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Deborah Hawkins, penned Debra Renée Byrd, began writing after a blank book project in elementary school and never stopped, fashioning stories based on her favorite TV shows and movies before creating more original works. She studied at the University of the Arts and Florida State University before settling down and graduating from Temple University. She now resides in her hometown of Dover, DE, where she spends most of her time at work or at church. She loves fantasies, superheroes, is a trekkie and a brown coat. She loves television and lives for Final Fantasy video games, having collected most of them. She has read a myriad of authors, and her favorite authors change whenever she finds a new book that changes her life... "When you can't run, you crawl. When you can't crawl...well, you know the rest." -Tracey, Firefly, "The Message"

Friday, April 1, 2016

A to Z Challenge: The A's of Final Fantasy


Welcome to the A-to-Z Blogging Challenge of 2016!!

This year, I decided to highlight characters from my favorite game franchise, Final Fantasy, so this year, my blog title is tagged with the A-to-Z abbreviation for gaming (GA). I also plan to see what the other gaming bloggers are on about. I can't wait!

So today's letter is A, and at first, I only had one character, and then, I forgot a summon, and then, I remembered someone else, so we have a three for three here.

But ladies first! Here is Final Fantasy's sweetheart: Aeris Gainsborough from Final Fantasy VII.





If you follow my normal blog, you've seen me discuss Aeris's heart-wrenching story already. For everyone else, Aeris was the last living Ancient. The majority of her race was killed or mutated into monsters by a shape-shifting alien that scientists mistook to be an Ancient, and they used it to create super humans and by accident, a bunch of monsters. Smart people, right? (More on that thing later in the alphabet.)

We meet Aeris as a flower girl in the slums and fall immediately head over heels for her sweet spirit and can do attitude. She's basically the most powerful character in the game that we never get to really use. She is brutally murdered early on and still manages to save the world in the end with a prayer and a white materia she thought did nothing.

Arcade Sushi ranked Aeris's death as the 3rd most shocking death in video game history in 2013, and indeed it was.


The mysterious Auron is walking around Final Fantasy X with a great big blob of water following him and destroying things as it goes when we first see him, so we don't know what to expect. A guardian from the real world of Spira (this gets explained a couple of times during this challenge), Auron is actually a good guy and brings together our main character Tidus (coming later) with the rest of the cast to save the world.

He is an awesome swordsman, and spoiler alert: HE'S DEAD!! Killed by the evil summoner Yunalesca when he realizes something is amiss (more info on that later), he holds on so he can help bring her and her psycho father Yu Yevon down.


The aeon Anima in FFX is possibly the scariest aeon you can summon in any Final Fantasy game (and this reveal still gives me chills)! You only see the top half until Anima does her (yes, Anima is a woman!) overdrive attack, and then, you see this thing!

AHHHHH!!!!

Speaking of crazy summons, stick around for Bahamut tomorrow! (I promise most of these posts won't be this long!)

6 comments:

Pun Isaac said...

Auron is one of my favorite FF characters. My favorite Auron quote is "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!" I try to remember it when life's not going as planned.

Very nice A-Z post. Looking foward to reading more.

-Justin (http://punverse.blogspot.com/)

Random Musings said...

I don't know how Final Fantasy works, but I know I would want Anima on my side looking at this!
Debbie

Debra Renée Byrd said...

Totally!

Debra Renée Byrd said...

Awesome quote! Auron was so great.

Timothy S. Brannan said...

This should be a really fun one! I know a little about Final Fantasy but I am hoping that I will learn more here.

Looking forward to seeing what you post all month.

Tim
--
Tim Brannan, The Other Side Blog
2015 A to Z of Adventure!
http://theotherside.timsbrannan.com/

Debra Renée Byrd said...

Glad you stopped by! Pull up a beanbag chair :D