Ah Gogo, the first of many bizarre characters Square began to experiement with in the FF series, opening up a truly bizarre and unique repertoire of characters including Cait Sith, Red XIII, Quina, Kimahri, and Fran. And FFVI had three of them, also including Mog and Umaru in the cast. So much fun. And move over Vincent and Yuffie, Gogo and Umaru were the first truly optional characters in any FF game. You could of gone the entire game without stumbling across these valuable teammates.
I am not sure who Gogo is, I suppose the theory that he was Daryl was as convincing a fan theory as any that I had read on the net back in the day, but I remember many including suppositions to the idea that Gogo was somehow Relm’s mother/father, to some kind of relation to Shadow’s past, and indeed that Gogo was Banon. But none of these seem to fit as nicely as the evidence which seems to point to Setzer’s lurid past. And this could very well be the case, after all, amnesia is a terrible affliction which seems to just pop-up as a sake of convenience far too often within the realm of mythologized fiction. But it would help support this theory nonetheless. So I suppose if I was to pick one theory that I believed more than all the others… the Daryl connection would be it.
Theories are fun, but I actually preferred to see Gogo’s past as a solitary story element on her/his own; I suppose reflecting her/his very own nature and personality. Gogo was just an extra character, thrown into the mix to keep the player busy and add to the enormity of this 16-bit game.
Overall I really liked Gogo, for obvious reasons once you start using her/him s/he turned out to be the most versatile character in the game. S/he was the second character I chose, after Terra of course, in my list of players to use in the final battle of the game. I gave her/him the three battle commands of Blitz (gotta love that Bum Rush), Magic, and Item. With these four options Gogo was EXTREMELY powerful. And I believe s/he lasted all four rounds of the final battle with Kefka till the end.
Gogo had some other incredible uses in this game. Gogo was the only one who could summon espers more than once per battle using the mimic ability. And s/he was the only one who could use the Fight ability in the Fanatic’s Tower in the World of Ruin (with the exception of also Umaru of course). That was extremely useful.
And thank you Terminal for sharing your incredibly interesting theory about the Gogo in FFV’s Tower of Walz… that had never occurred to me in the slightest. I always just saw that little battle as another reoccurring cameo, like Gilgamesh. It does indeed seem to fit within a rather plausible chain of events.
Conceptual artwork of Gogo by Yoshitaka Amano… love the hat.
And while we’re on the topic, there are only a few FFs I have not played. I have never played (and never will) any of the Chocobo’s Dungeon series. I have yet to add the latest three expansion packs to FFXI. And I have not yet checked out FFXII Revenant Wings. But I have also yet to get my hands on the latest Advance version of FFVI for the GBA. Does anyone know if they have shed any light on this little mystery within this lately installment? For the sake of mystery and fun surrounding this little dark corner of the FF fan universe, I hope they have not.