I Still Hate Gau

The first time I played Final Fantasy 6 was on my 16th birthday. It was on the Super Nintendo, and it was called Final Fantasy 3. The names were all CAPS, and all the attacks had different names.

I beat the game a few times and it quickly became my favorite in a series I would eventually fall out of love with. It’s me Final Fantasy, not you. Ok, that’s a lie. I just don’t need all the flashy graphics—I need a more compelling story.

Being an admitted sucker, I bought the game again as part of a collection for the Playstation. It said Final Fantasy VI on the title screen. Now included were cinematics at the beginning and end of the game, a bestiary of all the monsters and as a bonus, annoying load times whenever you left orentered a town, or on the rare occation wanted to view your party screen.

I bought it a third time. Now, it’s Final Fantasy VI Advance. Gone are the load times and CGI cinematic, but still remaining is the bestiary. The names of the characters aren’t all in caps anymore, and some of the names are spelled a little different (Saban is now Sabin).

That’s not why I bought the game though. I grew up with video games. My first system was an Atari. I can’t help but be old school—so old school I don’t even spell old school “old skool. I’m part of the collective nostalgia of gamers is selling so well.

I can’t lie; I love my Game Boy Advance. I used to take paperbacks with me everywhere I went, just in case I had to entertain myself (it’s that or converse with people!). GBA’s are even smaller than your average paperback—it’s a bit bigger than a pad of post it’s. There’s something sexy about always having a SNES in my pocket.

My nostalgia has gotten the better of me, because I had a thorough blast with this game. I handed Kefka his obnoxious head back to him to and avenged the world, which opened up two new bonus levels, including an increadibly hard Dragon’s Den. How hard? Basicly, maxing out your level isn’t a strategy as much as a requirement. Be prepared for insanely hard random monsters topped off with a fight with a very powerful Dragon preventing you from going to the next floor.

I’m hoping for some strong poo sessions to probel me through this dungeon. So far though, I’ve been regular old me, which is enough to wander around and take out a few bad guys. But, the save anywhere feature limits me to use this as any sort of excuse.

Personally, I think the only way they could have improved on this game is by giving you the option of killing Gau. It’s ironic that Gau’s only form of attack is Rage, as this is all having him in the party seems to cause me.

For the non-gaming readers; Gau is the Wheely of Transformers, the Orioles of Baseball, the Heat of Basketball, the Utah of the United States…you should get it by now.