Yesterday during the Nintendo Direct event a few games were shown off with more information given, but the biggest surprise had to be the addition of Cloud Strife to Super Smash Bros.. Since Nintendo has a more younger audience, most of them may know Cloud from Final Fantasy VII on Playstation, but a lot of them didn’t know that Final Fantasy started on the original Nintendo Entertainment System. Cloud didn’t arrive until the Playstation version, but the NES is where it was birthed and crafted to make the Final Fantasy games of today what they are.
Everyone who watched the E3 presentation saw the crowd go nuts over the Final Fantasy VII remake and now Nintendo owners who will not be able to play that game, can at least experience Cloud in all his glory. Not only will they get to see his iconic Buster Sword, but see some of the great Espers that they may have never experienced and check out his final smash which is just his limit break.
We haven’t seen a gritty Final Fantasy game on a non handheld Nintendo console in a long time, and this may be the tester to have one. Role playing games are long and extremely wordy, but at a console aimed at a younger audience this helps with problem solving, critical thinking and reading. Having to remember items and do a variation of checks and balances is what helped me evolve my gaming skills when I was young. I now know to explore every single part of a area, even when a path is clearly marked. I know to grind as much as I can to level up and get ready for any upcoming dangers. I also learned how to plan and build a strategy when fighting certain monsters. All of this was learned from playing the original Final Fantasy, where if you chose an enemy to attack and if that enemy died before that attack happened they didn’t move onto another enemy, they hit nothing and it was deemed a miss.
I don’t really care if Cloud is over powered, because to me he’s suppose to be. I hope they don’t introduce him like they did in Final Fantasy Tactics, where you found him but really had to build him up to be a truly strong character.
Nintendo’s been doing good, but not great lately against Playstation and Xbox and if they really see a positive turnabout from this Cloud DLC, then maybe they’ll produce a more adult Final Fantasy game for either of their systems.