocobo walking~

[renkindle]

YouTube thumbnail commission for SeafoamGaming! The video this was for was pretty cool to watch and a lot of love went into it, check it out [ here ] !

[doyouknowthisgame]

[sufferingbastard]

Currently playing this gem. Sooo much fun 🥰

[supremeentity]

[asparagusgremlin]

Why does persona 4 have to be so long i want to start it so bad but i must finish the yakuza series first or else i will kick myself in the ass forever. Boyf and i havent been playing 6 because we hate it and we've just been playing our own games lately but im sure we r gonna love 7 a lot so im crossing my fingers that we can finish 6 soon so i dont veer too far from my yakuza hyperfixation, cuz it is mostly gone rn but i have hope that 7 will bring it back

[kplays]

Alright, it's now time for main game related final fantasy games!

Other poll victories Mobius, chocobo mystery Dungeons, theateythem final fantasy curtain call, and final fantasy crystal chronicles

Next week will be Pulse vs Ivalice alliance

Feel free to give reasons or fond memories in the notes or reblogs

[boredchanty]

3 years with my birb!!! 🎉 I made a multiverse for my cockatiel named Kiwi! 🥝

Chocobo's Mystery Dungeon Series - Kiwi as Chocobo

Digimon - Kiwi as Biyomon and the Digievolution I gave to him: Kiwimon

Angry Birds - Kiwi as Poppy

Animal Crossing - Kiwi as Twiggy

Peanuts Snoopy - Kiwi as Woodstock

Pokémon - Kiwi as Togekiss

Sonic - Kiwi the Cockatiel (Based on Jet and Wave)

Littlest Pet Shop - Kiwi the Cockatiel (Used Peacock body) Which one do you enjoy the most?Also, have some more photos of my birb! ~

[autopotion]

*These are not official groupings, just mine.

EARLY (1987-1993)

Mainline games released: I, II, III, IV, V.

Other notable releases: the Legend series, Mystic Quest

Established the formula & series mainstays--job classes, summons, chocobos & moogles, etc.

These games were relatively simple at first, but soon became trailblazers for epic storytelling in RPGs--especially IV (or initially II in North America).

Pixel guys.

Mostly known by their many (many, many) remasters and remakes.

Modern audiences might find their stories rote and their gameplay unnecessarily difficult, but they still enjoy a tiny, vocal fanbase.

GOLDEN (1994-2001)

Mainline games released: VI**, VII, VIII, IX, X.

Other notable releases: Tactics, Chocobo's Mystery Dungeon, Anthology, Chronicles

With the formula established & with the more powerful hardware of fifth- (and later sixth-) generation consoles, FF pushed boundaries and graphical limitations to produce their most ambitious games (and marketing campaigns) yet. You might say they succeeded, for better or worse; Final Fantasy VII is generally considered to be the very first AAA video game.

The era that the majority of the FF fanbase on the Internet is most nostalgic for, a fact that might inspire either your own misty-eyed recollection of the good ol' days, or an overwhelming desire to snap the rose-tinted glasses. Or both.

Saw the first of many (many, many) ports across different systems--in part to give English-speaking audiences access to the early games they missed, but also as blatant cash-grabs.

Modern audiences who have no nostalgia for this era often voice that they find stylized 3D polygons much more difficult to acclimate to than the pixel guys.

**FFVI could arguably fall under the early era. If I'd made this poll fifteen years ago, when the division of fans between VI and VII was much more stark, that's where I would have put it. However, this poll is also about how modern audiences tend to think about their favorite FF games, and FFVI enjoys a nostalgic fanbase on par with those of the other games of the golden era. Search for it on any "best FF games of all time" list and you'll see what I mean.

COMPILATION (2002-2008)

Mainline games released: XI, XII.

Other notable releases: Crystal Chronicles, X-2, Compilation of FFVII (Before Crisis, Crisis Core, Dirge of Cerberus, etc.), FFXII: Revenant Wings, the Tactics Advance series & the War of the Lions remake of the original Tactics, the DS remakes of III & IV, the first Dissidia. (Also of note, though not directly beneath the FF umbrella, was the introduction of Kingdom Hearts.)

The era of sequels, remakes, remasters, crossovers, and extended universes, shepherded by the Square Enix merger. Only two mainline games were released in this period, and the one that was not an MMO was an entry in the newly-formed "Ivalice Alliance" (contrary to the desires of one of XII's principal developers, Yasumi Matsuno, who left the project before it was finished).

While of course we've seen plenty of sequels & remakes since, this era went all-in on expanding Final Fantasy to the behemoth it is now. FFVII, its golden child, was showered with prequels and sequels. Crossovers were all the rage. Even games that were not strictly "Final Fantasy" games were retroactively roped into one of the existing canon masses, i.e. Vagrant Story into the Ivalice Alliance.

This was also the boom of handhelds, like the PSP and the beloved DS. Mainline games were saved for the heavyweight home consoles, while other titles were dispersed across the smaller systems.

Very few "new" worlds with no preexisting ties to the other games (outside of the shared banner of Final Fantasy) were created in this time, XI and Crystal Chronicles being the few exceptions.

If you enjoyed seeing the games you loved from the 90s getting more content, this era was a delight. If you'd rather the original entries were left alone, it was a painful sign of things to come.

EXPERIMENTAL (2009-2015)

Mainline games released: XIII, XIV (twice)

Other notable releases: XIII-2 & Lightning Returns, Type-0 (also a member of XIII's Fabula Nova Crystallis series), Dissidia 012, the Theatrhythm series, the first expansion for XIV (Heavensward), Record Keeper, Brave Exvius

FF's darkest era. XIII was the first time FF tried something new since XI--brand new world, female protagonist, fresh spin on the old ATB formula--and it fell just short of catastrophic. XIII and its sequels were not well-received (though whether this negative backlash was "deserved" is another story). The game that would later become XV was originally intended to be Versus XIII, an entry in Fabula Nova Crystallis. Between XIII's poor reception and Versus XIII's fraught development, this didn't happen.

The initial release of XIV, on the other hand, was catastrophic. It was so bad that the entire thing had to be rebooted.

The good news is XIV's reboot, A Realm Reborn, did so well that XIV is widely considered one of the best MMOs of all time. The reboot is also one of the earliest examples of video game "rehabilitation," in that a dramatic change or update to the original game transforms a negative experience into a positive one, and thus scrapes back the good will of the player. (No Man's Sky is a non-FF example.)

The virulent criticism of XIII has softened over the years, and it enjoys a small, dedicated fanbase.

You started to see FF dip into mobile games at this point, too.

MODERN (2016-2023)

Mainline games released: XV, XVI

Other notable releases: World of Final Fantasy, Final Fantasy XII: The Zodiac Age, Dissidia NT, Dissidia Opera Omnia, Final Fantasy VII Remake, the pixel remasters of I-VI, Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Reunion, Crisis Core: Reunion, a slew of expansions for XIV

The long-anticipated release of XV heralded a new age (as well as a movie and an anime). In contrast to XIII, XV was very popular, and put FF back on the map. People loved the boys' road trip.

XIV is still going strong. I don't play MMOs but I'm happy for them.

The remakes & remasters are back, and looking more realistic than ever (if you're into that sort of thing). Look at how many individual pores you can see on your old favorites' faces! The most successful of these is the Final Fantasy VII Remake, which is not a remake as much as it's a conversation with the original game, a move that both drew in a new audience and softened (some of) the diehard og-VII fans who disliked the rest of the Compilation.

Stranger of Paradise is an odd duck attempting to evoke the uncanny valley weirdness of the PS3 era. YMMV on if it worked.

The modern FF games step further out of the boundaries of what an FF game is, dropping ATB combat in favor of real-time action that's all the rage these days. In a first, XVI doesn't have any party members. For the folks who've grown tired of ATB and crave the fast-paced action of the modern day, XVI was a hit (though, I've heard, it failed to deliver on the story).

The endless conversation about whether FF ought to be evolving this far outside of its "formula" (whatever one believes that to be) might feel tired to the average FF fan. But, going forward, it's worth talking about the ways in which FF has neglected to evolve, or even gone backwards: such as the dev team of XV stating that the inclusion of women would cause their core bros to act unnaturally, thus why there are no female party members in the game, or the dev team of XVI deliberately not including a diverse cast because their fantasy game is inspired by medieval Europe.

Tell me which era you voted for in the tags, and what your personal favorite FF game is!