Six months -
July 20, 2001 - 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.
The meaning of the title is for me to know and you not to find out.
Don't say we didn't warn you.
Some thoughts on the Xenosaga story (potential spoilers ahead in intro):
I got a big kick out of the Jr. design. There's just something about a gleeful-looking 12 year old kid toting around a trenchcoat, two .45s and a big cross on his chest; it's like some bizarre mixture of Tom Sawyer, a Crusades knight and the Columbine shooters. Between the general cute nerd vibe of Shion, the classic "anime babe with big guns" screenshot of KOSMOS, and the bloody mayhem that scamp Jr.'s sure to get up to, I'm really looking forward to this game.
On the other hand: "Abel, the first incarnation of Fei, appears in the game as a young boy, as does his mother, the first incarnation of Elly; both characters look unchanged from Xenogears."
So let me get this straight: Elly was Fei's mom in a previous incarnation? That's just twisted.
Onward.
| Female problems I |
|
I am faced with a hideous problem. I met this girl, shes kinda cute, a lot of
fun, I like her. Problem? She's convinced that video games are all
brainwahsing and evil.
Just thought I'd share.
But that annoying little snippet documents quite the problem. Sure, I think
Qauke 3 and Unreal aren't any good for your brain, but they are harmless as
far as I can tell and I enjoy em anyway. But RPG's, the games we love and
hold dear are a lot more than the common shooter.
I just find It rather unfortuanate that sophistication and intellegence are
classified with the mindless and pointless, and that broad catagory is "bad".
Peace,
Stryker
|
The thing is, it's hard to respond to this letter without knowing if she thinks games are just stupid, childish, irritating wastes of time, or truly evil, satanic tools of the devil that rot your spirit and destroy your mind. In the first case, there's a lot that can be done - you can just chalk it up as an interest that you two simply don't share, and leave it at that, or you can gently point out the few games that are fun, intelligent, and stimulating.
In the second case, your options are more limited: either stop playing games for the rest of your life, or find another girlfriend. If she really is that great, the choice may not be as cut and dried as you'd think, especially since, once you get into a real relationship, the amount of time you spend playing games tends to go down anyway. Hopefully you don't have to make that kind of choice, but depending on your priorities, it's not always a bad one to make.
| Female problems II |
| - sirhC senoJ
The following topic is something that I
have spent countless hours musing over for years now. Really, I have. And I
think its something that needs to be talked about in the open more often and
not just confined to fanboy message boards and junior high school busses.
Ok... what is so wrong with being attracted to female video game
characters?!!! Go ahead and call me a nerd or whatever, but I find it
perfectly fine to become attached to a character in a game. If you can talk
about your secret crush on Julia Stiles (ok, I'll admit it.) and everyones
cool with that, then why can't people accept that perhaps you feel the same
way about Celes from FF3?(ok, and I'll admit that too.)
And I'm not talking
about the female game characters that have the obviously high babelicious
factor like Lara or the Duke Nukem girls. I'm speaking of the more realistic
girls who have personalities larger than their bust size, like most of the
Final Fantasy females or the girls from Skies of Arcadia. I mean, with
Celes, its not like I was obsessed with her, but whenever I play my annual
game of FF3, I cant help but realize that I know more about Celes or Terra
and feel like I've really connected with them more than any girl I know at
the time (unless of course in a relationship at the time... usually). Yeah,
I'm man enough to admit that I got a bit teary eyed the first time I played
FF3 in 7th grade and Celes jumped off that cliff in the World of Ruin. And I
didnt spend hours figuring out how to play Celes' opera theme song on the
piano because her and I were "just friends," alright so keep your filthy
hands offa here Locke! Shes mine you dumb treasure hunter! Wait no I'm
sorry.. YOU DUMB THIEF!!! (ok, maybe I WAS obsessed, but I was young and
lonely)
Basically, I just find it so wrong that you're called a lonely nerd if you
find a character likeable and attractive for reasons more than why we all
love Lara Croft. I can honestly say that I feel closer to and would be more
comfortable around Rinoa from FF8 than ANY girl I knew for all four years of
Hell- uh I mean high school. And keep in mind that I probably have spent
less than only100 hours with Rinoa as opposed to four whole years with these
cheap and tawdy Southern California two-bit strumpets! Oh the humanity!
Maybe I need to get out more often... Maybe I need to play games where every
character looks like Quenn Brahne from FF9 to knock some sense into my empty
skull... Maybe I need a girlfriend (I have brown hair, green eyes, and I like
smart girls. Any takers?) (Good God im desperate)... Maybe I need to keep
praying to the blue fairy to make Rinoa into a real girl (yes yes, A.I.
sucked)... Maybe we all need to be more accepting and realize that its quite
easy to become attached on a very personal level to a video game character,
even if they are just pixels and text written by some ciggarette-smoking fat
Japanese game designer. (No, not Sakaguchi you meatheads!) Let it be.
-Terin "action" Jackson |
What can I say here? As a supposed adult and generally rational human being, I feel compelled to point out that said characters aren't real, and that they can't provide you with nearly as much enjoyment as an actual human being. On the other hand, I'd be lying if I said I haven't been a little smitten with more than a few imaginary women myself in the past, not just in games, but in TV, books and anime as well.
Hell, it's more than that, isn't it? It's about all aspects of these kind of fantasy words, where things are (nearly) always interesting and meaningful, the surroundings are always fascinating, the guys are always tough and cool, and the women are always beautiful, sensitive, intelligent and, strangely enough, often dressed in revealing attire. Real life sometimes sucks, especially when you're in high school, and while there are smart, fascinating, compassionate people out there, you might instead find yourself surrounded by dumb, shallow fashion drones who won't ever stop thinking that Dumb and Dumber is high art. In that kind of situation, what else can you do but retreat?
All I can say is two things: remember that what you're seeing is an illusion, even if keeping that in mind compromises that illusion. It might seem impossible to believe that your favorite fictional character or world is anything but a perfectly thought-out labor of love, but chances are it was created as mere product by some underpaid scenario writer or graphic artist with the express purpose of snaring bored and/or lonely nerds. Enjoy it, but don't be completely oblivious to reality.
Second, it's worth keeping in mind that whatever you find compelling about a work of fiction, whether it's a person, place or a thing, often exists in some form or another somewhere in the real world. High school, or any other lousy period in your life isn't forever, so retreat into fantasy while you have to, but someday make plans to leave the fake Rinoa back in the PSX while you go off to find the real one.
End of boring, preachy, tedious psychobabble.
| Remember kids, you can't spell "generic" without "genre" |
| What could cause this long-time column reader (but rare responder) to write in?
Why, nothing less than a foolish comment about Baldurs Gate, gods gift to videogamers who
actually know what "role playing" is. (Read : not console-only gamers.)
"Baldur's Gate wasn't what came to mind when I saw the shots, except in the generic feel of the environments and monsters."
Generic? Pffft...
Baldurs Gate is an awesome game (I'm a FF fan, and I like BG better than any game in the FF series) and the Forgotten Realms
setting is anything but generic. It's one of the biggest, most detailed, and most interesting fantasy realms ever created. Dozens of novels
have used it as a setting and it has its own lengthy history including wars and religions of the past and famous historical figures (past and present npcs).
Final Fantasy is what's generic by comparison. Nothing about Final Fantasy could EVER be that great because of what
the Final Fantasy format is. (Although incidentally, the first FF was itself a D&D ripoff.) Same format everytime... a new cast
of cute looking circumstancially important and unique people that we use to (not roleplay) but tell a new "how we saved the world in peril" story.
Console "rpgs" are about essentially watching a story unfold and advancing that pre-written story through the very limited actions
that you are allowed to control (fighting the battles in between the points of story). This is not role playing, this is role watching.
Role playing requires that you can actually make the character do something of significance that's not pre-scripted, you see. In BG for example
instead of paying for items, you could simply slaughter the shop keeper. However, your reputation suffers and you pay for these actions down the
road.
Now, that's not to say that FF and games like it aren't excellent games, because they are. The term "rpg" has simply been incorrectly
labeled upon these kind of games over the years.
Anyway, all these FF11 / BG parallels people are drawing are rediculous to begin with. FF11 looks a lot more like Everquest
to anyone whos actually PC gamed in the last 5 years. And there's nothing wrong with that if you ask me....
So what if this particular FF is going to try something new and make a massively multiplayer Everquest kind of game? Its called expanding
the horizons. Sakaguchi obviously loves Everquest, he's stated so in several interviews. And there's a reason why so many people
are WILLING to pay monthly fees to play that kind of game... obviously its fun.
Staying with the same graphics, story-type or characters isn't the only way a series can stagnate. A series can stagnate
by using the same format for too long (which is exactly what's happening to FF). I believe that they realize this is inevitable (at Squaresoft),
which is why they're trying something new.
We've just received our first screenshots and the very first early video preview, and already I hear so many people moaning about what a bad turn
this is. I am very disappointed in my fellow FF fans. Anyone who's ever said "I dont consider THAT a REAL final fantasy" or "this isnt what final
fantasy should be" (regardless of what they were referring to) needs to get this through their thick head.
Final Fantasy is not just a format.
It is not a combat engine.
It is not something that needs to stick to a rigid pattern.
It is not whatever you think it "should be".
Final Fantasy is whatever the hell Squaresoft releases with the "Final Fantasy" name on it.
And if you don't like what Final Fantasy becomes, maybe you're *gasp* not a Final Fantasy fan anymore.
What an outrageous thought...
I'm done ranting now.
In conclusion, try to at least be open-minded about whatever FF11 becomes.
And Chris, if you ever rag on Baldurs Gate again, I will beat you to death with a copy of the Dungeons and Dragons movie...
the only product with the D&D name on it that I will not defend. :)
- Heretic
|
One of the things that comes up when you've been writing a column like this for over a year is that you can almost answer letters by assembling collections of your old responses. For example, I can pretty much dismiss your "not really roleplaying" rant by pointing you here. (No offense to Eightball, it's just the best example that I could find.)
As for Baldur's Gate, or more generally, D&D (which is what you seem to want to talk about here); hell yes, it's generic. It's so generic it practically defines the genre (which isn't the root word of generic, but it's a relative) by itself. I honestly don't care how many races, generals, armies, cities, kingdoms, demi-gods and religions they put in the series, it still feels like pure, uncut swords and sorcery... which it is. Interplay seems more than happy to embrace the D&D legacy, why shouldn't you be?
Yes, the first FF was also pretty much pure generic fantasy, but even then it started to develop it's own distinctive flavor - an FF Black or White Mage is far more readily identifiable than their D&D counterparts.. Since 7, the series has developed several unique one-shot looks all its own - not "completely original, one of a kind, nobody's ever seen this before", but still pretty interesting and unique to look at. (IX slipped back into traditional fantasy a bit, but that was the entire point.) Either way you've got designs that are anything but "some guy in pseudo-medieval clothes with a sword". I'm not even really criticizing Baldur's Gate (it's a great game, no argument here) so much as I'm saying that it's nothing more and nothing less than traditional, generic swords and sorcery.
As for the rest your FF comments, you're not doing anything but retreading what I said in the rest of the response that followed the Baldur's Gate comment, had you bothered to read what I wrote rather than going off on your own tangent. Goodbye, and thanks for playing.
| Stylized? What stylized? |
| Hey Chris,
After watching the trailer video of Final Fantasy XI, a few questions come to
mind:
You think they'll let me import my Baldur's Gate 2 character? How high do
you think they'll set the experience cap? Will they use Third Edition rules?
Can I be the Dungeon Master?
Ahem.
Okay, so I'm actually quite excited about the stylized look. And I'm
delighted that the lizard thing the guy is fighting resembles Amano's
original chocobo sketches. Could it be a chocobo...?
--tim rogers, really knows NOTHING about D&D
|
Ok, so most of this letter is a cheap shot ad D&D, but it does give me an excuse to point out what I didn't like about the (yes, very limited) amount of FFXI we've seen so far. It's not even the characters themselves, who look far more Japanese than traditional D&D does, it's the largely empty, bleak environments we've seen so far. When I I heard about FFXI, I pictured myself being able to wander around as an FFT Squire in a 3D interactive version of Lindblum Castle... and instead I'm a samurai on the surface of Mars. It may just be that I'm one of the people who aren't going to be hyped about this one, but that's ok, because FFXII isn't that far away.
| Why shallow? *TSW spoilers* |
| Chris,
Could you let me in on something. Why is it when people try to say that
the Final Fantasy movie had decent character development they cite the
story about the girl dying when Aki got the fifth spirit and the quote
about "My father's in here somewhere?" When I heard both of these, they
were just nails in the coffin of the incredibly cheezy dialogue of the
movie. And that's the funny thing, I do think they handled the idea of
the spirits reasonably well. It's just that almost every bit of character
interaction seemed so cornball.
Let me make this comparison. It occurred to me this morning that The
Spirits Within's "emotional" scenes, like those above and every single
death scene, remind me a lot of the movie Event Horizon. You probably
know about this movie, but it was supposed to be a horror movie which
involved people getting tormented by events and people from their past.
The only problem is, the audience never connected with any of the
characters in any way. The character development was pathetic, when it
was there, so when people started dying, the majority of the audience
started laughing. If the deaths weren't centered around the people's
past, it might have had some effect. However, in this movie, as with The
Spirits Within, every moment of "character development" or "tragedy" came
across as the movie hitting you over the head with a sledgehammer with
these horribly blunt and unimaginative events in a really pathetic attempt
to get emotional moments.
Oh, and am I the only one that kept thinking of The Dark Crystal whenever
the people in the movie did most of their facial expressions? I'm sorry
to say I didn't expect much from the movie, and I didn't get much either.
On the positive side, I just beat Chrono Trigger on Final Fantasy
Chronicles. That game still rocks. But one thing that gets me is why
does it say the music is done by Nobuo Uematsu and nowhere in the credits
(all three sets of them) is Mitsuda mentioned? Or has this been asked
before...curse this short memory.
I apologize for adding to the rants about the Final Fantasy Movie. I will
keep my mouth shut from now on. See, I'm going into the corner of my own
free will...
Kirk B.
|
Jeez, I didn't get that at all. Case in point, Ryan's statement about his dad wasn't really saying that much about Ryan himself (except obviously that he felt something for his dad, which you'd expect) but it hinted at a huge amount of history and character back story that we never even touched on. The Old Republic of Star Wars Episode I might have gone over a lot better if Lucas had scattered more of the same teasing clues for us to speculate on.
In general, I think if you're going to accuse the movie of anything, it should be underacting, not overacting. Still, other people have some ideas on the subject...
| Why shallow. |
| Heya Chris,
The fact that the FF movie's story was received as pedestrian shouldn't
surprise anyone. Videogames are still far, far, far behind other mediums
for storytelling. Considering they've only been around for a few decades,
this isn't so terrible, but it is something that needs to be acknowledged
by many more gamers and continues to present serious problems.
The reason the FF movie highlights this flaw is that it fails where games
have failed and failed again, to skillfully convey a serious story.
Lighthearted stories fare much better in games because they are much
easier to do and encourage player involvement more. The potential payoff
is lower, but keeping a story moving and entertaining is easier the
shallower the topics you tackle.
Just look at FFIX, which was adored by people (like me) who were okay with
it being a romp without significant depth, while people tired of
lighthearted were understandably tired by the game. It was a perfectly
paced and plotted game for the approach it took, just as a Conan the
Barbarian was perfect without any more talking.
Then look at FFVIII, which was praised by people who wanted more
seriousness out of their RPGs for its weightier approach. But the problem
with that approach, and where the FF movie ultimately lost appeal, is that
you are jumping from farther up the more dramatic you choose to be. If
you didn't buy the serious parts of FFVIII, then pacing and character
problems that may have gone unnoticed in a lighter game made themselves
painfully obvious.
Outside the jaw-dropping and seminal game that was Vagrant Story, Square
hasn't shown the ability to do a serious story well, while the rest of the
RPG world has run away scared at the thought of trying. Games with
passable serious stories have been overly praised because people were
happy for the attempt. Hell, we still consider correct grammar an
achievement.
The problem may be that nobody seems to get into gaming as a writer, while
most movies not done by Jerry Bruckheimer start with a screenplay and grow
from there. Vagrant Story was a huge leap in the right direction, and if
the FF movie had come near that level of brilliant writing and
characterization, people wouldn't be speculating how it might sink Square
- they'd be talking about how high it will take them.
-Ed M.
|
I really like your comment about nobody going in to gaming as a writer, but I suspect that's not entirely true with TSW. I got the impression that the general plot was the basic seed for the movie in Sakaguchi's mind, but ironically that general plot was the weakest thing about the film. Had he started with the characters and situation, rather than having the generic "life force" and adding stereotypes on to that, he might have had something more worth watching on a narrative level, regardless of how light or heavy he wanted to make it. As it is, we've got a film that didn't hit as many false notes for me as it did for other people, but still isn't perfect. And yeah, you can apply that statement to more than a few other games in the series.
| Surprise, surprise, I'm a dog person. |
|
And what, pray tell, was so annoying about Alfador? All he did was follow Janus around - big deal. I thought it was cute.
...Oh man. If that gets out, my reputation will be ruined forever.
-Negative Creep
|
Nothing was intrinsically annoying about Alfador, he just wasn't as cute or endearing to me as he was for other people. And the fact that he, li'l Janus and Schala keep getting mentioned as being so wonderful and tragic is what makes the entire Zeal sequence so annoying to me; YMMV.
| You guys like Final Fantasy too much! |
| Guys, I don´t want to look judgemental or something
but, isn't this column a little too much focused on Final Fantasy lately? I'm a very avid RPG player and that, of course, means I love Final Fantasy, but that doesn't mean it's the only game worth playing by any means, and I don't even consider it the best game ever, not even the best RPG ever (if you take Zelda as an RPG).
So what I'm trying to say is: broad your horizons, play other games, you won't regret it.
Rafael
|
It's pretty annoying that I wrote something like "I want to take a break from all the Square topics we've been doing, but the week after FFC and the movie get released isn't the time to do it." in Monday's column, and still get letters like this later in the week. Of course, you can't please everybody, but between this and the next letter we apparently can't please anybody...
| You guys don't like Final Fantasy enough! |
| Well, let's start with this...
"GIA staff also anticipates release from Final Fantasy X"
And...
"The GIA staff, however, is unlaterally looking forward to its release,
if only because it means an end to inane Final Fantasy X news stories.
More people will probably read this throwaway news story about a
JavaScript countdown timer than will ever purchase the Japanese version
of feel-good music game Gitaroo-Man--how do you think that makes us
feel? Well, enjoy the timer, for what it's worth. Sigh."
Now, perhaps it's just me, but do I sense some...hmm...negative feelings
being directed at Final Fantasy X? I think I do. Both times, the writer
uses "GIA Staff" instead of "I", so am I to believe that the entire GIA
Staff now has something against FFX? Seeing as the game hasn't even
entered the localization process, this is rather disturbing...
For the most part, the feeling I got after reading the two snippets
above was that FFX was being unfairly treated simply due to popularity.
Granted, the FF series gets a lot of attention, probably more than any
other console RPG series, but that's no reason to form a hostile opinion
towards FFX months before it's stateside release...
"Not as cool as ICO, but probably a lot more popular"
And that cements it. So either we have one FF disliking GIA Staffer who
has penned all of the above quotes, or we now look forward to a GIA that
heaps abuse upon classic series simply because they sell well and become
popular. Maybe I'm being too defensive about the whole thing, but I
think our "sacred cow" deserves as much of a fair shake as any other
game, feel-good niche title or not.
~Jason Alexander (The denounced RPGod)
|
It was "Scared cow", dammit! That was the joke!
Ahem. Anyway, I think people just need to calm down a bit, and look at the situation before they accuse anyone of being Square whores or Square haters. 2000 was a huge RPG year, and Square released NINE games on the PSX, which is nearly half of what that system saw in the genre that year. They didn't have all the good games that year by any stretch of the imagination, but they generally took up a majority of most people's top 10 lists.
Even in 2001, where there haven't been a lot of RPGs released by anyone, Square's still all over the place, from the movie, to FFC, to the upcoming FFX and XI releases. There are a lot of other good games out, like the Zelda Oracles, and there's a lot of info on great new, upcoming games, like ICO. Still, given all that, I think you can safely draw two conclusions:
1. Given the amount of RPG stuff Square's done lately, in addition to their historic importance, we pretty much can't not talk about them.
2. Given how much Square stuff there's been to talk about, you can't blame even the most loyal Square fans (ie, much of the site) from becoming a bit jaded with them. They are the 900-hundred pound gorilla of the gaming world, meantime, all we can do is hope they scale back a bit more in the future, and hope a few other companies step up to the plate with similar release records. (I'm looking in your direction Enix, Capcom, and Konami.)
| Letters like this make us all warm and fuzzy inside |
| To the GIA --
I am an attorney and writer from Los Angeles, a games enthusiast, and a regular reader of GIA. I would like to commend you on your excellent and well-written preview of ICO, in particular, and the GIA's good sense and taste in naming it the playable game of the show for E3 2001.
I played the demo at E3 2001 and on the Playstation Underground Jampack. I fully believe that of all games currently in development for any platform, including pc, Ico is by far the most important to the advancement of electronic games as an art form.
Much as I love games, I have yet to see one that I could really call "mature" such that it would actually interest my peers, all of whom appreciate literature, film, and anything artful and nutritious, none of whom are generally the least bit interested in games. Ico is the first game that has elicited any interest from them. I think that's quite significant.
Its elegance of design, artistic coherency, simplicity of control, and, most importantly, emotional resonance are things that I've never encountered united in any one game. Itıs almost as if it makes you nostalgic for childhood adventures that you know you couldn't have had, but you feel you must have had, after playing it for even a short time, like it's summoning up false, beautiful memories.
Its potential appeal to young and old, gamer and non- or casual- gamer, high-brow as well as low-brow, is simply through the roof.
And no, I am not a member of, nor related to any member of, the ICO development team.
Please, please give this game the support that Sony is not giving it. Nothing is stunting the growth of the games industry but the industry itself and its low ambitions, as so many industries do in their infancy. We who love games know that the medium is so brimming with potential. Let's get on to the future.
-- Henry Lien
|
Hear that? This guy's a lawyer! A LAWYER! A real, no kidding, honest-to-god white collar professional, which makes his opinion much more important than the rest of you loser writers! Er, except for those of you loser writers who are also lawyers.
Please don't sue.
Ok, no seriously, we love all our readers the same, but it's always great to get a well-written, intelligently put together compliment on something we did that might not be hugely popular, but that we think is important anyway. ICO and FFX are undoubtedly both great games, but one of them really needs more public exposure, and it's great to know that our coverage gets appreciated even when it's about games that not everybody's a huge fan of.
Closing Comments:
Long column, lots of rants today, but I had fun, and I hope you did too. My odd email link to Nich aside, your topic for tomorrow is this: parity in the games industry. You've heard my theory on why Square's everywhere, but why don't gems like ICO get more love? And what can be done about it? Later.
-Chris Jones, wishes he'd had access to handguns at that age. And yes, that was sarcasm, thanks for asking.
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