If you are instructed to cast a spell with overload "without paying its mana cost," you can't choose to pay its overload cost instead
The saga creatures in general from FINAL FANTASY were huge flavor wins, as they're directly inspired by their video game counterparts
Tetsuko Umezawa does a nice job or sliding small creatures past blockers and is especially effective if you make a bunch of small token creatures
There is both narrative and story, it says both "I represent a game piece" and also, "I am showing you a narrative, come pick up the clues and pieces to understand what's going on." Additionally, fresh, new perspective, after tens of thousands of Magic cards have been created I always seek out
Let's look at that Bloodfire Colossus again
But even with a significant effort, it still wont be punching on the level of Hidden Strings Stella and worse, I suspect the inherent inconsistencies of the card will lower its fun ceiling as well