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"
I am highlighting (approximately) 26 characters from my favorite games in the Final Fantasy franchise! Today, we are on G, so that means, we are visiting Final Fantasy VIII for the first time to look at:
Gilgamesh!
Gilgamesh is what they called a Half-GF (guardian force), and you don't see him until much later in the game. You obtain him by going to the Temple of Odin, beating Odin in under 20 minutes. Once you do that, you unfortunately don't get to summon Odin; he appears at the beginning of a battle to take out your foe with a one-hit kill (Zantetsuken) whenever he pleases! During one of the boss fights, however, he gets sliced and diced himself, and Gilgamesh takes up Odin's sword for the rest of the game. He comes whenever he pleases as well, sometimes even in the middle of a battle! Unlike Odin, he also has a bunch of arms and 4 swords, which add up to 4 attacks. Odin's Zantetsuken, Masamune and Excalibur, which deal heavy damage to all foes, and Excalipoor, which might as well do nothing. It's sort of a relief when he pops up, but you also don't know what you're going to get!
Tomorrow, we slip into the mind of the mad scientist Hojo from Final Fantasy VII.
Press play, and enjoy (especially about 7 minutes in).
We are on the 6th day of the A to Z Challenge, and I have chosen to ramble on about my favorite characters in my favorite gaming franchise, Final Fantasy.
If you pressed play, you are currently listening to the Hymn of the Fayth. Because today's letter is F.
The Fayth are the true backbone of the land of Spira in Final Fantasy X. Not only are they powering the aeons that we summon, but they are the ones holding up the Dream Zanarkand. Speaking of which (and I'm certainly not making you watch all 8 minutes of this, just up to the reveal of the magic tower), here's what that looks like:
If you actually did watch all of that (you're awesome, because even I didn't), the little boy guiding Tidus is Bahamut's Fayth, the aeon from the letter B! This game has one of the sadder backstories of the Final Fantasy games, as the Fayth are all basically dead and have been using their own life forces for a thousand years to help the summoners of Spira and for the dream Zanarkand (their home) to keep going.
I've played this game three times, and the hymn makes me want to play it again.
Honorable Mention for F:
Fran from Final Fantasy XII is someone I plan to cosplay when I have--ahem--abs. A viera warrior and love interest of Balthier, she is the one of the only good things about that game. Her last words in the game are hilarious.
Tomorrow, we return to summons while I talk to you about Gilgamesh.
We are midweek and on the 5th letter of the alphabet! (Which is confusing because we are on the 6th day of April, but I digress.) For the challenge this year, I'm geeking out on characters from my favorite Final Fantasy games.
Today, I'm going to talk about the King of Figaro, Edgar Roni Figaro!
The art!! I want to stop here to say that FFVI is an underrated game, but among fans, it's such a great game with a great story. And the characters are great. Also, look at the designs:
A picture of Figaro Castle. It sinks into the sand and moves to other deserts!
A genius technological advance in this Final Fantasy world. But back to Edgar. He is the older of a set of twins. In the game, he is reunited with his brother Sabin, who left because, according to the Wiki, he was grieved that the people cared more about who would be king than the death of his father. Despite this, Edgar is a ladies' man, and the maids in his castle are always fawning over him. It's funny, and in pixel art, it's adorable. Edgar is also a machinist and creates weapons that you can use in battle for his "Tools" attack. Edgar joined the resistance called the Returners against the Gestahlian Empire, who killed his father, and together, along with his awesome moving castle, he and the other main characters defeat them and the main villain, the psychopath Kefka.
I had to read to understand the coin. I don't think I ever looked it up. When Sabin wanted to leave, Edgar said they would flip a coin, and if Sabin won, he could leave. It was a two-headed coin. How sweet. Edgar is a sweetheart despite his Lothario-ness.
Honorable Mention for E:
We first see Edea Kramer as the evil sorceress in Final Fantasy VIII. What we don't learn until Disc 3 is that she was possessed by the future sorceress Ultimecia (coming up way later). Edea, as badass as she was evil, was the matron of an orphanage all but one of the main cast lived in when they were kids, and she and her husband created the SEED Army to fight sorceresses. So once de-possessed, she's a total good guy. And COSPLAY GOLD here. Look at that outfit.
Tomorrow, we return to Final Fantasy X to learn about the Fayth.
**This post was created before I changed the MC of Fractured Princess's name from Ghuli to Jonnie.**
For the A to Z Challenge, I am highlighting characters from my favorite Final Fantasy games.
Today, I am also slightly cheating.
We're visiting the last Playstation Final Fantasy game, IX, to meet Garnet til Alexandros XVII.
(You're probably thinking:) Garnet? But isn't this D day?
Yes, yes it is. Now, let me explain. Garnet was a sad and troubled princess, heir to the throne of Alexandria, and in the beginning of the game during a play her crazy mother the queen is putting on, she runs away with the main character and changes her name to....
Dagger!
During the game, we also learn that Dagger is actually part of a magical race of summoners and that her REAL name is actually Sarah! (How many names does this girl have??) She and her mother were escaping a slave ship that destroyed their homeland, and only she made it out alive. The king and queen took her in and made her up to be their recently deceased daughter Garnet. She had plenty of reasons to look so down.
Here's something extra special about Dagger: she was the inspiration for the main character in my WIP, The Crystal Bearer. Without Dagger, there wouldn't be Ghuli. Meek, solemn, and proper princesses with a will in them to fight the good fight make for great characters!
Tomorrow, we visit Edgar in the highly underrated Final Fantasy VI.
For the A to Z Challenge, I am highlighting characters from my favorite gaming franchise: Final Fantasy. And as today's letter is C, I wouldn't dare talk about any other character than Final Fantasy VII's Cloud Strife.
"ME?"
Yeah, you, Cloud.
A dreamer from Podunk (well, Nibelheim), Cloud wanted to grow up to be big and strong and join SOLDIER, the elite task force created by Shinra Inc. (*ahem* also the same people who mistook an alien for an Ancient, as mentioned Friday). Cloud only made it to, like, gunny sgt. or something before all Hell broke loose and Arcade Sushi's 4th greatest video game villain of all time (Sephiroth) started killing everyone (more on him later).
But Cloud overcame, actually injured Sephiroth to the point where he had to hole up in the planet, and managed to have a slight dip into Multiple Personality Disorder due to mako poisoning (the planet's magic and the reason his eyes are so blue) and most likely PTSD (more on all of that when we get to Z).
Look at the pout.
He's the ultimate underdog and the face that launched a thousand cosplays. If you've heard even a little bit about Final Fantasy, it's probably because of Cloud.
Honorable Mention for C:
General Celes Chere from Final Fantasy VI. She was badass and beautiful, and that she found love in the end was just so sweet!
Tomorrow, we talk about Final Fantasy IX's "Dagger".
For the A-to-Z Challenge this year, I am highlighting characters from my favorite gaming franchise, Final Fantasy. For B, I bring you one of my favorite summons: Bahamut.
(As seen in Final Fantasy VIII)
Summons in Final Fantasy are creatures you can call on to help you fight when the going gets tough. Bahamut is first seen in Final Fantasy III and is used in every other game after. He's most frequently depicted as a large, black dragon whose attack is called Mega Flare, a concentrated laser beam that causes a huge explosion.
He looks the coolest in Final Fantasy X
(Look at those wings!):
And the scariest in Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children
(Look at how huge he is!):
The Final Fantasy devs are very good at adapting their summons, and of them all, I think they've done one of the best jobs with Bahamut. You'll also see another mention of Bahamut a little later in the challenge, as he plays a big part in Final Fantasy X, so stick around!
Honorable Mention for B:
Barrett from Final Fantasy VII. A foul-mouthed, hot-tempered eco-terrorist taking care of his best friend's daughter? Talk about complex!
2nd Honorable Mention:
Balthier. Final Fantasy XII should have been about him. Point blank. He's one of the only good things about that game. Sexy pirate with smooth accent and a love for bunnies (I'll explain later lol).
Monday, I will be talking about good ol' Cloud from FFVII.
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!)
