Alright, if the Xenogears people are the same people that did Chrono Trigger (well, minus Toriyama) they all went to the dark, errrm, Namco/Monolith side right? Who the hell is working on Chrono Cross?

BTW: I bet it's that evil janitor guy...

-Spidermonkey

Games have a long way to go before they're even close to being "great literature." And for someone to say that Xenogears is one of the greatest (if not *the* greatest!) work of literature he has ever experienced doesn't really say much about Xenogears. It just means that person hasn't experienced a lot of literature. At best, games like that are on par with decent anime TV series - the Japanese equivalent of X-Files or E.R. Add to that the frequently awkward 4th-grade level dialogue and script for the game and symbolism which was about as subtle as the Green Mile giving its sacrificial lamb the same initials as Jesus Christ and you have a story which was as heavy-handed as it was trite. It was pretty good for a video game - but that doesn't exactly put it in the pantheon of literary classics.

Frankly, I think the biggest problem with game stories is that most developers still think in terms of novels and traditional literature. That's why we get statements like "to get the aspects of a literary masterpiece, you MUST sacrifice gameplay" - which is about as limiting a perspective as I can imagine. One or the other, but not both? That's rubbish. I'm hoping more games will take Tactics Ogre as a model. It certainly isn't a perfect game, but that's due more to the unbalanced experience system than anything else. The story itself is quite good - and more importantly, the story develops based on the player's actions, offering numerous outcomes based on your decisions as well as minor variations based on the characters who survive combat. Books can't do that; Brutus always stabs Julius Caesar on the Senate steps, no matter how many times you read the play. But in Tactics Ogre, Denim Powell may betray his duke, or he may betray his code of ethics instead. He may kill his sister or save her. The problem is that this sort of game requires more work and more imagination, and fewer dogmatic perspectives. Games don't have to *be* literature when they can transcend it.

On the other hand, I think some of the game dialogue displayed at Zany Video Game Quotes *is* in fact a work of genius - compare the opening to Zero Wing to the works of James Joyce, and I think you'll find a number of similarities. Games may never best the old classics, but the avant-garde? They've got it licked.

Arrogantly yours,

-J. Parish

uh. Tifa didn't wear a skirt, she wears shorts.

AL

Story vs. Gameplay. The battle rages forward. To me both are very important, as it is to most console rpg fans. We are also the most demanding. If your playing an arcade style fighting game along the lines of tekken tag, you don't care why you are fighting, the fighting is the focus. Console rpgs are the only type of game I know of that deman very good gameplay and stories. Wheras games such as Zelda wich are action oriented can live on the save the princess mini-story, an traditional rpg cannot. Maybe this is only my oppinion, but of all the rpg's ive played, if they had no story, they'd quickly become dull. Very few games have battles and gameplay that is good enough to drive the game on very weak stories (Legend of legia and FF8 come to mind), as much as I like Star Ocean, a game where you just had those battles wouldn't be fun at all. Xenogears had a very good battle system, but parts were weak (magic was never practical except for healing), To me story matters most, and thats why I liked shadow madness. In other genres games can get away with just atmosphere (i.e. Soul reaver), But a truely great rpg requires both (Xenogears, Septerra Core)

Up until the point we're at in gaming, what you say has pretty much been the case. With many titles, the storyline serves only as a background motive for the focal point, which is the action or fighting itself. However, this trend seems to be slowly changing. Action games, platform games, and even fighting games have begun to include more intricate backstories. An excellent example would be Metal Gear Solid. Former games of the genre had stories along the lines of "Person X is evil and has a big, nasty bomb. Go kick his ass." While this is essentially still what drives Snake on in MGS, the story plays a more integral role throughout the game itself, rather than being given to you upon starting a new game, or in the instruction manual.

Drew,

Props to Down South Hustler's comments about Xenogears. While I'll ignore the irony of someone preaching a game's literary merits repeatedly misspelling "novel", I'll agree with the points about sacrificing control for the story. Some gamers(such as myself) might wish to be able to destroy things that logically would be in our power to destroy in some games, but if to do so would alter the story, we're denied that ability somehow, someway. Usually this is such a negligible point in RPG's because of the quality of the story that we're treated to by following the rules, Xenogears being an excellent case in point. I think it's in the relationship of creator (or producer) and the consumer that differentiates games from literary pieces or educational sources. In the latter two, the creator is essentially "God," while the consumer is subject to the world the creator draws up or writes about. The goals of the creator or producer take the fore, while the consumer is simply led where the producer wishes, if they chose to continue after the first few lines or scenes or what-have-you. A great book or educational piece is to be judged more on how well it conveys an author or producer's intent or message.

In a game, the relationship is different. It's the player's wants and interests that are more important. Only RPG's like Xenogears, etc are something of a real hybrid, with story and interaction intertwined. But it's the gameplay, how well the game satisfies the player's want for interactive vicarious experience that marks a great game. Here, it's the consumer's priorities that are to be more satifsfied if a game is to be great. RE3's Mercenaries game, for example, doesn't teach you jack, but is a pure adrenaline rush that matches, if not surpasses, the fun of the regular Nemesis game.

In short, games are games. Books are books. You get certain things out of each that you can't get from the other. Games can enhance the learning experience, but can't take away what books provide. Let's be honest, aside from the fun of planning the trip and seeing how many of your family caught cholera, didn't most of us play Oregon Trail to see how many buffalo we could shoot in that cheesy mini-game? What the hell did *that* actually teach us?

Yrs.,

-Tweek

P.s.: First, it's short for "post-script" ya' freakin' morons! Second, welcome back Cosner! This column's disturbingly friendly when yer out for too long.

Yo Drew,

I never pass up the oppurtunity to talk about Xenogears...and this topic lends itself to the issue quite easily.

There is a lot of text in Xenogears. A hell of a lot. The fact that they made somewhere around 2 typos and 2 grammatically wrong sentences is pretty good for Square. The problem with this much text is two things. One, if there's no story to speak of, it'll just be mindless prattling that gets really annoying. Two, unless the gameplay is lessened, it'll be a damned long game.

I think that Xenogears is obviously a bit heavy on the story, but the gameplay doesn't seem to lag very much. The battle system (systems, if you count Gear battles as separate) is very fast and fun. By disc two you can kick anything's ass. However, for those that are obsessed with menus and other such things, the game's story can be tedious and the gameplay shallow. I think that FF7 had a very good mix of complicated system and great story. FF8 lacked the story, but had a fairly worthy system.

So in the end, I think that companies should just continue along doing what's been done before, because games will be released that fall on each end of the spectrum, and anywhere in between.

-The "Caped" Steve

Gameplay and story? I say screw 'em. If I can't have them both, than I don't want them. Viva Superman!

-CTZanderman

P.S.- I do not, nor ever have, play/played Superman in my life, nor will I ever. Gameplay and story can be melded together quite effectively... just look at Metal Gear Solid.