31 RPGs of the New Year!

RPG = Role Playing Game

So I've heard that I kinda like these games to the point of an obsession.

Well it's true.

My game library is pretty massive and 90% of those games are RPGs.

It's 2011 and I figure I need to write more often, so why not write about something as easy as some of my all time favorite RPGs. This project is going to be called, "31 RPGs of the New Year" and what I want to do is for each day in this month is to write about a different RPG and why I like it so much.

Shouldn't be too hard, right?

So let's start off with an easy one.

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Final Fantasy 4 (Originally released on the SNES in 1991)

What a game. To this day FF4 remains my all time favorite RPG. I have played this game so many times its story is something I can recite start to finish. Yes, nostalgia plays a big factor in why I love this game so much, but who cares? This was one of the first breakout RPGs that everyone decided to copy in order to succeed. You start out with a main character in Cecil who is a Dark Knight, someone who goes around and blindly obeys any command his king would give him. He is shown committing genocide to a group of defenseless citizens in order to capture their crystal. Cecil is shown to have a conscious about this because he eventually questions his king which results in his expulsion of his kingdom and command of his fleet or Warships. This proves to be the best thing to happen for the young Knight as it leads him on a journey of self discovery and repentance. His journey reminds me of the book, "The Pilgrims Progress". The funny this is that Cecil is not even my favorite character in this game!

My favorite character is most definitely Kain Highwind, Cecil's best friend and rival. Kain is one of the more conflicted characters in the story. He is often subject to being mind controlled which only fuels the fire underneath his resentment towards his best friend. Kain for a better part of the story is actually opposing Cecil and his company. Under the control of Golbez (who is being controlled himself), Kain acts as the early game antagonist. I am to believe it is because of his lust for Cecil's love, Rosa that gets Kain in these binds. Rosa was something Kain always wanted for himself, but she never had eyes for him. It was Cecil who got the girl, and though Kain proved to be a loyal friend, this fact probably irked him. That fault, that weakness in his spirit made him an easy target to be controlled. The games main villain is hate itself. Kain kidnaps Rosa and acts as her guardian of sorts while under Golbez's control.

He comes to his senses throughout the games biggest moments. In the end he comes back to the good side and helps Cecil and Rosa stop Zeromus and save the world. Cecil and Rosa get married at the end of the game, but Kain does not attend. Instead you see Kain on top of Mount Ordeals, the same mountain where Cecil renounced his dark sword and became a Paladin. There Kain shows signs of trying to atone for his sins, but the game ends before you see any outcome. There is a new game that continues with the story, so when I get a chance to play that I can see what they do with Kain's story.

The game had it all. I love every part of this game, and I have played it basically on every system that it has been ported to. I want to make a child's story out of FF4, but I'm not sure what process I would have to go through. I might just do it on this blog site and see how it turns out.

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So, that's just a small part of what aims to be 30 more short takes of some of my most cherished RPGs and memories within.