It’s time to round out September with some more unbelievably lush and unforgettable art from our favorite classic games. I chose a few more, and I’ve even got some videos this time, because I got all nerd-excited over some of the choices. I also made an earnest effort to find out as much as possible about the individual artists who created these visual masterpieces… that information is oddly difficult to find – or maybe I’m just dumb as hell and don’t know where to look. If you see one I credit incorrectly or that doesn’t have an artist credit, and you’ve got that information, PLEASE TELL ME! Without any further unnecessarily wordy prefacing bullshit, let’s get right to it! Feast your eyes!!!

Salamander/Lifeforce (Konami)

Year: 1986

Artist: Uncertain, my guess is either Kenji Shimoide or Naoke Satō

The cover of the official OST, perhaps the least intruded-upon version of the base image. Back in early days, at the rental store… this snake scared me so stupid I HAD to try Lifeforce. Just to see if I could teach that snake a lesson.

You are looking into the face of galactic evil. Are you even remotely ready for this shit? Do you even know what “ready for this shit” means?

I don’t think you do, ese. I think you’re gonna get schooled into little fragments.

This one always entranced me as a kid. I originally saw it on the US NES cover, and later on in life I was awed at the detail lost in shrinking it from the original arcade flyer. I know it’s just a space snake, but it’s a fucking scary space snake, man. That perfectly coiled length behind it, framed by the yawning star-speckled nothingness of outer space.

I hope you said your space prayers, kiddo.

Space Harrier (Sega)

Year: 1985

Artist: Sega doesn’t even denote who did what in their game credits, everyone just gets lumped in as “STAFF”

I managed to find this one without the retail trim, so you could soak in the moment of visceral chaos. There’s so much going on… there is a gigantic floating brain back there. It’s got a city on top of it. Yeah, everything’s normal here.

There is a lot going on here, and you’d benefit from a close look. Soaring through planetary atmospheres destroying shit with a gun as big as you are? AMAZING career path. Let him show you.

Our dude is so unspeakably cool that he is point-blank nuking the ouroboros dragon thing without even folding p his shades and putting them somewhere safe. He knows the space babes are watching, and Space Harrier never disappoints. The stone heads just sort of toodle by; it seems like they’re either used to this shit by now or just so sullen and insular that they dare Space Harrier to destroy them.

My favorite touch is the light panic on Space Cyclops Elephant’s face. He is not even sure how he’s getting by in this ecosystem, but he sure as hell didn’t sign up for this. He’s got kids.

OH FUCK OH FUCK OH FUCK OH FUCK OH FUCK OH FUCK OH FUCK KEEP UP CARL OH FUCK OH FUCK OH FUCK OH FUCK OH FUCK OH FUCK OH FUCK OH FUCK OH FUCK OH FUCK 

Meanwhile, a gleaming futuristic metropolis stands majestic against the sublime sunset in the background.

The space babes are definitely there.

DOOM (id Software)

Year: 1993

Artist: Gregor Punchatz

“I don’t need any support, advice, or compassion, because even if I am the most ruinous man, I still feel so powerful, so strong and fierce. For I am the only one that lives without hope.” -Emil Cioran

I had to come here. Had to tread the blood-red sands of Hell once more. A UAC space marine’s job is never done. It’s a good thing someone tossed med-kits and boxes of bullets all over the place.

This one image defines my late childhood/early adolescence, at least in part. I still have the 11×17 poster that I framed and hung in my room as a preteen. I just don’t keep it hung up anymore because wherever you put that thing, it sucks the eye away from everything else near it.

Here we see a man who’s pretty certain he’s about to die. He’s bleeding, the sneering legions of Hell are grasping at hims limbs, and you can see the stark animal fear building on his face beneath the visor of his helmet. He drops one, maybe two, but like a pissed-off Satanic swarm of fire ants, the demons simply pile on. His buddy’s running up, shouting that he’ll help cover a retreat. Our man doesn’t even have the breath to say what he’s thinking: you’d better turn right back around, private, or this is gonna be you about twelve seconds after I hit the ground.

That’s the thing that really nailed me to the genre and the aesthetic of games like DOOM when I was younger. I was nihilistic, full of existential terror, and coming to terms with my own mortality at an age when I should have been basking in the bucolic sunshine of oblivion. Doom grabbed me because it was not only action packed and no-holds-barred, but because it really did have this nuance of hopelessness to it. The imagery, the implied storyline, and even certain pieces of music from the game are enough to invoke images of humanity’s twilight. This cover art is no exception. We have stumbled upon a fictional future man about to die, just like billions have before him… except he’s fighting demons and it fucking rules.

Anything Yoshitaka Amano Has Done for the Final Fantasy Series (Squaresoft)

Year: So many, and it’s awesome

Artist: Yoshitaka “World-Crafting Visual Arts Deity” Amano

I’m not one of those people who gushes over shit just because it’s Japanese. Don’t get me wrong; I deeply appreciate what Japanese creators and innovators have contributed to video games throughout the history of the industry. I just tend to sift through my consumption of anything a bit more than it seems… some people do. I’m not judging them. Anyway, I WILL gush over this, because every piece of this man’s art is like Hellenic Greece and ancient Rome collided with the hyperbolic world of JRPGs and created an alternate reality where literally everyone was a god.

Left: The crew from FFII, the Japanese II that was so hard they second-guessed releasing it Stateside but relented eventually; and on the right we have FFIV’s Twin Pimp Squad, Cecil and Kain.

I have a confession to make: the latest Final Fantasy game in the series that I’ve played is IX. I just couldn’t stay interested, plus I stopped doing the console thing around the time the Dreamcast went the way of the dodo. My two favorites, both of which mark me as a minority among FF fans, are I and IV. They are the two that I grew up chewing through, that helped shape my sensibilities about RPGs. I also enjoyed VI very much because it had an even richer story than IV had, and once I got to play them in an intelligible format I fell in love with II and III.

Left: the gang from III, all grown up and jobbed out. Right: Some fabulously crazy shit from VI.

Seeing Amano render those characters in such a graceful, hyper-human style takes me back every time. There’s something deeply Classical as well as something very Art Noveau about everything he illustrates, and it depicts these characters as both visually striking and starkly human.

Splatterhouse 2 (Namco)

Year: 1992

Artist: Probably one of the following – A. Chan, Gyoee~! Miyachan, or Taiji Nagayama (again, they just pile names together in these things)

I just realized while preparing to publish: the fucking octopus has eyebrows. Click for larger version.

I finished with this one because October’s right around the corner. Horror in classic video games is one of my favorite topics to swim around in. Usually the end result of such efforts ends up either painfully cool (but not scary) or laughably shitty. The Splatterhouse series (at least, the original three) are painfully cool. This cover is so 1990s cool I can’t even look at it without muttering “yeah dude” under my breath reflexively.

He is battling the SHIT out of a massive purple mutant and an absolutely FURIOUS land octopus with what appears to be an oversized slot machine lever. You can tell he’s been busy, because that knob is nowhere to be found. Meanwhile, an army of the living dead shuffles forth under the guidance of the shittiest little Eddie Haskell ghost I’ve ever seen. One look at Rick’s face tells you all you need to know: he’s HAD IT, and every single thing he can physically reach tonight is going to die.

What’s even more amazing than this is the little intro movie from the game. We’re treated to parallaxing horizons, an almost legitimately moving vision of Jennifer begging to be rescued and then PLUMMETING back into the gullet-anus of some unthinkable creature, and some really driving music that consider the best track out all three OSTs. Look on.

All right, RetroFiends. Put on your hockey masks and go get your pillow cases. I will see you in October!

As many JRPG fans know, when Final Fantasy II was released for the SNES in America in 1991, it was actually the fourth installment in the series. As all too often happens between here and there, the second and third titles weren’t released stateside until a long time after their inception. Nonetheless, US and European fans were pleased to have another entry in the loosely-connected saga of FF, and were blown away by its monumental quality.

The Japanese box art for the Super Famicom version. The characters depicted are more evocative of the first game than this one, and the art is of a cutesy “super-deformed” style now very popular in anime and manga.

Everyone who loves the classic Final Fantasy games has their favorite title… for many (perhaps most), it is Cloud and Tifa’s tale in VII, or maybe even the return to form seen in part IX. I have always loved IV more than any of them, for a slew of reasons. Firstly, it’s a fantastic, richly detailed story, ahead of its time by far. Secondly, I love any tale that strongly features redemption as a theme (spoilers). Thirdly, it is the first RPG video game I ever played that was truly character-driven.

The Red Wings on their way to beat some ass and steal a crystal. (SNES version)

FFIV revolves primarily around Cecil, a dark knight in the service of the Kingdom of Baron, leader of a group known as the Red Wings. The Red Wings have been tasked with collecting a set of powerful magical crystals, and have been instructed to do so no matter what they have to do. The game begins, in fact, with a cinematic sequence showing them doing just that. They slaughter a group of mages who barely resist to claim the Water Crystal for the King. Upon returning with it, Cecil questions the King’s motives and is stripped of his command. He and his friend Kain, a member of the King’s Dragoons, are sent on a quest to deliver a sinister magic ring to a village called Mist. This begins the story in earnest.

Cecil battles the Earth Fiend Scarmiglione with the help of the sage Tellah and the twin mages Palom and Porom. (GBA version)

In the process, Kain betrays and reconciles with Cecil, and the group of heroes expands to include others who reject the evil of the King. It is found that a villain named Golbez is behind all the wickedness afoot, and Cecil must step up to the plate and redeem himself to stop it. There’s so much more detail, and I really recommend you grab the game in one of its modern incarnations to play yourself… but we’ll get to that. In between, the player leads a changing crew of warriors, mages, healers and scoundrels across the world. The adventures go from ruined cities like Damcyan and exotic settings like the city of Fabul to strange locales such as the inside of a mechanical colossus and even the moon!

One of the more interesting battles, the CPU inside the mechanical Giant of Babil. You must destroy them in a certain sequence… (PSP version)

Squaresoft has refurbished and improved this title several times, beginning in 1997 with a PS1 version. It was later released for the Game Boy Advance and the PSP, again for the Nintendo DS. I’m currently replaying it via the incredible Android/iOS port, which is possibly the most easily found by modern gamers and is fairly affordable for such a detailed game. In 2014, FFIV was also released for Windows. The music, scored by the legendary Nobuo Uematsu, is fully half of the immersion experience, and is often hauntingly beautiful. It ranks among his finest work in the series, which is truly saying something since Uematsu is easily among the masters in VG scoring. I have embedded the Nintendo DS version, but almost all the other versions can be found on YouTube if you wish to hear them.

I would rate Final Fantasy IV a strong 9/10. It is a benchmark in its genre’s history, not to mention a work of art that could easily stand on its own if not already part of gaming’s finest RPG series. Like many of its prequels and sequels, it remains popular and retains the attention of generations of gamers.

Here’s a glimpse of the final boss fight from the iOS/Android version. See you later, RetroFans!

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I was seven years old when I was
first exposed to the world (metaworld?) of Final Fantasy. It was
a few days after Christmas of 1999 and my cousin had received Final Fantasy
VIII as a gift. Being seven in the presence of a teenager meant I had no right
to take a turn in his game, and it wasn’t even a game where you could take
turns. So I sat back and just enjoyed the cinematic experience of the game.
That moment had a profound impact on me and is what truly led me to identify as a
video game enthusiast for the better part of my formative years. The sheer
narrative scope of RPGs astounded me.

We here at NRW review music and films, and so I wanted to kick off a series
of video game reviews with a game whose name has grown to
weigh more than any contribution to the series. Final Fantasy received its name because it was believed that it
would be the last game Square would be able to release before declaring
bankruptcy. It was their “Final Fantasy”.  Little did they know it would be a massive
success and create a massive series of unconnected but thematically similar
games and eventually give us this
masterpiece.

But Final Fantasy wasn’t always a
blend of science fiction and fantasy. The first installment of the series was
purely a fantasy JRPG. I played the PS1 port of the original NES game because
it is most faithful to the original. The first thing that comes to mind when I
think Final Fantasy is how
unrelentingly difficult it is. I’m not saying that later Final Fantasy games were
particularly easy, but none of the games I played (FFVII, FFVIII, FFIX, FFX,
FFX-2, Tactics, Tactics Advance, and Tactics A-2) feel so punishing as this original tale.

Before I move on to the actual
gameplay, I’d like to share with you the thoughts that went through my mind for the first hour of playtime:

“Gee, that Prelude song sure is
pretty sounding.”

“I get to name all four of them,
and they have nothing pre-established? Onward Fart and friends!”

“Nah, I don’t think I’ll need a
white mage.”

“This is a lot like tactics, but
with a worse story and battle mechanic.”

“I spy with my little eye a
damsel in distress (cough, Sarah, cough)”

“To quote the King, “If you bring
my daughter back safely, I will build a new bridge. I am counting on you.” Is
that the going rate of missing daughters these days?”

“Buying spells? What black magic
is this?!?! (see what I did there?)”

“Level grinding? Again?”

“Jesus, everything costs money.”

“First boss? That was a joke.”

“Thanks for the lute, princess.
This looks ambiguously useful for the future.”

The early portion of the game will
have you staying close to the nearest town and going back in after every couple
of battles to heal up at an inn or buy some more potions. Everything costs
money in this game, from full saving to learning magic. Random encounters can
be simple, like running into one horse (not a magical horse, it is literally
just a horse) or they can be as grueling as an eight
enemy encounter. It’s really difficult to figure out where is safe to walk and
where is not. From a design standpoint, this is a cost that was probably hard
to avoid.

The game is huge. The overworld rivals the scope of A Link to the Past (fellow Nintendo fanpeople, I’ve got a treat for
you at the end of the article). It only becomes more massive when you get the
boat and find yourself surrounded by water as far as you can see. It is nowhere near as linear as the series has become. To be fair,
the game becomes more manageable once you get your party to around level 20,
especially if you grind enough to do this early. The boss battles are never
particularly difficult. I’d say that moving through each dungeon and dealing
with the random encounters and noticeable LACK OF SAVE AND HEAL POINTS is much
tougher than the actual bosses.

You control four characters with no
exposition apart from some vague talk of a prophecy. They’re pretty vacant as
far as personality is concerned. Don’t expect any dialogue. You are allowed to
choose their jobs, which is an exciting amount of customization afforded
considering how old the game is. I chose a Warrior, Red Mage, Thief, and Black
Belt. I named the Black Belt Cid to ensure that I wouldn’t play a Final Fantasy
game without a Cid in it. These empty vessels don’t have much plot to work
with. Apart from an interesting / convoluted / nonsensical time travel related
twist, the story is really a “go fetch this for me” excuse.

The pixilated graphics of the game
are actually quite beautiful. This is primarily due to the vivid colors and all
around bright atmosphere. The world of the game feels hopeful, and the art
accompanies it perfectly. I’ve always said that old video game scores were so
memorable because of the limitations of the system. The original composers
could only have three sounds playing at once. This led to a greater focus on
melody. There is a reason a lot of these songs are so instantly recognizable. I
mean, just listen to “Prelude”. It’s downright moving.

I hope I don’t sound like I’m
badmouthing what has become one of the most influential games of its
generation. Once you get some experience under your belt (metaphorically and
literally, grind grind grind), the game becomes enjoyable, and actually highly
addictive. I found myself happy to be level grinding and saving up for new
swords or spells. The scenery is interesting enough that I found myself wanting
to genuinely explore for personal enjoyment. Talking to every NPC and
interacting with everything I could even led me to discovering a pretty
interesting Easter egg, especially considering how much of a Zelda fan I am.

If you are a fan of this series and
like the idea of game history or analyzing the medium as a whole, I definitely
recommend finding a way to play this game. You can enjoy it for what it is. The
NES and PS1 versions are, according to my research, notably more difficult than
subsequent ports. I loved playing this game, and wish I could have been alive
at the time of the game’s release and had that feeling like I was playing
something that would be huge. I’d love to continue the discussion on this. I’m
curious if any NRW readers/listeners played the game at the time of release.
What was that experience like? Did you enjoy it? And if you are like me and
played the game years after the fact, how did you like it? What party did you
complete it with?  

 – Joey Edsall

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