Double Agent
Yeah, but what do you REALLY want? - July 5, 2000 - Chris Jones

Disclaimer: The opinions expressed within this column are those of the participants and the moderator, and do not necessarily reflect those of the GIA. There is coarse language and potentially offensive material afoot. Thousands of things to do today... millions of moments, I must admit. Don't say we didn't warn you.

First off, I'd like to extend some major props to the clerk at the Austin Arboretum Software Etc. who sold me my copy of Koudelka. (No, haven't had a chance to play it yet.) While purchasing my game, I inquired as to their listed release date for Threads of Fate (July 19th) and if they'd gotten their ToF promo CDs in yet (they had). As it happens, not only had they gotten the CDs, but they'd already given in all of their preorder copies away and still had some spares left. So even though I had preordered from a different store, they gave me a free music sampler. It's much appreciated, dude.

But that's the good news.

The bad news is, the CD, which consists of 5 tracks, lasts a grand total of 5 minutes. 5, pathetic, minutes. And doesn't contain the battle theme from the Vagrant Story demo disc, which I thought was really cool. I still give appreciate what the Software Etc. clerk did, but Square needs to start making better music selections. I'm only glad that I already have the full Chrono Cross soundtrack, because it's possible the CC music demo wouldn't give me the slightest clue how great Mitsuda's latest work is.

Onward.

When you can't pick just one
What do I look for in a good RPG? I don't really look for any one or very few particular things. A lot of people insist that their RPGs must have a b and c and if it doesn't have these things they aren't going to like it. Me, I'm all over the board in terms of aspects that I like of RPGs.

If a RPG has a good story but the gameplay isn't that hot some will still like it because they value the story aspect so much, but if a RPG has good gameplay and a not so hot story then the same people will probably dislike it. I could like a RPG in either situation. I value almost all aspects of RPGs but if one aspect is crap I still might like if the other aspects of the game are well done. I think the only thing in RPGs I don't value that much is the music which seems weird since I seem to be one of the only RPG freaks who have been playing RPGs since DW1 that isn't into RPG music that much.

Anyway I think by not locking myself into liking RPGs to have things in a certain way is one of the reasons I have adapted to this new generation of RPGs and have embraced them unlike some other old school RPGamers.

Pendy
Maintainer of the Dragon Quest Dragon Warrior News Network

P.S. Another weird thing about my likes for RPGs is that I'm not into replay value as much as some people are. Once I've spent 40 hours on a RPG I'm not about to do the same thing all over again any time soon. I'm more of a wham bam thank you maam type of RPGamer. I like to move on afterwards no matter how enjoyable the game might have been, which is actually the way I am with books too.

P.P.S. Sory for the really long P.S.

I'm with you for the most part on this one, Pendy. There's a wide array of things I look for in an RPG that make it worth playing (plot, music) but often a game will be strong enough in one area to overcome weakness in others, and that's ok. Heck, sometimes a game will be strong in ways I didn't even see coming. And this is probably a good thing, since if I could 100% define what makes a good RPG, there'd be little art involved in developing games.

A also don't much like replaying games, since plot is such a big part of my enjoyment, and there's not that much to find a second time through a game, compared to a book. (Books I will reread quite often.) Only games with really good gameplay end up getting a second run through, like FFT.

The play's the thing (meaning plot)
Chris,

Personally, I play RPGs first and foremost for the characters, plots, and settings, with music and graphics coming in second. Actual gameplay rates a distant third.

The reason? I love RPGs because they provide the perfect storytelling format for people who like to be told a story, yet at the same time want to think and to use their imaginations. As I play an RPG, I want interesting stories and characters that emotionally affect me and pique my imagination. I enjoy filling in the gaps: creating a past for a character to explain his/her personality or behavior, imagining what kind of culture an odd locale might have, and so on. Music and graphics serve to enhance the mood and impact of scenes, and minor enemy encounters and leveling up provide the perfect way to have fun mindlessly mashing buttons while I think. ^^

I am an old school gamer. I began playing RPGs in the days of FFI, but I never particularly liked them until I played FFII/IV and discovered that a game could actually tell a story. I personally prefer newer RPGs because they tell better, more complex and involving tales and give my imagination more material to work with, but I still love all the classic SNES RPGs (and the Phantasy Star and SCD Lunar games).

Basically, what it all comes down to is this: it's fun for me. ^^;

Well, now that I've made an utter idiot of myself, ja nya!

Perisie

There's no doubt that if I had to pick a single best aspect of RPGs, it'd be plot. Going back to something I said a few weeks ago, I think the reason RPGs provide such a compelling plot experience is because the provide such a long time for the player to become immersed in the story. You're much more likely to buy otherwise outrageous characters and situations when you've sunk 20 hours into a game than 45 minutes into a movie. On the other hand, this may be the reason RPG plots haven't always had to be up to literary levels, because they haven't been necessary to keep an audience.

Then again, contrivances like giant flightless birds used for ground transport and 2000 year cycles of chaos and order may be just what some people prefer about RPGs. I think we can all agree that gaming just wouldn't be the same without spoony bards and the like.

Literally literary
Chris

I completely agree with Reilly, I hate FF VIII. But this does not make me an oldschool gamer. Want proof, I love FF VII.

-Figure Four

PS: A character who doesn't do anything is not literally sound, it's deadweight.

It might be suggested that "old school" is something of a moving target - the division might not have as much to do with 2D vs. 3D as it does with loving the past and hating the present. Hell, maybe if the net had been widespread in '91 we would have been awash in FFI fans decrying the lack of quality gameplay in FFII.

Assuming "literally sound" means "literarily sound", your postscript is intriguing. I don't think anyone can seriously argue that Quistis, Zell, etc. actually do nothing, so the point is moot in FF8's case. But the question does arise, how much does a character have to do or say to be considered useful in a story? If a character is destined to ultimately be nothing more than a sword in your party, is it worthwhile to give them a history or motivation? I can think of any number of minor characters who were a benefit to the story despite having no character growth, but I'd like to hear the audience's take on the matter.

Square delivers, in 30 minutes or less
Chris,

You wanted to know what people expect from RPGs? Well, here's what I expect, and what ususally is delivered by Square:

STORY: A fun and interesting story that I can get into and I FEEL for. This is especially true in moments where I am emotionally attached to a game. ex: Aeris' death in FF7 and even more so in FF8 when Squall and Rinoa were alone on the Ragnarok.

GAMEPLAY: If the game is complex enough to be interesting, yet user friendly enough to be fun, then it's all good to me.

INNOVATION: Interesting elements that are new to gameplay. The best examples of this are Espers in FF6, Materia in FF7 and the GF Junctioning in FF8. All were very unique in their own right, and added a new element of gameplay that was very interesting to me. Other examples include the Weapon/Armor customising in Vagrant Story and the item creations in Star Ocean: The Second Story.

MUSIC: Yes, music in a game is a BIG part to me. And not only because I'm a musician. Music is another thing that helps me BE in the game, if you will. It sets the mood for the game. The music can make or break a game. My favorite music for a game was FF4, but all FF music rocks. One game that could have had better music in my opinion was Lunar:SSSC. It just didn't work for me. To cheesy for my tastes.

TIME OFF: What I mean by this is something to do when you want to play the game, but want to take a break from the actual storyline. This is ususally done through minigames. The best example I can think of is Triple Triad, which has got to be one of the best minigames EVER. I hope they have something as good in FF9. But it's bad if a game stops for a long period of time (ie FF7, Kalm flashback scene) because it can get old fast.

And what isn't included? GRAPHICS. I will admit, a game should have graphics, and they should be decent looking, but they aren't the most important part. Too much time and effort is spent on graphics that other parts lack, in many games. While most people bash Square for that very problem, I think they do well in all aspects. Besides, no game will ever be perfect. But those are just my thoughts on the matter, so people will probably disagree, which is cool. :)

Lee Baxley

Can't argue with any of the above, but I feel I should stand up for liking graphics. It's become fashionable for the past few years to assume that those who have a stated preference for graphics are somewhat more shallow than those who take their gameplay pure, without any fancy visual effects or tricks. And to be fair, there are good reasons for the prejudice - graphics are often seized on by the media as a sign of a game's quality, but most experienced gamers realize there's often little real correlation between how good a game is and how good the graphics are. Titles like Lunar are still great despite dated graphics, and there have been any number of lame RPGs with superb visuals. Lee's absolutely right in his assessment of the situation.

At the same time, good graphics are worth having in an RPG. My rants against straight turn-based combat are well known, but I think even the most die hard menu supporter would have to admit regular battles can get tedious after a while. Generally if the supporting plot is strong enough, the bosses are good and the exploration interesting, it can be dealt with, but I don't think it's unreasonable to suggest that making things more interesting to look at is also helpful. Some of my best memories of FFVI are the superbly evocative backdrops, and I don't think most people would argue the level designs in FFT helped make the game.

Either way, the next generation hardware looks to make the argument irrelevant. There'll almost certainly be distinctions made between a great looking PS2 game and a mediocre PS2 game, but to those of us who remember the NES, I'm not sure a next gen console will ever look all that crummy.

2D, we hardly knew ye
Chris,

My overall view of old school gamers has really changed the last week, mainly due to that FF6 column. All along, old school gamers have said that something has been lost from the next generation rpgs. Something undifinable. The large majority of other gamers just chalked it up to them thinking that "better graphics = bad gameplay". Well now I think we can finally realize what that 'something' is. And ironicly, we weren't too far off.

During the FF6 column, a majority of it was taken up by letters that said, "I realize FF6 is not the 'be all, end all' of the genre, but that first time I flipped that power switch on with it in my SNES, it was like nothing I ever have experienced before!" I can completely understand this point of view. FF7 was my first FF (NOT my first rpg, mind you! I was well versed in the rpg with the Phantasy Star series, SoM, CT, Beyond Oasis, and many other titles), and I can still say to this day it's one of my favorites because it was just amazing. Like nothing I had ever experenced before. Now a lot of the most popular rpgs are going the route FF7 did (design wise), only being expanded upon, evolving. That makes myself and others happy gamers.

But in the case of old school gamers, things were changed just as they got good. During the end of an era, the death of the SNES, we were seeing some of the best games up to that point. FF6, SoM, CT, and others came out showing just how far this type of stylistic rpg could go. Gamers were dreaming of games styled after these, only much more detailed and flushed out. They were expecting every game to look like Castelvania: SotN or Valkrie Profile. Instead, here comes the 3-D poylgon boom, not only becoming a staple in the genre, but it actually makes rpgs the most popular genre in the U.S. behind sports and fighters! Now the games that they were expecting are in the minority! Even the best series in the genre was turing to this new 3-D style. In fact, not only turning to it, but tunring other games to it as well. I would be a bit bitter, too.

Although all these points have been brought up before numorus times by many a gamer, no one's ever been able to really put a finger on what would make old school gamers happy. I believe we can now. What happened is that rpgs turned from the feeling of tile based, stylized 2-D character sprites to the feeling of ugly 3-D popeye looking characers and puzzle stealing pre-rendered backrounds just when things were getting good. When old schoolers go back and play games like FF6, they think about how the genre could have been if they had it their way. There's you're indiscribable feeling right there.

~Dr. Uzuki

As ardent a supporter as I am of Square's PSX legacy, it may surprise you to know I do somewhat sympathize with hard core 2D people. Every once in a while I'll take a look at something like SF2 or LoM, and wonder what Square (and Enix, and Konami, etc.) could have done had they stuck with Nintendo. No FMV, and likely no cinemagraphic tricks on the level we see in Vagrant Story. But I don't think it's impossible that FFT could have been implemented on the N64, or a 3D version of Secret of Mana.

I still say the evolution of games to a more movie-like presentation is a proper and necessary step, and I don't think any depth has been lost in the conversion. (Quite the opposite.) But as Uzuki says, there's undoubtedly some disappointment over what might have been. I feel your pain, my brothers.

And then I play some more Vagrant Story, and it goes away.

The first, faint sounds from over the horizon
I've managed to hear some of the FFIX music that's been posted around the web these past 24 hours, and I'm sorry to report the first thing I noticed was the horrible, sub-MIDI instrumentation. Wouldn't it have made more sense in this post-FF Tactics, post-Chrono Cross market to go for as lush a sound as possible? Ah well, the tunes themselves are decent, anyway. Just thought I'd share.

SonicPanda

If what you're hearing really is FFIX, and if the early sound samples follow the general pattern of most leaked music (I'm not a big Napster guy, but I know people who are) then those MP3s are likely scratchy, low fidelity, and not terribly representative of what the game really sounds like. I'm also not that big a fan of Uematsu's music (I think he's good, but not worth ordering early like Mitsuda) so I'd rather wait and hear what the music sounds like in context.

On the other hand, I do tend to agree with you on the recent quality of emulation in FF titles. After the very competent virtual orchestras of FFT, I expected much more from FF8 than I got. And after the superb strings and guitars of Chrono Cross, I'd think FF9 would have to be near perfect, but I'm not getting my hopes up. Either way, The game will be out tomorrow in Japan, so I guess we'll start getting reports soon.

Closing Comments:

Before I discuss the topic, I'd like to eat some crow - someone sent me the name Michael Marshall Smith, a British SF writer I've never heard of, much less read. I have no idea how good he is, and in my defense most of his stuff has been published in the last two years, when I really eased off reading sf. But one of you stumped me, so congrats.

Despite the large number of great letters I got today on FF8 and RPG expectations, relatively few of them were from an old school perspective. I therefore couldn't mix it up as much as I'd have liked. No matter, tomorrow shall be more interesting.

There's a term that gets tossed around a lot in these debates - "gameplay". But despite a vague general definition (the interface to the game, the mechanics through which battle and other game tasks are accomplished, as well as what those tasks are) there's little actual agreement on what the term actually means to people. The huge number of contexts in which the phrase shows up should make this abundantly clear. So let me know what gameplay means to you, and why it's important. Adios for now.

-Chris Jones, still kinda tired

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