Eventually speedrunners peel back the layers of theater and artifice in which the designers swaddled their code to reveal all manner of checksum obfuscation, buffer overflows, memory management, and other computer science/cyberpunk lexicology that I can only play lip service to. ![]() Videogame players rush to finish games as fast as they can, investigating and crowdsourcing various tricks, tips, and glitches until they whittle a title well past the original intentions and approach it more as a complex meta-puzzle. But even I’m familiar with the concept of speedrunning. I’ve loved this game for decades, but after watching a speedrun of Final Fantasy IV from this past season of the Awesome Games Done Quick charity stream, it’s clear that this game fascinates other players for wildly different reasons, no matter how similar the roots of our appreciation are.ĭespite my best efforts to avoid aging and shaking my fist at cloud, I’m old and out of touch in many ways. The game’s music soundtracks most of the D&D sessions I administer, and Yoshitaka Amano’s artwork set the aesthetic standard for my mind’s eye while reading fantasy for years. I’ve played its 25+ hours more than I’ve read my favorite books, beating Zeromus several times and investing myself deeply in redemptive headcanon for resident edgelord Kain. If you are familiar with the Final Fantasy franchise, you probably know this entry in its official Japanese capacity as Final Fantasy IV, or the one that coined the delightful faux-Shakespearean insult “You spoony bard!”įinal Fantasy IV was the first role-playing videogame to burrow into my brain, and as such, my attachment to it goes beyond logic or cold critical remove. ![]() But there’s one I’ll always treasure, in regular rotation as my social media profile photo: young me in pine green long johns, Spaceballs on pause in the background, waving copies of Metroid II and Final Fantasy II. ![]() My collection of Christmas photos is not exactly extensive.
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