FF7 - Is it just me...

[Words Of Wisdom]

Borkachev said:

That reason isn't greatness. It's past popularity.

No, it's greatness. You're arguing that the only reason people are still reading these things is because people in the past enjoyed them? No one reading them today appreciates them? What kind of masochistic society do we live in that we torture ourselves with works of literature we hate just because somebody else apparently liked them once?

There are endless examples of classic works that weren't appreciated in their time, and only gained an audience later. Moby Dick. Most of the writings of Edgar Allen Poe. Hundreds of cult movies that flopped at the box office. All of these were panned and passed over by contemporary audiences at large, and only recognized as works of genius afterward.

I'm arguing two things. The first is that the era many of these were created in allowed them to be more successful than they would have been otherwise. Today there are likely hundreds of thousands of writers and aspiring writers; many with great talent and many without. Compare that to the distant past where not only where there fewer writers but a lower literacy rate. Comparatively it's much harder to gain the same level of noteriety today than it was 400 years ago. The second thing that society is slow to change. Do you really think that in 400 years with millions of writers across generations that no one has written something more interesting than Hamlet or the Scarlet Letter? I would hope you would not (I hate the Scarlet Letter). However, students in schools are still forced to read them and better texts are forgone in favor of older ones. Students are taught in school that these are their literary classics. They go on to become teachers themselves to teach the next generation that these are their literary classics. Society gets into a rut that way.

I personally am tired of these supposed "classics." Toss out Leonardo Da'Vinci and his Mona Lisa and put up a picture made by a graphic artist today that would have made good ole Leo shit his pants in awe. Throw out Hamlet and put something in its place that doesn't use speech patterns and verse centuries past its prime.

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.

This isn't even close to being true. I would be very interested in seeing some evidence, because critics almost universally praise old classics. In fact, they hardly shut up about them. Go take a survey (random sampling) of whether people would rather watch Auntie Mame or Live Free, Die Hard. For reference, imdb ranks Auntie Mame higher than Live Free, Die Hard. Guess what the survey's outcome would be though. The reason it would turn out the way you're thinking I'm thinking is that we're not talking about film buffs and critics here, we're talking about the other 99% of the population.

As for "Relevance," it's the applicability of an artwork's themes and subjects to its audience. To go back to Shakespeare, for instance, many of his plays dealt with things like the role of the monarchy, the issue of bastardy, and the control of women, which are no longer relevant. But his insights into human nature, his poetic dialogue, and his mastery of narrative structure are timeless and contribute to the "greatness" of his works.

Yeeeeah... right. I bet Shakespeare would chuckle today if he saw how people have interpreted his work.

But wait, why am I still debating this? I still have no idea what any of this has to do with this conversation!

You debate because you enjoy it. If you don't enjoy it, stop doing 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.

You're 100% right, but you had to change my quote to make that point. I didn't say "it would have the same effect," I said "it would be the same." By that I mean that the play would be just as good if it were written now, or if it were only read by three people. The change wasn't meant to change the nature of the quote. Sorry about that. I disagree though. I bet Shakespeare couldn't even get Hamlet published today if he submitted it a publisher. We'll never know but it's fun to imagine.

Great works are great regardless of popular opinion (this thread is proof of that). Works become great by hitting the mark first. Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin will always be famous no matter how many come after them. Babe Ruth will always be known as an amazing batter no matter how many break his record. History is full of famous people who succeeded and remained famous despite being bested in their area. They don't remain famous because they are the best but because they rose to top of the pile at an opportune time.

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.

This I can follow, but I don't see how the original quote was saying that. You said that reducing player involvement allows the characters to be given depth, but also limits their development. "Character depth" and "character development" to me are almost synonymous, so that would be contradictory. I've handed you some reading glasses; if you don't want to put them on that's your choice.

But it doesn't matter, if this is what you meant. What I'm more interested in is how you feel this issue applies to FFVII. Do you mean that the game focused too heavily on passive story sequences at the expense of gameplay, or the other way around? The game sacrificed character development time for backstory development.

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.

In theory, maybe. In reality, "interactive storytelling" where the player actually controls the events of the story is still a pipe dream. The furthest we've gotten is "choose your own adventure" type stories where different choices lead to different pre-scripted outcomes. And FFVII doesn't even do that (except in one very limited instance).

Where did I say the player had to control the story's events? The player controls the characters' reactions to the events. Did you regain all your party members in FFVI? Did you save or kill Cid? Did you take the sword of the magicite of Ragnarok? Did you wait for Shadow? Whose path did you choose after the separation of the party in the WoB? In Chrono Trigger did you save Crono? Did you save Frog or let Magus join you? Did you save Lucca's mother? In Baldur's Gate 2, who did you side with Shadow Thieves or Vampires? Did you recruit Drizzt and various others for the assault on Bodhi? Did you help Nalia and free the D'Arnise stronghold of monsters? Did you help Haer Dalis in the alternate dimension? Did free Minsc and Jaheira from their imprisonment? Did you journey with Mazzy Fentan to best the Shadow Dragon? Did you accept assistance from Yoshimo in reaching Athkatla? In Arcanum, did you accept assistance from Virgil and begin the main quest of the game? In Fallout 2, did you save the dog? Did you doom the citizens of Vault City? Did you become a porn star?

There are tons of games with tons of story changing decisions ranging from minor to major.

I think your last sentence here also defines what many perceive as a problem with some FF games.

Fair enough. That's a matter of personal taste. I'm someone who likes cutscene-heavy games, but I can appreciate that not everybody does. Good storytelling, on the other hand, is 80% objective and can be judged as such by anyone who knows how to do it. That's why I won't compromise on what I know about the quality of the story.

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.

I'd like to hear examples of this. As I said above, games are still entirely pre-scripted, just like every other medium. If the player knows something the characters do not, it makes no difference. If you've played FFVII before, you know where you have to go and who's going to die when you get there. But does that change anything? No. If the flag is active, you'll see a cutscene. If it's not, you won't. You have to go back and do things in the proper order before you can progress. Hell, even in a book you can at least skip ahead.

Example 1: I waited for Shadow before exiting the floating continent.

Example 2: I fed Cid the bad fish (Yeah, I'm evil like that).

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?

I don't think I understand what you're implying here.

Anyway, no, I don't think I'm dodging the discussion. I wanted to get my opinion of FFVI out in the open from the start so that anyone who wanted to debate me would know exactly where I stand on it. I can take the next move if you like, by sharing an experience with it:

For years I'd heard about how amazing and wonderful the "FFVI Opera Scene" was. "Best scene in a video game ever," everyone said. When I actually played the game and got to it, it was a laughable disappointment. The music was great and the performance was kind of touching, sure. But it had no point! It was a ridiculous, contrived scene with no relevance to the story as a whole. (Okay now, this general lady is the spitting image of a famous opera singer, and also happens to be a world-class opera singer herself. Oh! And we need you to fill in for her tonight!) Then it's capped off with some dialogue that sounds like something I might have written in a third-grade short story, and you fight a purple talking octopus for some reason, and get an airship. It's a classic nonsense JRPG quest.

And then later she jumps off a cliff and is nursed back to health by... a duck, or something? I forget. Honestly, how did people convince themselves this was a great epic story?

But. I've only played FFVI once, and I'm not as familiar with it as with FFVII. So if someone can sit me down and walk me through what makes it great, I'm willing to change my mind. Eager, even. I'd love to see what others see in it, because to me right now it's pretty much a joke.

Oh, and I also think Xenogears is a convoluted, incompetent mess (with moments of brilliance), FFVIII is a really poorly written soap opera, and FFIX starts out great but falls apart after the first disk. Just in case anybody's in the mood to take offense.

I'm not going to attempt to convince you that FFVI was amazing or brilliant. That's a waste of both our time. However, there's a sequence I really liked in it.

After the world crumbles and becomes the World of Ruin and you've regained the party, you can take a trip to the Veldt and find Gau's father. Realizing who he is, the party takes Gau away, humorously attempts to teach him table manners, find him a decent outfit, and get him "spiffed up" (Sabin's phrase). They dress Gau in a suit and bring him back to see his father. After introducing Gau, the father stubbornly refuses that he has a real child. His recollects abandoning a monster child but that insists it was no real child of his. Then to Gau he says "But you, young man... Your parents must be proud to have such a fine son!" The man begins to talk of the "terrifying monster child" and Sabin gets extremely angry only to be stopped by Gau. Gau then leaves and the party follows. Gau's last words before the end of the sequence were: "Fa-ther...alive...Gau...ha-ppy."

It didn't matter to Gau that his father would never accept that child he abandoned, only that his father was alive. Though, in a strange way, I suppose Gau actually was accepted by his father.

Also, an interesting thing to note that you may not have noticed during your FFVI playthrough is the truth behind the events that led Edgar to remain to take care of Figaro as king while Sabin got to go free and live the life he desired. There are a couple coin flips in the game. One is when Celes bets Setzer to get him to help the party and another is when Edgar bets Sabin for who will become King of Figaro and who will be free. When Celes bets Setzer she uses a double-headed coin to win. What you may not have noticed was that she got the coin from Edgar. Sabin didn't win that coin toss against Edgar by luck, he won because Edgar cared enough about his brother to set him free and shoulder his kingdom's burden himself.


Those are the moments that make FFVI great. They are also the moments that many didn't see in FFVII.