FF7 - Is it just me...

[Words Of Wisdom]

Borkachev said:

Now let's go to literature for a moment. When you ask someone what their favorite book is, they're unlikely to say "Hamlet" or "Macbeth" rather they are far more likely to give a more current author and book title. Why? Because older novels have in many ways lost much of the greatness they once had. Scholars will argue against it that they are still great and still amazing, but you don't find the general public reading them for fun or pleasure anymore. I'd wager most people who have read many books considered to be great literary classics did so in school because it was required.

I don't want to get too deep into this because I don't think it's very relevant and I don't want to get off track. My argument has nothing to do with personal taste, age, or the popularity of works. I'll say this much:

-"Classics" are generally regarded as such for a reason. People's taste in stories changes, but the elements that make a good story are universal. The greatness of a story doesn't fade. Its relevance can fade (as with some satire and social commentary, for instance) but this isn't a given and relevance is independent of "greatness." That reason isn't greatness. It's past popularity. The analogy to movies was to this extent. Many movies that received five stars 10 years ago would likely not receive such today. You also don't define what you consider relevance so it's immaterial.
-Among more educated people, I think you'll find that great literary classics are actually quite frequently cited as favorites. Shakespeare's plays are still the most performed of any productions in the world. Does every person who attends them do so as a school assignment? Among more educated people is an interesting qualifier. I think your definition of it and mine differ greatly.

Now, I countered those points because they bugged me. I'm not sure they have any relevance to this discussion, though. For what it's worth, I don't particularly think that FFVII is a great work of literature. Being a great piece of literature has more to do with the thematic depth of the work, which is somewhere FFVII doesn't really compare to something like Hamlet. (Probably the only game I'd call a great work of literature is FF Tactics). I think FFVII is a good work of literature, up there with anything in the genre -- just not "great." Good and great are both subjective terms so arguing them is worthless anyway.

What FFVII is is a great story. The difference isn't always obvious, but a great story has more to do with having a tightly written narrative, a compelling plot and characters, and an overall high entertainment value. The latter two are hard to prove objectively, so I've been focusing more on the former in this thread. Where FFVII fails most horribly is delivery and you cannot present even a "tightly written narrative" as such without proper delivery.

To put it bluntly, "peoples' taste in literature has changed since the days of Hamlet." Arguing that an obfuscated story is somehow better than a transparent story because authors 400 years ago created some that were very popular is a silly argument. Would you also like to argue that the world is flat? That concept was popular once upon a time too.

My argument had nothing whatsoever to do with the age of the story. I mentioned the 400 years number solely to show how much material there is for discussion in that particular play; it could have been written yesterday and it would be the same. My point was that complex, multilayered stories offer far more "meat" for the reader and, yes, are better for it. I very much disagree that "it could have been written yesterday and it would have the same effect." I would actually argue that the era in which it was born was a keyrole in its popularity. Getting the widespread attention Shakespear received is no longer as feasible as it likely once was.

Now, let's move this discussion away from literature and back to games which is its own unique type of media unto itself. It's much harder to give depth to characters in a game because the player controls them and makes decisions. In order to give depth to characters you must take away player involvement. In RPGs, usually the characters all talk amongst themselves and make decisions independently of the player and, in others, the player is allowed to make decisions every once in a while. In some RPGs, the player faces an obstacle and in others a cutscene occurs and the characters face it. Only seeing the character's personalities when not in control limits the characters' development. Also, the player is unable to see the whole story unfold from all angles as in some cases it would provide an in-game advantage to the player which becomes another limitation of games.

As these limitations add up, you need to compensate for them.

There isn't any fundamental difference between games and other mediums that would change the basic principles of good storytelling. Point by point:

In order to give depth to characters you must take away player involvement.
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Only seeing the character's personalities when not in control limits the characters' development.

To give depth to characters you need to take away player control, but taking away player control limits character development? Aren't these contradictory? And in any case, in every single other medium the audience isn't in control of the characters' development either. Why is it only a problem in games? FF games are all told as a basically linear, scripted, 3rd-person narrative, just like any other medium. They're not contradictory at all. One is the cause of the other. Because you need to take away player control to have the characters express their personalities, the extent to which you can have them express their personalities and still provide the player with the enjoyment of playing the game is limited. The fact that games are the only medium where the audience is in control of the characters and is indeed more than a simple audience is what differenciates games! Remember how I said games were a medium unto itself? There you go. I think your last sentence here also defines what many perceive as a problem with some FF games.

Also, the player is unable to see the whole story unfold from all angles as in some cases it would provide an in-game advantage to the player which becomes another limitation of games.

What cases do you have in mind? Every medium hides some aspects of the plot from the audience as it unfolds, because that's simply good storytelling. The Sixth Sense would be awfully pointless if the truth were revealed from the outset. Games are no more restricted in this way than any other medium. FFVII bounces its perspective around between characters just as any movie or novel would do. (And of course, other novels/movies/etc. use a first-person or limited third-person perspective, which is far more limiting than what FFVII uses. They do it deliberately as a narrative technique, and many of them are better for it). I'm not saying that normal literature does not limit the reader's perspective. I'm saying that video games must limit far more because the player is in control. If the reader knows something the book's characters do not, the story cannot change. If the player knows something that the characters do not, the player can affect the future of the characters to that extent.

As it is, the game spends far too much time simply moving the characters forward and rehashing the past to actually provide a level of depth consistent with the expectations of those who appreciated Final Fantasy VI. It kept trying to give subtle hints by revisiting the past and shoehorning that into the game that is failed to develop the present. Locke of FFVI alone arguably had more character development and personality than practically the entirety of the FFVII cast.

Ah. I didn't want to get into FFVI, but I guess it was inevitable. I'll say this much. When we talk about FFVI's plot against the plot of later games, we're not even talking about the same thing. FFVI was essentially a fairy tale. It was a fun, wacky little yarn that strung some events and some stock characters together to justify the game it was built around. It never attempted nor pretended to be anything more, and I have a feeling the creators would agree. There's nothing wrong with that. But you're comparing My Neighbour Totoro to Akira. That's a nice way of dodging the discussion. Do you think the PS3 is in a different market than the Wii by any chance?

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