Rebuttal to "Nostalgia"

by Tomm Hulett

Hi there. I'm as tired of long rebuttals that say nothing as the next guy, so I'll try to keep this brief. Back in the SquareNet days when I wrote these things, I prided myself of logic--so let's see how I fare. In short, Joshua Rodriguez' editoral of March 5th made some brash, untrue statements that set me off. So I'm going to explain why those statements are false, and then let you all go home happy. That is all.

Now, Mr. Rodriguez--and all you other writers out there, a brief message to begin. When/if you take a college course in public speaking, you'll learn that arguments have several elements. Probably among the top-two most important elements is "credibility". It's an easy thing to establish. It's basically how the audience (in this case, the reader) percieves your knowledge/authority on the subject.

"Nostaligia" did several things to completely obliterate the author's authority. The first of which is noting that he has never played the RPG to which sparked his editorial. He up-front admits that he doesn't know if he'd like Final Fantasy 8--but then lists off things that are missing from it that can only be found in oldschool games. This is akin to giving a speech on a book which you haven't read.

"...Very few games have used the technology available to tell a story as well as Phantasy Star did."

Final Fantasy 8 does. FF8 is graphically amazing, uses different camera angles, and shifts into FMV for key parts that need to express emotion. These are the exact things you loved about Phantasy Star--except on a higher-end system.

"...For most of the first half of the game, you played without a male character in your party. No other game has ever done this. Phantasy Star showcased a woman, showing that they were not weak things that existed only to be used by men. The rest of the series lived up to this mark."

Metroid and Tomb Raider only use female characters. Did you mean RPGs? In Final Fantasy 6 you start off as a female. In Japan, "Ladystalker" (from the Alundra folks) is a female-only action/RPG. As far as "strong females who don't let men get them down", Lunar, Lufia, Final Fantasy , and many other RPGs feature strong females. And no other game in the Phantasy Star series starts off with just a female lead--so I have no idea where you see "the rest of the series lived up to this mark".

"They showed me Alys's tortured face as she lay dying of the Black Energy Wave very subtly, since the audiance was smart enough to not have to be ******* on the head with a 2x4 to realize that something important was going on."

I'm having trouble filling that blank with profanity, but that's beside the point. FMV shows facial expressions very subtly as well. Also, Final Fantasy (pre-7) didn't have cinema scenes of any nature, so does that mean their audiences were more intelligent than Phantasy Star's "we need artwork" gamers? I don't think so...but your logic leads in that direction.

"These were some of the games that made us love RPGs, that made us RPGamers, but now their kind is sadly dying away."

I'll admit, I've loved RPGs ever since Dragon Warrior (hell if I know why, though). I'm just as 'old school' as anyone could ever claim to be. But games like FF7, 8, etc are the games which remind me why I love this genre. They take things to such a realistic level than they can tell stories in a cinematic fashion. Because of their length, however, their themes and messages can be as deep and convoluted as the finest novel. Things change and progress--this is a fact of life. People who share Mr Rodriguez' viewpoint would be wise to realize this...nothing is going to stay the same. If RPGs had remained like Phantasy Star--low graphics and simple (but involving) gameplay--they would no longer exist and we would have nothing to play. This is the fact of marketing. You can have mass marketed titles or you can have no titles--take your pick. In the meantime, I suggest you try Lunar (my personal favorite RPG)--I think you'll like it.

Original Editorial: Nostalgia: What's Happened to our RPGs?