LogFAQs > #957411490

Oh, I've been waiting for this one.

So I actually went back and read a script dump of FFTA in preparation for this topic, because I remember really liking this game's plot as a kid and I was curious if it held up.

The good news is that conceptually this is one of my favorite video game plots of all time. The idea of four elementary kids accidentally warping reality to create a fantasy world that magically fixes all the problems in their lives, only to slowly realize that the only way to actually fix your life is to do a bunch of hard work and grow as a person, and that therefore the goal of the game is to destroy the escapist fantasy world to return to a kind of shitty real world... that is a compelling concept. That is so much more interesting than a save-the-world plot (even though there's still a little bit of that with trying to restore St. Ivalice, but the game doesn't even pretend that's any character's main motivation). Marche and Mewt are a really interesting hero and villain, too, and a lot of the side characters are surprisingly complex figures (Babus and Cid in particular). If I was rating on concept or potential alone this story is a 10/10.

The bad news is that the execution is legitimately awful. The pacing is all screwed up, with a slow start, nonexistent middle, and rushed end. Bafflingly, most characters don't have any real character development until the post-game, and a major subplot is locked behind 100%ing the game. The dialogue is extremely generic (a huge number of battles start with some variant of "We're going to defeat you all!" "No, it's us who will defeat you all!") A lot of major details about the setting are extremely obscure, to the extent that the average player probably won't notice them at all. The world-building is inconsistent, to the point where the game can't even decide on the relationship between Ivalice and St. Ivalice. Marche is an interesting hero with complicated motivations but 90% of the time his actual dialogue and actions are just Generic Hero Guy.

I really really want to like this game's story, and in a sense I do -- I feel like I could write a 15 page article on all the cool ideas this game's plot has, no problem -- but the game practically goes out of its way to squander its potential.

It is with a heavy heart that I must say:

3/10

also marche did nothing wrong

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Congrats to BKSheikah, who knows more about years than anyone else.