Life on the Fourth Floor

A new comic is up. There seems to be an unmistakable Thundercats flavour present in the past two weeks’ comics. I assure you this happened completely by accident and it will not become ‘a thing’ that we do here at Fourth Floor Comics. Again, I am as pleased as some sort of punch-like beverage, tickled a number of shades of pink, with how the strip looks with backgrounds. I have actually avoided setting strips in the hallway outside the two flats with few exeptions and as a result the living situation itself — that Jack, Michael and Bob live together and Amy and Charlotte live across the hall — has alluded some of my readers. This is understandable since in the past, all that distinguished locales was a different colour wall in the background — a single infinite 2D wall without floor, ceiling or decoration. Those days are gone and we are in the future-times now.

Okay now I want to talk about Final Fantasy XII. This is old news even for me. I have in the past made Final Fantasy comics and even a (very) short news post to announce… that the game existed. But for most people the airship has sailed. Well, since I spend most of my time reading and writing about 500-year-old works of literature, a game that was published as recently as February is still new in my book. Life on the Fourth Floor is not a video-game comic. It’s about life (specifically on a floor), of which video games are a part, but it is not the only topic on which I am prepared to write. Since most of the comics have been written a full year before their date of publication there seems to be a strong feeling of the past in the comic, with comics about old adverts, old games, old films and old TV shows. Call it nouveaux-retro. Again, this was accidental but this time it is ‘a thing’. So, without further apology, I present yesterday’s news today.

I’ve been playing Final Fantasy for the whole summer. Everyone will tell you the game looks beautiful but I’ve noticed the feel of the visuals — the lighting, the design of the buildings and the creatures you talk to — carry with them a certain Jim-Henson-creature-workshop feel, if you know what I mean, that I find charming. My reaction to the battle system was not love at first sight but, as is the nature of true love, I grew to love it over time. It literally depicts what previous systems have tried to represent — it’s quicker, it’s convenient and it’s unpredictable. All in all A+. Now, onto the real meat of the post: the similarity between the game and the original Star Wars trilogy.

I know I have fandango’d in the past with drawing fairly abstract comparisons between very different works but… come on. My friend James (who actually appears in today’s comic) has noticed this, too. Are there others? Are we alone in this belief? Let’s list some of the things they have in common. By the way, this list will contain spoilers (of both Final Fantasy and Star Wars) but I’ll endeavour to avoid them where possible. (This is where writing months after the release of the game comes in handy.) Stop reading now unless you’ve played the game and seen the film trilogy or you don’t care.