Character Development as a Main Priority

by Daniel Hamamura 

Ever since the first Final Fantasy game, I was hooked on RPGs. Often times, I was told that I was foolish for liking games which took so much patience, or so much time. Often times I was chided for liking games with average or sub-par graphics or such slow game play. But through it all, there was one major reason why I kept on playing.

The character development in such games as Final Fantasy IV (II) and Final Fantasy VI (III) is the most significant reason why these games were loved by so many. Sure, the storylines were great, but the character development enhanced the stories further, making them come to life. The battles were exciting, but it was the individual characters and their individual skills which made it so. I laughed along with the jokes my characters made, cried when one of them passed away, and celebrated with them when, at long last, our journey together had been complete. Because of excellent character development, I wasn't just the one controlling them, I was one of them, taking the journey that all my characters did.

When Final Fantasy VII came along, I was excited, I was amazed, but I was disappointed. The game was excellent. The story, pretty good. The graphics, amazing. The characters, shallow. The characters were not as well designed as those in the two previous Final Fantasy games, and so, instead of adding to the game in every conceivable way, the character development (or lack thereof, in this case) instead detracted from the experience.

Now most people at this point would probably think I'm bashing Final Fantasy VII. That's not the case at all. It was an excellent game in it's own right, and worthy of the franchise name. However, I never got as attached to the characters as I did in the earlier games. I recently replayed my old FFII and FFIII games on the SNES, and guess what? I still grieved for lost characters, laughed with the humor, and celebrated the endings. With FFVII, I was never able to get as attached to my characters.

Game companies (I mean everyone, not just Squaresoft) can and will put as much eye-candy into their next-generation RPGs as they possibly can, to make them all the more appealing to the average gamer. However, for me, I'd trade all of that in for one more game with such well-developed characters as Cecil, Rydia, Palom and Porom (FFII), or Cyan, Edgar, Celes and the unforgettable Mog (FFIII).