| Scoobes said: I think you missed my point a little. My comment was on the way the story is told. First and foremost, Final Fantasy is a video game and it should use the advantages of the medium to convey the story. It doesn't matter that they tried to convey a deep story based on our history if they're simply copying the medium of film. Games have many tools and methods at their disposal to convey story and the themes you described above. Whilst JRPGs are known for cut scenes, they often also incorporate other elements (side quests, NPC character interaction, exploration) to enrich the story. I suppose a good example would be to compare The Walking Dead TV show with the game. Both are critically acclaimed and present different stories, but both play to the strengths of their medium. The TV show uses quality acting and cinematography to great effect whilst the game plays to the strengths of the interactive medium by allowing the player to make key decisions on how to interact and influence other characters. You also make it sound like these themes and methods are exclusive to JRPGs when plenty of video games even outside the RPG genre have dealt with major issues without resorting to copying the film industry. Half-Life 2 also uses our own history to create a dystopian world filled with propaganda but is all presented with you in complete control of your actions. The story is conveyed through your experience with the world and characters rather than film. Deus Ex Human Revolution intellectually poses questions regarding the ethics of transhumanism and the role and power of multinational corporations in globalization, yet it doesn't rely on cut-scenes to present these arguments. Witcher, Dragon Age and Mass Effect all raise questions concerning racism and prejudice but present it in ways that you can influence and actively makes you think about these issues. This is especially true with Witcher where the morality of these issues isn't always as straightforward as presented in many Final Fantasy games. The themes presented in FFXIII aren't anything particularly special and the way they're presented mean those themes are often lost in passive dialogue. Many films and games cover similar themes and many of those games have engaged me more then FFXIII. |
In my opinion FF takes advantage of the medium "video game". If I simply watch a movie, i am just passively watching it. The video game combines the narrative with interaction, so that I reach a different form of concentration and focus. The difference is that I am not seeing the playable characters as "me in the game" and therefore I do not need to be able to alter the story or have choices, etc.
Most of the times Sidequests are just awful. Especially in WRPGs you have access to 500 sidequests, but in the end they are just the same "go there, kill this, fetch that and return" that offer almost no substantial narrative. The questgiver is just a random npc and after the quest(s) he is unimportant. The sidequests often do not have substantial effects on the world and they are simply there to lenghten the playtime.
Exploration is the next thing. I am not a fan of big landscapes... They often are just a filler and there is often not much to find in these areas. There were some old games that had a high encounter rate where you could get lost easily if you weren't focused. I do not feel that a large Landscape with open space offer something substantial. If the game has random encounters it is simply not important how big the area is, just which underground you stand on (like the overworld maps in early FFs). In games like FF 12 or White Knight Chronicles I also disliked the large areas because it takes so much time to search for everything... and running around is exceptionally funny.
Maybe I see the things a little different now than several years ago. After I have graduated from university and am working 40h I just don't have the time to spend too many hours on a single game. I like games that are focused and that are somehow straightforward. There can be some sort of exploration, sidequests etc. but I do not want it to get too important since they are often just used to lengthen the game.
I just can't say much about Half-Life, since I despise Egoshooter. I do not think that I would like that game a single bit. Deus Ex... I played through the PS2 game and I found it simply boring. Now I got the PS3 Game for free through PS+ and regarding my huge backlog I really question if I should bother with the game. I didn't like the aestethics of the game and these Dystopian und multinational corporations topics are not really interesting for me. I do not think that these game are telling interesting stories. By using your character as a means of immersion you sacrifice a very important thing. A good JRPGs uses the party members to give you different point of views about the underlying moral issue. In that way you get a deeper insight into the topic. Since you often have an opinion about an issue you are somehow "forced" to see the problem from different points of view. That simply leads to more depth...
If I can make choices in the game I will often base them on my opinion and so I can see the game just like I want... But I will not witness a different point of view. In that way I just despise these moral and choice systems in RPGs because they promise to strenghten the game experience while they are actually taking something away for me.
But this are just matters of preference. We should never forget that the US, EU and Japan all have their own cultural backgrounds, storytelling traditions and moral dilemmas. Being from the EU and having grown up with Japanese Game from Square, Capcom and Konami I must say that I still prefer their games form western developers. There are some brillant games like Assassins's Creed 2, Heavy Rain or Heavenly Sword, but most Western games are putting their focus on violence and bloodshedding. In WRPGS you can slaughter civilians in the city... what does this add to the gamea actually?
The cutscenes have a big benefit over the dialogue systems of most WPRGs. The Characters in FF XIII really looked alive. Their animation, their facial expressions... For me they felt human. The dialogue system of WPRGs seems so akward. You have the character on screen and he is moving in an endless pattern. The voice acting doesn't feel real too.
Well, lets end this discussion. We have reached the level of personal taste and we just seem to like different forms of storytelling. I appreciate your point of view, but I lost faith in WPRGs to be immersive for me. I am still unsure what to do with my free copy of Deus EX... I will not renew my PS+ abo and given my backlog of 20 games I think that the year will have passed before I have time to play it.
