I just want to talk about video games for a second here. I love video games, it's what I do. It's what I'm best at, and they're just dang awesome.
I want to talk about how they give me a sense of agency. HOw they make me feel like i can truly accomplish something. How they can make me face my fears, and let me overcome my fears. How Zelda has taught me courage, and bravery by going down into the depths of dungeons for the sake of a kingdom. For the sake of love. I want to talk about how I became a jedi while playing Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic. I want to talk about how I climbed the seven thousand steps to High Hrothgar, and slayed a dragons in Skyrim. I want to talk about how I have met great evils, and destroyed them. How I united an entire galaxy to fight alongside me as I faced down the Reapers in a battle that we were ultimately going to lose, but we fought all the same. With tenacity and strength, as brothers and sisters fighting for survival. These are all the great things that video games have allowed me to do. They are an absolutely wonderful medium that I want to share with people, and that should be shared. I want them to be talked about in a way inspires greatness, that inspires people to pick up a controller to play a game, and experience it for themselves. I want video games to be respected, and not to be looked at with scorn and disdain at the very mention of the genre. I want to change the conversation about video games.
I don't want to talk about the mechanics of the game, the layout of the levels, or the clunkiness of the controls, because that in itself is clunky. It's stilted, and a chore to listen to someone talk about that. No, I want to talk about the emotions that I felt. The sense of speed that I got from playing Burnout and the thrill of coming in first place. I want to talk about the atmosphere and charm of Bioshock as I stroll through the halls of the sunken city, and discover the perverse leadership that ultimately ruined it. Video games, ultimately, are forms are art, and art evokes emotion. Art tells stories, art records history, art makes history, art brings us perspective of the artist, art brings up debates about what was the intention of the art. Now, not all video games are good, every kind of art form has its share of schlock, I mean, look at Michael Bay's work.
I'm really looking forward to what's becoming of the video game industry. Nowadays, we find Call of Duty's and Battlefields that all look and feel the same. Sadly, the video game industry has become somewhat of a factory, that's just churning out product, rather than creating something unique or wonderful. With people like Bobby Kotick, the head of Activision, who view the industry as a way to make money rather than art, it's difficult to see any kind of progression. However, popping up, all over the world are independent game developers who create games like nothing else anyone has ever seen before. Notch ( aka Markus Persson), of Mojang studios, created Minecraft. The game exploded, with no marketing, making millions solely on the basis of word of mouth, and supporters to pave the way for it to become the most successful indie game in existence. Just this year at PAX, the Penny Arcade Expo, there was a booth dedicated entirely to independent video games and indie game developers. That booth was larger than either of Microsoft's and Sony's booths. There are good, creative, and fun games out there, they just need their fifteen minutes of fame, and they can go on to make it big. That's what we all want. We want the little guy to succeed, and we want to see something new, and we're only going to get that from these independent game developers. Those game developers grew up in the same era that I did, and want to create games that are the kind that they want to make. And the kinds of games that they want to make, are they kind that they grew up with.
I remember playing games that were fun and inventive, and did something interesting. They weren't the best games, they had their flaws, but at least they tried to do something different. I find that commendable in this day and age, where invention is scarce. I grew up in what I think was a golden age of gaming, when developers weren't afraid of trying out something new, or when they were still finding out just what a game could do. I stand by it that the mid 1990s to early 2000s were days of true innovation in the games industry. The Nintendo 64, Sega Dreamcast, and the Sony Playstation brought forth some of the most monumental games in the industry. Final Fantasy VII, The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, Soulcalibur, Jet Grind Radio, Super Mario 64, Mario Kart 64, Jet Force Gemini, Half-Life, Grim Fandango, Deus Ex, Thief, Resident Evil, Mega Man X, and many, many more. It isn't out of nostalgia that I say that these are great games, it's because they are. I still pull out the old games, because it's important to know where we've come from as an industry, and to take the occasional trip down memory lane. Ok, so maybe nostalgia is a bit of a factor, but they really are good games. If playing Civilization V has taught me anything: is that golden ages come and go, and I believe that we are on the cusp of another golden age. Not just with video games, but with other forms of art as well. I think it's going to be an interesting time to be alive, and experience something new.
Showing posts with label rambling. Show all posts
Showing posts with label rambling. Show all posts
Monday, November 25, 2013
Sunday, August 11, 2013
Going down....
There has always been something genuinely unsettling about going downward in video games with me. When I was young, I lived in a house that had a creepy basement, as did we all. I was scared of the dark, the things that went bump in the night, and the creatures of the shadow. That basement embodied every one of those fears. It was dank, dark, desolate, and all kinds of scary. Yet, I still had to brave that basement to get to what I desired: my Nintendo Entertainment System. Eventually, I overcame my fear of that basement, and I realized that there was really nothing to be feared. During the summers I would spend with my dad, I would actually spend time in his equally scary basement. My dad had a Super Nintendo. He also had The Legend of Zelda: A Link to The Past. I would later realize that it's one of the quintessential Zelda games to be played, but back then, it was the thing that would bring back all of those fears of going downstairs into my creepy basement.
Recently I was reading on Kotaku, an interesting article discussing this advertisement. In the article, there is a line discussing the "threshold" that players must gather up the courage and cross in order to save the world, or complete their objective. "Traversing the known to the unknown requires you to cross an important threshold: fear." It is true that we cross into the unknown when we play video games, but often times, we go across that threshold with a casual stride. Perhaps this comes from my old age and experience with video games, but games seem to have lost that appeal. I don't like to get scared, but I like overcoming fears. I love games that give me that sense of overcoming something, and gathering up that courage to achieve my quest. Because the bad guys aren't the only enemy in that game. It's also myself.
The Legend of Zelda: A Link to The Past, and many other Zelda games that I've played, helped me to overcome my fears. They've helped me journey into that unknown without fear. In Zelda games, players take control of Link, just a young and ordinary lad, who also happens to be the holder of the Triforce of Courage. It's really become clear just how much they push the whole courage aspect of Zelda. Every single dungeon in Zelda is a force to be reckoned with. Each one has a momentous sense of being and terror. These are landmarks, filled with mystery, evil, and monsters. The player acts as a light in that darkness. It is dangerous to go alone, and that's what makes Zelda such a brilliant and fearful affair.
Often times in the dungeons, the player must travel downward. Going down a flight of stairs in Link to the past has a sense of foreboding danger. The player couldn't see what was on the other end of that staircase, and Link went off screen. Who knows what could happen? Traveling deeper and deeper into the depths of an ancient and evil temple, further into the dark, that has meaning, and danger. That's something that requires a lot of courage to undertake.
The Legend of Zelda is a great series that is very important to the video game industry on the whole because of subtleties like these. Games just aren't scary anymore. There are the Dead Spaces, and the FEARs, and some kind of gorefest, but they all have the same thing, which is just gore, and jump scares. That's not scary, it's just disgusting. There's no set up, or meaning to it. It's just an insignificant and pointless scare. There's nothing to overcome. In games like those, you just survive, which is exhilarating in its own right, but I feel as though there isn't a take away from those kind of games and experiences. Zelda is a game that instills fear in the player, but in a way that presents a barrier. Players have to knock down this barrier, and when they do, they feel as though they have accomplished something. They've grown, as a person in a small way.
Zelda is an adventure game, and that means that players get to explore, and experiment, and interact, and discover. I feel that most adventuring games these days don't quite capture those elements of discovery and wonder in the way that Zelda does. Skyrim is a fantastic game that captures those elements of discovery quite well. The first time that you come across a Dwarven Ruin, or a Draconic Tomb, and it's a wonderful feeling of adventure and discovery. Yet, because of the modern format of games, discovery is relegated to an aspect of completion. There's no sense of wonder to it, or even wander for that matter. Skyrim is enormous and has lots and lots to offer, but it just doesn't seem to carry as much weight to it as Ocarina of Time. While the overworld of Ocarina of Time seems like a subdivision compared to the entire country of Skyrim, there seems to be a lot more at stake. In the world of Skyrim, folks don't seem to care much if the world is coming to an end. Sure they talk about it, but the game itself doesn't really seem to care whether or not the hero of the story goes off and joins a guild of thieves or revives a terror of a league of assassins. I know that's what the game is for: just doing stuff, but nothing really takes precedence. I'd think that I should take issue with the whole "world ending" matter, but instead I just raise my arms up in excitement and fight them for the fun of it. Killing a random dragon doesn't affect the outcome, or force any progress, it's just another random battle which has been tailor made for me and my character.
While this has been a bit of a rant comparing Zelda games to others, I think that the point still stands that games don't let the player be afraid anymore. They don't build up an illusion of insurmountable odds that the player has to face not only that, but also themselves. Gamers these days rarely have to gather up courage to take on the challenge that lies before them. I haven't felt that threshold for a very long time, and for as much as I dread it's presence, I honestly kind of miss it.
Recently I was reading on Kotaku, an interesting article discussing this advertisement. In the article, there is a line discussing the "threshold" that players must gather up the courage and cross in order to save the world, or complete their objective. "Traversing the known to the unknown requires you to cross an important threshold: fear." It is true that we cross into the unknown when we play video games, but often times, we go across that threshold with a casual stride. Perhaps this comes from my old age and experience with video games, but games seem to have lost that appeal. I don't like to get scared, but I like overcoming fears. I love games that give me that sense of overcoming something, and gathering up that courage to achieve my quest. Because the bad guys aren't the only enemy in that game. It's also myself.
The Legend of Zelda: A Link to The Past, and many other Zelda games that I've played, helped me to overcome my fears. They've helped me journey into that unknown without fear. In Zelda games, players take control of Link, just a young and ordinary lad, who also happens to be the holder of the Triforce of Courage. It's really become clear just how much they push the whole courage aspect of Zelda. Every single dungeon in Zelda is a force to be reckoned with. Each one has a momentous sense of being and terror. These are landmarks, filled with mystery, evil, and monsters. The player acts as a light in that darkness. It is dangerous to go alone, and that's what makes Zelda such a brilliant and fearful affair.
Often times in the dungeons, the player must travel downward. Going down a flight of stairs in Link to the past has a sense of foreboding danger. The player couldn't see what was on the other end of that staircase, and Link went off screen. Who knows what could happen? Traveling deeper and deeper into the depths of an ancient and evil temple, further into the dark, that has meaning, and danger. That's something that requires a lot of courage to undertake.
The Legend of Zelda is a great series that is very important to the video game industry on the whole because of subtleties like these. Games just aren't scary anymore. There are the Dead Spaces, and the FEARs, and some kind of gorefest, but they all have the same thing, which is just gore, and jump scares. That's not scary, it's just disgusting. There's no set up, or meaning to it. It's just an insignificant and pointless scare. There's nothing to overcome. In games like those, you just survive, which is exhilarating in its own right, but I feel as though there isn't a take away from those kind of games and experiences. Zelda is a game that instills fear in the player, but in a way that presents a barrier. Players have to knock down this barrier, and when they do, they feel as though they have accomplished something. They've grown, as a person in a small way.
Zelda is an adventure game, and that means that players get to explore, and experiment, and interact, and discover. I feel that most adventuring games these days don't quite capture those elements of discovery and wonder in the way that Zelda does. Skyrim is a fantastic game that captures those elements of discovery quite well. The first time that you come across a Dwarven Ruin, or a Draconic Tomb, and it's a wonderful feeling of adventure and discovery. Yet, because of the modern format of games, discovery is relegated to an aspect of completion. There's no sense of wonder to it, or even wander for that matter. Skyrim is enormous and has lots and lots to offer, but it just doesn't seem to carry as much weight to it as Ocarina of Time. While the overworld of Ocarina of Time seems like a subdivision compared to the entire country of Skyrim, there seems to be a lot more at stake. In the world of Skyrim, folks don't seem to care much if the world is coming to an end. Sure they talk about it, but the game itself doesn't really seem to care whether or not the hero of the story goes off and joins a guild of thieves or revives a terror of a league of assassins. I know that's what the game is for: just doing stuff, but nothing really takes precedence. I'd think that I should take issue with the whole "world ending" matter, but instead I just raise my arms up in excitement and fight them for the fun of it. Killing a random dragon doesn't affect the outcome, or force any progress, it's just another random battle which has been tailor made for me and my character.
While this has been a bit of a rant comparing Zelda games to others, I think that the point still stands that games don't let the player be afraid anymore. They don't build up an illusion of insurmountable odds that the player has to face not only that, but also themselves. Gamers these days rarely have to gather up courage to take on the challenge that lies before them. I haven't felt that threshold for a very long time, and for as much as I dread it's presence, I honestly kind of miss it.
Tuesday, July 16, 2013
I don't like Final Fantasy
Final Fantasy is a franchise that has been there throughout the ages of video games. It is a prolific series that has broken new ground, garnered thousands of fans worldwide, and is always hailed as having a tremendous story. And I don't understand why.
I can't exactly speak from experience as I've never played the exalted Final Fantasy VII. That seems to be the only one that matters anymore. People are so rabid about it that all Final Fantasy fans want is another one. Or, some kind of high definition remake. Again, I can't really speak from experience being that I've never played it, but was it really that good? Why can't you just bust out the old system and play that again. I'm sure the graphics haven't held up that well, but seeing an old game for me brings me straight back to when I played it back in the day.
What was so great about Final Fantasy VII? It has the most broken combat system like all of the current Final Fantasy games: The ATB system. What does that even stand for? I think it's Attack Time Based System... more like Attack Time-based Bullshit system if you ask me. The ATB system works as follows: enter battle, wait.... There is your first problem right there. The game forces the player to wait. Most, if not every other game let's you get right into the battle with a turn based battle system. There is nothing wrong with this. There was nothing broken with the turn based thing, so why change it? Why Square Enix, why? Pokemon, which if I'm honest is probably the only other Japanese RPG that I've ever played, allows me to get into a battle, and immediately make my decision. It may not be my Pokemon that goes first, but I have still chosen my next move. Back to the ATB system... after waiting for your gage to fill up, then, THEN, I get to scroll through my options. This is an RPG, people! I'm going to have a mage type character in my party that knows loads of spells, and I as the player may not know all of them. So, the game forces you to scroll through a novels worth of pages filled with spells, WHILE THE TIMER IS STILL GOING. That's right. You are open to attack. This is straight up punishing gameplay. The time does not pause while I scroll through my menus, it keeps on ticking away. This whole time based system becomes worse in different ways, but I'll go into that more. Either way, this gameplay system is completely broken. I should be able to sort through the spells and abilities that my character has, no matter how many, without having to race the clock. Have you ever taken a really hard test at school, and they put a time limit on it that you knew wasn't enough. That is every single battle with every Final Fantasy game with the ATB system. I don't know what they were thinking over at Square Enix. It doesn't make the battles more realistic, it doesn't make the battles more visceral, it doesn't make the battles more intense. The only purpose that the ATB system seems to serve is to frustrate the hell out of me. The whole of the battle systems, throughout every Final Fantasy game is a farce!
Example: Final Fantasy IV, for the Nintendo DS.
I was really excited to play this game. I bought it on a whim after seeing a Final Fantasy concert. That sounds strange, given how much I hate the series, but watch the old G4tv episode of Icons focusing on Nobuo Uematsu, the composer of the Final Fantasy games, and you'll understand why I love the music and hate the games. Final Fantasy IV has the ATB system, and was completely remade to have 3D graphics and even have voice acting. I haven't played the original Final Fantasy IV, though I'm sure that it didn't have the ATB system. The NES was before that time. There are some interesting things to the battle system that could have had some potential... except for the fact that it is squandered by the battle system itself. In FF IV for the DS, I can choose the order in which my party is arranged. Cool! I thought to myself, that way I can have my tank up front to absorb all of the damage while my fragile characters can hang out around back and launch spells and heal the tank. NOPE.
I usually take my DS to the laundromat to help pass the time. Wanting to get more into my DS as a platform that I spend more time with, I thought Final Fantasy IV would be a good place to start. I was wrong. At first, I wasn't. I was getting the hang of the system, and picking up new, and awesome characters who changed up gameplay and made the game exciting. However, due to the story taking my main character to places that separated me from those new and exciting characters, I got stuck, on top of a mountain with under leveled characters. Here's another reason why I hate, absolutely hate, Final Fantasy games. The main characters. As of late the characters of Final Fantasy games have been lack-luster, run of the mill, emotionally dead, or repressed, cardboard cutouts of human beings. The depth of the main characters are terrible, and the side characters that you come across aren't much better. However, being that these are side characters, and they only help out in the party all the time, apparently these people do not matter to the writers of Final Fantasy. So players are forced to hang around these awful characters, and because of their time with these characters, they are much stronger than the other members of the party. This creates an imbalance. A nonsensical imbalance that ends up breaking the game. Generally in a Final Fantasy game, the main character will be miles ahead of the other characters in the party, and that forces the player to grind, and level the other characters who will never catch up BECAUSE THE MAIN CHARACTER IS IN THAT PARTY! He's gaining experience too! He's leveling up and maintaining his status as the strongest character. This makes no sense! Where's the balance?! Bioware RPGs are brilliant because of one simple concept: The Experience Bank. This allows players to use characters that they wouldn't often use because they are under leveled, and bringing said characters up to the player level.
So, there I am, on top of a mountain with my underleveled characters facing down a boss. This boss can take down my underleveled characters in one to two hits. When I have the opportunity to revive my characters with a Phoenix Down, the action goes completely wasted. Reason being, is that the character that I have just revived hasn't had a chance to heal himself, and it is the other characters turn. I put my fragile mage in the back, so that he wouldn't take damage. So that the enemy would attack my Tank first, and NOT my support. This doesn't matter. The whole arrangement of characters, does not matter in the game of Final Fantasy. Chess has the pawns in front, so that they can run interference. They are not the strongest pieces, but they can get in the way, and not much is lost when they go down. Much like the hit points of my Tank. However! Being that the enemy can choose whomever it wants to attack, it decides to take down the weakest of my characters. Which happens to be my recently resurrected mage. I'm not complaining about the Phoenix Down, and how it doesn't revive my character to it's full health, but the brokenness of the combat system.
How am I supposed to get past this greater evil? Hmmm? Grinding. That's what I am supposed to do. Take the time, out of my day, out of my experience, to just straight level. That is all. There is no point. There is no training montage. There is no anything. It is just to get stronger. The reason that Final Fantasy, along with a bevvy of other Japanese RPGs, fail, is because of it's grinding. Grinding breaks up the pace in the worst way. Never in a story will you hear about the heroes aimlessly wandering the landscape, killing as many creatures as possible to get stronger. This kind of thing is left up to the back story.
There is a time and place for training. Usually, at the beginning of the story, or the whole story where the hero is working his way up to the final fight. Say, in Percy Jackson. There is a need for some kind of explanation of training. Percy Jackson is an ordinary person, in extraordinary circumstances. He needs to know about the new world that he has just entered into. Harry Potter needs training as a wizard, so that he can eventually face his destiny to defeat Voldermort. Rocky Balboa needs to train endlessly so that he can come out of retirement and fight Mr. T. These are all necessary circumstances where a character needs development in that specific area. Characters in Final Fantasy should not have to level grind in order to progress. These characters are already adventurers. Final Fantasy IV, has players taking control of Cecil, a knight. A knight who is a captain, of his own armada, and who is widely regarded among his colleagues as the best, in the worlds strongest of armies. There is no reason, as to why this character should need to level grind. The other characters as well, should not need to level grind. Usually, they are in the same profession, or have been training their entire lives, to become what they are. The fragile mages that I kept in the back row, were but children. However, they too, were widely regarded as extremely talented individuals for their age. While I admit that they would need to undergo more training, before setting off on a quest to save the world. These two characters should be able to grow through their time on this adventure.
Grinding breaks games. This concept in games brings games to a tedious halt. An excuse that I've heard that was for grinding was that it extends the life of their game. "More bang for your buck" as they say. But where's the bang if it's just a dull roar, suppressed by the tedium of doing the same stuff over and over again? What about the story, or character development, or anything? There is nothing that transpires. The characters only get stronger in level, but I feel as though no progress has been made. I didn't advance through the story, I didn't explore a new area, I just ran in circles for an ungodly amount of time, where all I did, was murder innocent creature protecting their territory from a band of jackasses wanting to get stronger.
Dragon Ball Z has more engaging training sessions than this. Somehow, someway, the heroes of the show hear about an oncoming evil that is stronger than they have ever faced before, so they should get stronger so that they can defeat it. It's the same situation as Rocky, but on a more ridiculous level. In Final Fantasy, each character is in some way, already quite the adventurer and qualified to take on most challenges. Though, none of the characters ever charge themselves with the task of being the planets protectors. They were chosen, seemingly at random, to save the earth, or whatever planet they exist on. If they truly are the chosen ones, then by whatever divine power that exists within those societies, or whatever powers that chose them, should help them along in some way by bestowing upon them some kind of sacred power of some sort. There should be challenge in the game, but not punishment. Not forcing the player to spend hours and hours, doing nothing but pouring time into leveling.
Now, in my experience, side quests are hard to come by in a Final Fantasy game. They are usually too difficult for my low level characters, and when my character becomes strong enough, my supports are usually too weak. Leveling should be rewarded throughout the game, at a steady pace, that makes those levels feel earned, and not given freely. The player should have to accomplish great tasks to get those levels. Again, going back to Bioware RPGs, specifically Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic. Leveling feels earned. Players can go through the main story quests only, and feel sufficiently powerful, even though, they haven't reached their full level cap. The challenge of the game adapts to the player level, and keeps a constant challenge for the player. There is grinding in Kotor, but it is cleverly masked by the numerous amounts of side quests, that are both interesting and engaging. The variety of ways that you can deal with these quests make them all the better. It may be something as simple as a delivery quests, but players have the choice to not deliver that item, sell it and make a pretty penny rather than doing as they were told and taking home a small profit. It could even be an assassination mission. Players can undergo the guise of a bad guy, find their mark, and tell them to get out of town because there is a bounty on their head. There is nothing like this in Final Fantasy. It is simply: find quest, complete quest. No option. No moral choice. No freedom.
Linearity is not a bad thing, but it can kill games. When the freedom that the player has is to choose what character to level up, with a certain materia or guardian force, or when the choice is to either flank left or flank right, there is no choice. There is no freedom in a game like that.
At least the music is nice...
I can't exactly speak from experience as I've never played the exalted Final Fantasy VII. That seems to be the only one that matters anymore. People are so rabid about it that all Final Fantasy fans want is another one. Or, some kind of high definition remake. Again, I can't really speak from experience being that I've never played it, but was it really that good? Why can't you just bust out the old system and play that again. I'm sure the graphics haven't held up that well, but seeing an old game for me brings me straight back to when I played it back in the day.
What was so great about Final Fantasy VII? It has the most broken combat system like all of the current Final Fantasy games: The ATB system. What does that even stand for? I think it's Attack Time Based System... more like Attack Time-based Bullshit system if you ask me. The ATB system works as follows: enter battle, wait.... There is your first problem right there. The game forces the player to wait. Most, if not every other game let's you get right into the battle with a turn based battle system. There is nothing wrong with this. There was nothing broken with the turn based thing, so why change it? Why Square Enix, why? Pokemon, which if I'm honest is probably the only other Japanese RPG that I've ever played, allows me to get into a battle, and immediately make my decision. It may not be my Pokemon that goes first, but I have still chosen my next move. Back to the ATB system... after waiting for your gage to fill up, then, THEN, I get to scroll through my options. This is an RPG, people! I'm going to have a mage type character in my party that knows loads of spells, and I as the player may not know all of them. So, the game forces you to scroll through a novels worth of pages filled with spells, WHILE THE TIMER IS STILL GOING. That's right. You are open to attack. This is straight up punishing gameplay. The time does not pause while I scroll through my menus, it keeps on ticking away. This whole time based system becomes worse in different ways, but I'll go into that more. Either way, this gameplay system is completely broken. I should be able to sort through the spells and abilities that my character has, no matter how many, without having to race the clock. Have you ever taken a really hard test at school, and they put a time limit on it that you knew wasn't enough. That is every single battle with every Final Fantasy game with the ATB system. I don't know what they were thinking over at Square Enix. It doesn't make the battles more realistic, it doesn't make the battles more visceral, it doesn't make the battles more intense. The only purpose that the ATB system seems to serve is to frustrate the hell out of me. The whole of the battle systems, throughout every Final Fantasy game is a farce!
Example: Final Fantasy IV, for the Nintendo DS.
I was really excited to play this game. I bought it on a whim after seeing a Final Fantasy concert. That sounds strange, given how much I hate the series, but watch the old G4tv episode of Icons focusing on Nobuo Uematsu, the composer of the Final Fantasy games, and you'll understand why I love the music and hate the games. Final Fantasy IV has the ATB system, and was completely remade to have 3D graphics and even have voice acting. I haven't played the original Final Fantasy IV, though I'm sure that it didn't have the ATB system. The NES was before that time. There are some interesting things to the battle system that could have had some potential... except for the fact that it is squandered by the battle system itself. In FF IV for the DS, I can choose the order in which my party is arranged. Cool! I thought to myself, that way I can have my tank up front to absorb all of the damage while my fragile characters can hang out around back and launch spells and heal the tank. NOPE.
I usually take my DS to the laundromat to help pass the time. Wanting to get more into my DS as a platform that I spend more time with, I thought Final Fantasy IV would be a good place to start. I was wrong. At first, I wasn't. I was getting the hang of the system, and picking up new, and awesome characters who changed up gameplay and made the game exciting. However, due to the story taking my main character to places that separated me from those new and exciting characters, I got stuck, on top of a mountain with under leveled characters. Here's another reason why I hate, absolutely hate, Final Fantasy games. The main characters. As of late the characters of Final Fantasy games have been lack-luster, run of the mill, emotionally dead, or repressed, cardboard cutouts of human beings. The depth of the main characters are terrible, and the side characters that you come across aren't much better. However, being that these are side characters, and they only help out in the party all the time, apparently these people do not matter to the writers of Final Fantasy. So players are forced to hang around these awful characters, and because of their time with these characters, they are much stronger than the other members of the party. This creates an imbalance. A nonsensical imbalance that ends up breaking the game. Generally in a Final Fantasy game, the main character will be miles ahead of the other characters in the party, and that forces the player to grind, and level the other characters who will never catch up BECAUSE THE MAIN CHARACTER IS IN THAT PARTY! He's gaining experience too! He's leveling up and maintaining his status as the strongest character. This makes no sense! Where's the balance?! Bioware RPGs are brilliant because of one simple concept: The Experience Bank. This allows players to use characters that they wouldn't often use because they are under leveled, and bringing said characters up to the player level.
So, there I am, on top of a mountain with my underleveled characters facing down a boss. This boss can take down my underleveled characters in one to two hits. When I have the opportunity to revive my characters with a Phoenix Down, the action goes completely wasted. Reason being, is that the character that I have just revived hasn't had a chance to heal himself, and it is the other characters turn. I put my fragile mage in the back, so that he wouldn't take damage. So that the enemy would attack my Tank first, and NOT my support. This doesn't matter. The whole arrangement of characters, does not matter in the game of Final Fantasy. Chess has the pawns in front, so that they can run interference. They are not the strongest pieces, but they can get in the way, and not much is lost when they go down. Much like the hit points of my Tank. However! Being that the enemy can choose whomever it wants to attack, it decides to take down the weakest of my characters. Which happens to be my recently resurrected mage. I'm not complaining about the Phoenix Down, and how it doesn't revive my character to it's full health, but the brokenness of the combat system.
How am I supposed to get past this greater evil? Hmmm? Grinding. That's what I am supposed to do. Take the time, out of my day, out of my experience, to just straight level. That is all. There is no point. There is no training montage. There is no anything. It is just to get stronger. The reason that Final Fantasy, along with a bevvy of other Japanese RPGs, fail, is because of it's grinding. Grinding breaks up the pace in the worst way. Never in a story will you hear about the heroes aimlessly wandering the landscape, killing as many creatures as possible to get stronger. This kind of thing is left up to the back story.
There is a time and place for training. Usually, at the beginning of the story, or the whole story where the hero is working his way up to the final fight. Say, in Percy Jackson. There is a need for some kind of explanation of training. Percy Jackson is an ordinary person, in extraordinary circumstances. He needs to know about the new world that he has just entered into. Harry Potter needs training as a wizard, so that he can eventually face his destiny to defeat Voldermort. Rocky Balboa needs to train endlessly so that he can come out of retirement and fight Mr. T. These are all necessary circumstances where a character needs development in that specific area. Characters in Final Fantasy should not have to level grind in order to progress. These characters are already adventurers. Final Fantasy IV, has players taking control of Cecil, a knight. A knight who is a captain, of his own armada, and who is widely regarded among his colleagues as the best, in the worlds strongest of armies. There is no reason, as to why this character should need to level grind. The other characters as well, should not need to level grind. Usually, they are in the same profession, or have been training their entire lives, to become what they are. The fragile mages that I kept in the back row, were but children. However, they too, were widely regarded as extremely talented individuals for their age. While I admit that they would need to undergo more training, before setting off on a quest to save the world. These two characters should be able to grow through their time on this adventure.
Grinding breaks games. This concept in games brings games to a tedious halt. An excuse that I've heard that was for grinding was that it extends the life of their game. "More bang for your buck" as they say. But where's the bang if it's just a dull roar, suppressed by the tedium of doing the same stuff over and over again? What about the story, or character development, or anything? There is nothing that transpires. The characters only get stronger in level, but I feel as though no progress has been made. I didn't advance through the story, I didn't explore a new area, I just ran in circles for an ungodly amount of time, where all I did, was murder innocent creature protecting their territory from a band of jackasses wanting to get stronger.
Dragon Ball Z has more engaging training sessions than this. Somehow, someway, the heroes of the show hear about an oncoming evil that is stronger than they have ever faced before, so they should get stronger so that they can defeat it. It's the same situation as Rocky, but on a more ridiculous level. In Final Fantasy, each character is in some way, already quite the adventurer and qualified to take on most challenges. Though, none of the characters ever charge themselves with the task of being the planets protectors. They were chosen, seemingly at random, to save the earth, or whatever planet they exist on. If they truly are the chosen ones, then by whatever divine power that exists within those societies, or whatever powers that chose them, should help them along in some way by bestowing upon them some kind of sacred power of some sort. There should be challenge in the game, but not punishment. Not forcing the player to spend hours and hours, doing nothing but pouring time into leveling.
Now, in my experience, side quests are hard to come by in a Final Fantasy game. They are usually too difficult for my low level characters, and when my character becomes strong enough, my supports are usually too weak. Leveling should be rewarded throughout the game, at a steady pace, that makes those levels feel earned, and not given freely. The player should have to accomplish great tasks to get those levels. Again, going back to Bioware RPGs, specifically Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic. Leveling feels earned. Players can go through the main story quests only, and feel sufficiently powerful, even though, they haven't reached their full level cap. The challenge of the game adapts to the player level, and keeps a constant challenge for the player. There is grinding in Kotor, but it is cleverly masked by the numerous amounts of side quests, that are both interesting and engaging. The variety of ways that you can deal with these quests make them all the better. It may be something as simple as a delivery quests, but players have the choice to not deliver that item, sell it and make a pretty penny rather than doing as they were told and taking home a small profit. It could even be an assassination mission. Players can undergo the guise of a bad guy, find their mark, and tell them to get out of town because there is a bounty on their head. There is nothing like this in Final Fantasy. It is simply: find quest, complete quest. No option. No moral choice. No freedom.
Linearity is not a bad thing, but it can kill games. When the freedom that the player has is to choose what character to level up, with a certain materia or guardian force, or when the choice is to either flank left or flank right, there is no choice. There is no freedom in a game like that.
At least the music is nice...
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