From Final Fantasy Wiki
| The Man In The Black Cape
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|
| Name
| ???
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| Edit Count
| All Articles: 605
Main Space: 605
Images: 0
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| Job Class
| Dark Knight (or rather, a Samurai-Black Mage combination)
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| Race
| Human
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| Origin
| South Wales Valleys, Principality of Wales, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, British Isles, North-Western Europe, Eurasian Landmass, Northern Hemisphere, Planet Earth, the Inner Planets, the Solar System, the Local Cluster, the Milky Way Galaxy, the Galactic Neighbourhood, the Universe, the Multiverse.
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| Date of Birth
| 1991
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| Age
| 18
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| Height
| 6ft
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| Blood Type
| AB
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| IQ
| 135
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| Alignment
| Lawful Evil
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| Weapon
| Masamune
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| Limit Break
| Dramatic Flourish
The End
Super Nova
Grand Cross
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| Abilities
| Multi-Firaja, Multi-Thundaja, Multi-Blizzaja, Quake3, Air3, Demi3, Bio3, 4x Cut, Draw Slash, Deathblow, Destruct, Counter-Attack, Big Guard, Sense, Focus, Beta, Curaja, Auto-Regen, Auto-Life, Esuna, Teleport, Vanish, Float, Death, Manipulate, Morph, Mug, Heartless Angel, Octaslash
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| Accomplishments
| Very few
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| Final Fantasy Wiki Character
|
"Hear this! Today we write the first page of a new history - OUR history! Each of you must play his part! Put down this rebellion! For Archadia, we fight!" - Vayne Curados Solidor, aboard the Sky Fortress Bahamut, FF XII
"I've thought of a wonderful present for you - shall I give you despair? Tell me what you cherish most, give me the pleasure of taking it away." - Sephiroth, fighting Cloud, AC: FF VII
"Why should the world exist without me? That wouldn't be fair. If I die, we all die!" - Kuja, FF IX
"Right and wrong are not what separate us and our enemies. It's our different standpoints, our perspectives that separate us. Both sides blame one another. There's no good or bad side. Just two sides holding different views." - Squall Leonhart to Irvine Kinneass, Deling City, FF VIII
"Too slow and to their sorrow do those who misplace their trust in Gods learn thier fate!" - Judge Magister Bergan to the Party, Mount Bur-Omisace, FF XII
"Now! This is it! Now is the time to choose! Die and be free of pain, or live and fight your sorrow! Now is the time to shape your stories! Your fate is in your hands!" - Auron, before the battle with Yunalesca, FF X
"I was given the wardrobe of a nobleman, and so I played the part, a puppet ever dancing for the amusement of patrons unseen. This wretched world does not reward endeavour. It is the patron and his troupe who are receipt, maggots grown fat on endeavour's corpse. Most men but play the part they're given. Most live and die not knowing they play a part at all. But I am past all that now. I am their unwitting puppet no longer! No more! I will extract from them the price of their gluttonous feast! I will burn the Kingdom down, and from its ashes build for you a new one! A kingdom worthy of you! I will show you a world where your light will outshine the sun! A world that will know no darkness!" - Delita Heiral, to Ovelia, FFT: TWotL
Hello and welcome, komrades, to the Final Fantasy Wiki User Page of The Man In The Black Cape, coming to you live from the Principality of Wales in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. As I've been on the wiki for nearly a year now, I decided that it would be prudent to make some changes to my userpage. Those who glance upwards at my edit count will realise that I am a fairly inactive, indeed, lazy, User, though I maintain that I am a very busy man, and limited though my contributions may be, it is their exceptional quality that sets me above the average fanboy that lazes around and makes a few shitty edits every year that are either incorrect, are plagued by atrocious grammar, spelling and punctuation, and generally border on vandalism. And if you believe these petty excuses, then I am certain that you deserve all the treachery and duplicity that the Universe is sure to dump at your feet. In truth, I joined the wiki for the community, and to me its just as much a resource for when I get stuck on a game or am interested in a bit of the lore, or a sounding board for wacky theories and epileptic trees and a source of debate and conversation, as much as it is an actual project and investment of my time. If you do need me, unlikely as that may be, I can generally be found joining in either a) the stoic, funereal silence, or b)the cluttered, noisy arguing and fighting, of the Wiki IRC, under the name of TheBlackShadow.
I was first introduced to Final Fantasy by my Chinese friend (weird guy - owns every FF game from III to XII, but has since been infected by the WOW virus. Also calls Aerith "Aeris" for some reason) who convinced me to buy FF XII when I saw it in my game magazine (with a healthy 10/10 score). The rest, as they say, is history.
Very few (actually, none) games had previously managed to catch my imagination the way FF XII did, so I decided to play some of the older FFs. This is where my firend's WOW obsession came in handy. Since February 2006 I have completed FF X (which in terms of gameplay I felt was more "traditional" than XII, but, over time I came to love that one too), and FF VII: Crisis Core, for my new PSP, which led me on to FF VII. And I must say this. It may have been made in an era when, even with the best visuals, saying that the characters looked as though they'd been made out of Lego was a compliment, and the very idea of having voice actors was laughable, and was plagued by occasionally horrific translation, but it is still an awesome game. The fact that I played Crisis Core first spoiled a few bits for me [flashback to yelling at Cloud about Zack during the Nibelheim flashback] but in some ways I felt it made the experience better, filling in gaps where other players might have gone "huh?". It also raised a few consistency errors, but I digress. Since then, I have also completed Final Fantasy IX, and while I felt that the gameplay and storyline were sound, it felt a bit too cutesy for my taste, and some of the characters lacked vision. In addition, I have also played Final Fantasy VIII, IV, and V. Concerning VIII, while I have made great efforts to TRY to like it, it always seems to resist me - the Junction System was initially impenetrable, and even after I got the hang of it I still felt I was doing something wrong, and for some reason I never seemed to do very well in battle. Overall, while the graphics, storyline and SOME of the characters were very good, I was let down by the combat system and gameplay, and I gave up after the first disc. IV and V (Anthology versions on the PS1), which I am playing now, are, of course, fairly retro and simplistic, and while I feel that they simply cannot compete with the more modern games, they are enjoyable nonetheless.
[edit] Userboxes
[edit] Game Reviews
Final Fantasy XII
As I mentioned above, my very first Final Fantasy. I had often
considered buying a FF game as I had, in my youth, played pokemon games on the GameBoy Colour and Advance, and the gameplay seemed reasonably similar, ie, simple, and easy. Enough of my life story, and more about the game.
I quickly found, to my joy, that one of the game's strongest points was its storyline, something rare in a videogame. Sure, there was a little confusion and one or two inconsistencies, but overall, the plot was very imagination-catching and had [some] real world relevance, while also heavily ripping off Star Wars (no bad thing in my book). Furthermore, the characters (with the obvious exceptions of Vaan and Penelo) were equally spell-binding, and the combat was something new while also being easy to comprehend and use (though there is the criticism that it was overly repetitive, but thats an issue with every Final Fantasy).
Finally, the real clincher is that it divides opinion, and not in the ever so slightly petty Aerith/Aeris way (come on people, we all know its Aerith). There are about four different people I know personally who have played this game (my Chinese friend, his sister, and another girl), and they all have a dfferent opinion of who the true villain is - Vayne, Gerun and the Occuria, or, in one slightly weird case, Ashe and the party members. For me though, it has to be Gerun, and his evil plan to control history, treating the world like a giant heap of lab rats. I suppose it ties in with my atheism. Somehow. Back to the
subject, I remember clearly storming the Death Star Sky Fortress Bahamut bemoaning the fact that I was fighting Vayne - THE GOOD GUY!!! OK, yeah, he's a little misled, murderous and over-ambitious, but no-one's perfect, except Balthier. And Sephiroth. And after all as someone-I-can't-quite-remember said "All men would be tyrants if they could". Besides, it copuld be worse - what if Square's accountants ruled the world? I mean, we'd be faced with an endless cycle of FF VII remakes and spin-offs, all just for a quick buck. Oh, right. We already are.
To this date, Final Fantasy XII remains my favourite Final Fantasy game - no, scratch that, just my favourite game of all time. And Balthier was my favourite character of all time. Until my namesake came along. Either way, I'm giving this game 94%, and the prestigious award, the Black Cape, that I can give to anyone or anything that takes my fancy.
Final Fantasy X
A bit of a strange one this. I found FFX to be, by turns, surprisingly original and relentlessly old-school. The battle system, for instance, was fairly traditional, but the way characters "level up" and learn new abilities was a refreshing change. In addition, much of the storyline was pretty much standard RPG fare - fantasy world, evil fundamentalist religion/state, giant monster, bad guy's main character's dad, bad guy turns out to be good (but f*cked), extremely unconvincing good guy becomes villain, etc. But at the same time, the overrall setting was something new - a weird hybrid of Asia and the Caribbean - and the detail in everything is simply astonishing. However, it is showing its age a little (though not as much as other FFs), the translation still isn't perfect, the gameplay was fairly reptetive (outside battle and in), and some of the characters get up my nose (yeah, I'm looking at you, Rikku!).
However, these are minor trivialities in the face of the entire game, which is generally enjoyable, blitzball and the temple puzzles notwithstanding. And, as with all games, it really has its magic moments - swooping in on the Airship and gatecrashing Yuna's wedding, charging headlong into Zanarkand. And it manages to pull surprises out of its hat - What, I'm not real? I'm just a dream? My god, Vivi was right! Descartes was wrong!
Overall, despite its obvious and inescapable flaws, and the damage that time has wrought, this is still a great game. 82%.
Crisis Core - Final Fantasy VII
Ah, Crisis Core, my very first VII spin-off. I think the fact that I have gone on to the original shows just how much I like this game. But, staying on subject, CC.
First of all, the fighting system, though fairly innovative, only has the illusion of being free-roaming, and despite the seemingly overwhelming choice of options, you could quite feasibly finish this game only using the attack and dodge buttons. Another problem I have is that throughout the game, you only ever get to use one character, and you can't change your weapon (for storyline reasons). Storylinewise, in hindsight I feel that it was too short, even for a PSP game. I mean, you could finish the game without reaching Lv.40. This is Final Fantasy for cryinmg out loud! Furthermore, CC is home to the Big Three, two of whom are FFVII's Dastardly Duo, the Twin Black Holes of Plotlines, Genesis Rhapsodos and Angeal Hewley. Genesis could've been a great villain, possibly even one of the Great Villains, but was let down by sheer obscurity. Observe: "Quick! We must hurry to stop Genesis from... from... From doing what exactly?". He just doesn't seem to have any sort of plan, he's just so incomprehensible; his motives are unclear and insufficient, his goals equally so. Combine this with LOVELESS in general... And yet he could have been awesome - the voice, the look, the drive, the power! Instead, he's weird, and spends half the game going "Oh, look at me, how pitiful I am". Such wasted potential. Thanks Square, thanks a lot. And the less said about Angeal the better.
But enough of my petty greivances, and more about my love for this game. The real-time gameplay, though simple, repetitive and plagued by random battle, does make you feel very involved with the game, and the special effects make it truly enjoyable. And the storyline - its ambiguous but attention-grabbing, and somehow manages to give the game that extraordinary atmosphere and immerse yourself in the game world. It also makes it feel as though everything is, on some level, making some kind of sense, even though it isn't. And as for the character - you can hear the development going on. Zack starts off the game as an annoying, cocky, childish little tw*t, but by the end, I actually felt some kind of emotion or something when he died. And Sephiroth, ah, Sephiroth. Add cameos and in-jokes, and leave to simmer.
All in all, a good game, with its heart-stopping moments (the intro, the Nibelheim Incident), and (just, in two cases) believable characters, but let down by certain fundamental flaws. Awww, what score, what score... 78%, or thereabouts, I suppose, or maybe 84%... No, no, wait...
Final Fantasy VII
Look, I want to give this game a good score, I really do. This is the Final Fantasy, the game that defined the entire Final Fantasy series. Its characters, storyline and gameplay have gone down not just in FF history, but in videogame history altogether. Sephiroth! Aerith! Cloud! And yet... And yet, in the course of the past twelve years, I feel its just... Lost something
Look, I'll start with the non-sacreligious bits, okay? The battle system really has survived very well - its simple and effective to use without humungous effort, and the different characters have easily-identifiable strengths and weaknesses. Okay, so battle system, 10/10. The characters really are well-defined (most of the time) and so they are remembered by ever-growing battallions of fans for good reason, though this isn't perfect, for reasons I'll describe (and be killed for) later. The storyline too is more than satisfactory, but again has its flaws.
Right then, here comes the sacrelige! The main problem with the characters and storyline, is firstly, the game's awful translation, making much of the conversation wooden, and, through various mistakes, making things confusing and causing huge misunderstandings, like the Aeris/Aerith thing, or Cloud luring hundreds of unwitting gamers to their deaths against the First Level Boss, or Cait Siths awful directions to the Temple of the Ancients. Next is the graphics, which, at the best of times, make the game look as though it was put together by a child with a broken set of Lego blocks. Finally, the storyline and backstories themselves are just so confusing and convoluting, and combines with the rest of the Compilation, make things just plain incomprehensible, with thousands of different misconceptions and possible in-series or in-game contradictions. Look, I really can't score this, I really can't...
For easiness of construction, a link to my upcoming Final Fantasy XII walkthrough
![[The Man In The Black Cape]](http://images2.wikia.nocookie.net/common/avatars/4/49/1193841.png?20091220155950)
