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. A week ago I thought I'd know who the president would be by the end of the night. How naive I was! Don't say we didn't warn you.

Like a lot of other people, apparently, I'm in the position that although FF9 is supposed to be out today, it won't be in local stores until tomorrow. But I'm cool, I can deal with it. Of course, if it doesn't show up by tomorrow I go postal, but that's an entirely different story.

Onward.

I think you've got a small part of a much bigger truth in this letter - that plots in general work better if we don't know specific details. It's absolutely true that if you say too much about a love interest they stop being your perfect match and start being an annoyance you might want to avoid having contact with, but it's also true that if you put too much detail into a hero(ine) they stop being your avatar and start being someone whose welfare you just might not be all that interested in.

Something I think we're starting to see in games as of late are plots that start to separate the protagonists from the player. It's easy to see yourself in the hero in DQ1, or even Cecil, but not so much Cloud or Squall. This necessarily means that romances in games will change - you're no longer imagining yourself rescuing a princess with fill-in-desired-features-here qualities, you're trying to figure out what Rinoa sees in that clod Squall. And I'm all for this second mode of RPGs, although I will grant that in many cases games could do a better job of selling the idea that these two people have fallen in love, if not making the player fall in love with the characters themselves.

I agree completely with your first point, which is why I'm a little surprised you use Xenogears for your second. It is great when two people are able to find each other despite numerous obstacles and interpersonal difficulties - I can't think of too many gaming examples, but there are numerous books and films that make use of the idea. By the time it's all over, you buy the relationship in question implicitly, because you've seen firsthand all the effort that's gone into it.

On the other hand, Fei and Elly felt flat to me for just that reason, because, as you say, they're fated to be together, so where's the suspense? No matter what happened I never doubted that Fei would get the girl, which left me with only my (not inconsiderable) affection for the characters to keep me interested. I guess when all's said and done, I'd like to see more Jerry Maguires and fewer Titanics in gaming, although I suppose that's somewhat unlikely.

Gotta disagree with you here on many points, Shale, but the only one I'll actually rant about is the fact that romance is just another plot device. When executed properly I think a love story can be one of (if not the) core force behind a story, much like the point of a mystery is to find out who did it or the point of Super Mario Bros. was to finally beat the crap out of Bowser. Perhaps our terminology is simply different here, but to me Kain's constant betrayals in FF4 were just a plot device to move the story along, whereas Alex's quest to find Luna provided a compelling reason for nearly all his actions in Lunar 1. As for defending FF8... next letter, please.

I think Chrono Cross was more along the lines of Crono Trigger, in that rather than having no love story it had a couple that could take on greater significance if you really bought into one of them. Much like being able to tell yourself that Chrono really always loved Lucca or Marle, you can pretend that Serge is destined to end up with... well, I leave it up to you. Of course CC rather bluntly told us who Chrono ended up with, but it was nice to have a choice at least for a while.

As of late I've been thinking a lot about why FF8 does and doesn't work for some people, and one phrase keeps popping up over and over again: character development. A lot of people who didn't like the game seem to equate character development with back story - a character is well developed if they have one or two important flashbacks or events that reinforce why the character in question does or doesn't want something. Meanwhile it seems that people who buy into FF8 are more likely to see character development as subtle nuances in dialog, action, and gesture... the same things that movies often build characters with, but games rarely have until now.

I won't argue about which viewpoint is right at the moment (although don't be surprised to see it as a topic one of these days) but I will say that I didn't need any great chain of fate between Squall and Rinoa - it's enough that I've personally known some perfectly normal, intelligent women hopelessly attracted to thoughtless jerks, and even more rarely, thoughtless jerks turned into decent human beings by said women. I leave it up to you as to whether you buy into that interpretation.

I actually think you were right the first time when you said the "in-famous" story of "the love situation" is sufficient because it's so basic. It does sell, no question about it, and I don't think I'll ever get tired of seeing it... but that doesn't mean I want to see it told the same way over and over again, which is what RPGs have been doing for years with some minor variations.

You're dead on with regards to Dewprism as well. I know a lot of people found Rue a fairly dull character (although it's hard for anyone to be interesting when Mint's around) and that even the nature of his relationship with Claire was somewhat ambiguous, but his singular dedication to bringing her back made the character for me. Ironically enough, tho, I'd say it's one of the most unrealistic relationships I've ever seen, simply because nobody's that determined in real life, which made it all the more fascinating.

I see where you're coming from on all your points, but seriously, who wants to clutter up a perfectly good love story by questioning if the girl's controlling, conniving nature will bring out the latent wastrel tendencies in the guy and drive him to a lifetime of alcohol abuse? It's one thing to despise Kate Winslet's character in Titanic for being so colorless, but it's another thing to deny Cecil and Rosa a chance at happiness because she's liable to die in childbirth at an early age, what with the lack of basic medical knowledge and all.

I'm not surprised about FF7, as it's obvious by now that CDs often contain a wealth of discarded development materials left in the game by programmers too lazy to clean up after themselves. I was simply surprised to see anything like that on the N64, since because cart space is so expensive, a lot of development goes through a phase of trying to squeeze the game into as small a space as possible. I'd have thought this would include any Japanese text in OB64, but apparently it doesn't. Interesting.

You're underestimating the extent to which psychosis already plays a big part in modern RPG romance: Cloud's a classic schizophrenic who's loved by Tifa, a girl with what I can only assume are serious self-worth issues to be chasing after such a freak; Fei also has multiple personality disorder, Elly has a substance abuse problem, and both are arguably mass murderers; Alex is pretty normal but Luna has severe delusions of goddess-hood; and I'm not even gonna touch Delita's highly dysfunctional relationship with Ovelia. Suffice it to say, RPGs are very big on the message that love conquers all, whether it should or not.

Not a lot to say here, except that a lot of people really do seem to want to be in control of who their character ends up with. Personally I think that giving the player the choice of who they end up with tends to weaken all potential relationships, but if we go back to DarkLao's comments about some characters being too specific to appeal to everyone it starts to make sense.

And... "acrobatic sex clown antics"? Have you been freebaseing powdered Vib Ribbon again, Sanagi?

Er, dude, I'm a long way from being the most sensitive guy in the world (or the country, state, city, etc.) but even I found your letter a little insulting towards women. I'd imagine that "all females" would no more want to have "amazing racks and cool personalities" (read: demure, submissive) than I'd want to look like Cloud or worse yet, Sepiroth. *shudder*

That said, you've got a good point that a lot of RPGs do revolve around wish fulfillment. They're called role playing games for a reason, after all. Much as I bitch about games not being deep enough, I gotta admit some part of me does want to be the guy with the cool sword who gets the cute girl and saves the day. And because of that we may never get away from the "attractive young people fight impossible odds to destroy evil and live happily ever after", for good or ill. Doesn't mean I won't welcome the occasional game with no romance at all (Vagrant Story comes to mind) but I think I can live with the romance status quo for a while longer, at least.

Closing Comments:

I know you're all frothing at the mouth to talk about how great FF9 is, but in the interests of going into it completely fresh I'd like to delay discussion at least one more day. In the meantime, why don't we clean up one more piece of unfinished business: Zelda: Majora's Mask. Opinions? Questions? Comments? Send me some email, and we'll talk tomorrow. See you then.

-Chris Jones, doesn't care for princesses unless they have college degrees