Faith in Final Fantasy

Let me tell you why the recently released soundtrack to Final Fantasy XIII-2, featuring an incredibly awkward not quite death metal cover of the Chocobo song and an even more awkward rap song than Iwatodai Station from Persona 3, worse than the Will Smith classic “Parents Just Don’t Understand”, gives me faith in the game.

Yes, I didn’t get lost in that sentence.

Final Fantasy XIII had, conservatively, a boatload of problems (editor’s note: stay tuned next month as this very editor gives it another chance!). There were two biggest problems, though. The first was that it took itself way too seriously. The second was that it was a game made for both the Japanese stereotype of “Western fans” and Final Fantasy traditionalists, two groups who couldn’t be more opposed, and did enough to alienate all of them.

Final Fantasy XIII-2 seems like it corrects these two egregious flaws. And the music told me this. No, I’m not listening to different songs than you have, perhaps, listened to. I’m just listening differently. What they’re telling me is this is a game that isn’t being made by focus groups, like the original seemed to be at times, but rather a game being made by some well-intentioned developers who are trying to correct some egregious, serious flaws.

I mean, no game that contains the above song or this seven minute epic could be considered as “taking itself seriously”:

Really. No one could put a two minute thrash metal version of the chocobo theme in a game (seriously, guys, it’s not death metal. Pantera is not death metal) and think anyone’s going to wring their hands over it. Nobody’s going to look at a game with a seven minute song with perhaps the most awkward rapper I’ve ever heard and say, “This game is serious!” And that’s good! That’s great! Earlier Final Fantasies were fun. They weren’t always fun, but there was tonal difference between its moments of levity and its dramatic moments. These songs give me hope that maybe, maybe this game won’t be super intense all the time .

Second, not only is this game going to be less “perfect” on release do to shorter development time, it feels more like the game they want to be making rather than the game they know they can sell millions of. There’s a saying in literature, that you don’t write to the market because the market is fickle; if you do, it’ll have changed by the time you jump on board. Final Fantasy XIII was jumping on trends three years too late: it was linear in a world thrilled about Fallout 3 and Demon’s Souls. Those were the games they should have shot for, if they shot for anything, not Gears of Final Fantasy.

Though in reality they should have shot for nothing. And instead we have here a game that looks like it’s cribbing little bits from the best work the developers have done. Nomura’s doing more urban inspired art (more belts, maybe), the writing seems to be more off the hook than its predecessor, and from everything I’ve seen it looks to be a game a lot more comfortable with itself than the awkward, stuffy Final Fantasy XIII. It looks like a game that the developers want to make, rather than the game that focus groups told them they had to make to sell overseas, and that, in the end, is the most reassuring thing about it.