Opera: The Video Game

​Recently, Valerie Alberto gave you a list of video-game theme-song covers that sent your humble narrator hurtling back into his childhood, a time when beating a game was called "flipping." And when Rocks Off thinks of video-game music, only one things comes to mind - the opera scene in Final Fantasy VI.

When the game was released in America for the Super Nintendo - under the title Final Fantasy III, being the third game in the series to make it to these shores - it was the most sweeping role-playing game ever made, and to this day holds the record for largest number of playable characters in a FF game. It had drama, it had cool flying effects and it had something no other game has yet to include - an interactive opera.

Ambrose Bierce described an opera as, "A play representing life in another world whose inhabitants have no speech but song, no motions but gestures, and no postures but attitudes." Rocks Off defines an opera as, "A poncy put-on where when you stab a guy he sings instead of bleeds." Regardless, it was a moving and innovative addition to a game that still ranks in the Top 20 all-time best.

Maybe the boys at Square Enix will get around to making complete opera games in the future. We'd play Wagner's Ring Cycle any day.