Comparing Apples and Oranges to RPGs

by kris wolfe

Original Editorial: Final Fantasy VII's Grandeur

Well, this is a semi-rebuttal to Mr. Harnest's editorial on the relative greatnesses of FF6 and FF7. It's also a complaint about those types of people, like Mr. Harnest appears to be, who feel they MUST compare all the games they've played and categorize them.

Before I begin: I will freely admit that I bought a playstation because FF7 came out for it. Furthermore I know a lot of people who own playstations who also own this game. I also feel that Mr. Harnest is correct in saying that this is a great game; he is right when he says that hype and graphics alone will not make a game go platinum the way FF7 did. This game really does have something special about it, to make millions of people who don't otherwise play RPGs try it.

However, proving (if you will) in this manner that FF7 is truly a great game, as it not only attracted but KEPT millions of players is one thing; to use this premise as a platform from which to bash FF6 is entirely another.

Mr. Harnest fails to mention the differences between the two games, or to substantiate his points with anything other than sales data and opinion.

For one thing, the reason I, and most of the people I know, bought FF7 and were so excited about it was not graphics or commercials; we had played FF6 and were very excited about a NEW FF game.

But it's more than that. Keep in mind the general public these games were being released on. Pre-PSX, at least where I lived, video games weren't nearly as "cool" as they are now. As a gamer, a person was given less support from society. Even the computer gamers looked down on consoles many times, because you could be playing something with really good graphics and music (at the time) or something which, comparitatively, was pixellated midi-playing kid stuff. So, the amount of people playing video games at the time was a lot smaller. There are MANY people out there whose first console video game system was a PSX (or maybe another 64-bit platform like the N64, but the playstation did much better in general sales). These new people were not looking for genres; they were just searching for something fun to play. FF7 proclaimed in its ads that it was everything a gamer could want -- a great story, great graphics and music, lots of action (it was hyped as an "adventure game" after all), nothing you had to be overly gifted to play, and all sorts of things. To the person who's never really played many console games, who isn't aware of the competing genres, how is this game so much different from other games? They didn't see it as an RPG; they saw it as a "video game" and would see most games from the same perspective, unless they were fairly obviously part of a specific genre (sports, driving, and fighting games come to mind).

The advertising blitz combined with word of mouth and high reviews in game magazines and such attracted the players; the game itself, as Mr. Harnest says, is what kept these players.

Now back to FF6: not only did it have to sell to a smaller base of video game players (fewer gamers in total, and people as I recall were much more divided over Genesis/SNES than they are over PSX/N64, especially in the RPG arena), but it didn't have much advertising beyond the usual magazine ads. We as RPGamers are enamoured of the graphics and sound when comparing this game to its peers, but honestly the SNES has produced games that look, on the surface, better. Consider Donkey Kong Country or some of the other action games and such at the time. Full-size semi-realistic looking people in Mortal Kombat, fairly smooth pixels in DKC... compared to crowded, pixelly backdrops and tiny sprites? Not only that, but FF6 didn't tell people it was an 'exciting adventure'; it promised them more FF-style fun. People who hadn't played previous FF's or who didn't particularly like the other RPGs out on the market at the time might not have wanted to try it; and, as now, many game players were new to gaming at that time, also (I know I came out of the SNES generation, though I did get a NES). Why would anyone in their right mind try a game that, compared to other games of its time, only looked about average in pictures, and cost $80? Oh yes: I forgot to mention that aside from having little advertising, FF6 also cost about $20 more than other games? Is that the sort of game you randomly pick up to try in the store? Especially when it would appear to the non-game player that Mortal Kombat had better graphics? When you don't know anything at all about a game you have to judge it based on what it says on the box, and FF6's exciting menu-based action and flat-looking world map certainly didn't inspire me. I bought it because I was a big fan of Shining Force, the game boy Final Fantasies (which I found out later weren't Final Fantasy games at all) and Secret of Mana, and I read a few good things about it in a magazine, which at the time were my only source of info. The magazine said it was from the Secret of Mana people. Of course I got it. In terms of real Final Fantasy, I had never played FF4 and honestly if I had, I wonder if I would have gotten 6, considering that I later have found 4 to not interest me nearly as much? $80 is a lot of money when you're a kid.

Of course I'm glad I did get it. Anyone who plays FF6 for an hour will probably want to continue playing; but many people didn't get the chance. Lacking the giant ad campaign of FF7, fewer people who weren't RPGamers tried FF6 at all; in addition, FF7 boasts pretty graphics, a motorcycle game, a snowboarding game, sexy girls, and so on; these things can attract and hold a wider audience. FF6 didn't have much to attract an initial audience of non-RPGamers; combine that with its high price and, to the non-RPGamer, its weird, tiny, flat graphics, and you've got something that isn't going to fly off the shelves to people who aren't genre enthusiasts. The PSX, with its superior graphics and additional storage space, was a system that let RPGs finally look and feel as "good" as other kinds of games, without losing the necessary parts of an RPG (ie, piles of text, a world that surrounds and is generally larger than the player who is a fairly small part of the screen (especially when the system can't handle 3D), lots of characters and items and monsters, lots of music).

All the gamers I know are RPGamers. I managed to meet the correct crowd, I guess. They all owned FF6 and later, FF7, and I have never heard anyone compare them. In fact, until I discovered this website about two years ago, I'd never heard anyone compare them. You can't say one game is better based on sales, especially when the greater sales went to the game that ON THE SURFACE had more of a draw to the average consumer, and which also had the much more widely owned console system. Throw in that the "winning" game also cost less, was selling to a generally older market with more money, and had a ton of advertising to bolster it's already above-average "on the shelf" look, and of course that game will win a contest of sales.

And when we drop the sales aspect of this contest between FF6 and FF7... well... when you come right down to it, you cannot compare two games. It's especially unfair when one of them is for a technically superior console. You may like one of them more than the other, but how can you say one story is grander than the other or that this or that was better or worse? You're now speaking of your personal opinion. Since everyone else has their own personal opinion, it's pretty pointless to spout your opinion as the truth. Really, all you can do with games is say that either you liked a game, or you didn't like it. To compare it with a game you love and then say it doesn't measure up isn't going to prove anything, except that you happen to like one game more. You won't convince anyone who doesn't already agree with you, and you'll just make people mad who hold opposing opinions.

When I review a game, I often say how much I liked it, and what other games I'd say it has similarities to. If I didn't like it I'd say so and if possible, say what I didn't like about it, and maybe point out what other games I don't like and if it was similar to them. You as a reader can decide if you like the same games I do, or dislike the same games I do, and then put my opinion into perspective regarding how you feel about those games. Perhaps if I absolutely hate two games for the same reasons, and you know you love one of those games, you'll decide that you'd probably like the other one as well.

An RPG is something that is hard to compare to another RPG. Each one has its own strengths and weaknesses; as people here are constantly extolling others to do, rather than spend all of your time comparing every game you play to a game you know you like, just playing the game for its own worth is good enough. For example, I love Terranigma, a fine action RPG indeed in my eyes. But I also like the game Wild ARMs, and the game Chrono Trigger. Furthermore, I love FF6 and I also love FFTactics! And Secret of Mana will always have a special place in my heart. So will Lunar and Shining Force. And FF7 is what made me buy a playstation, and I'm fairly fond of Vincent. I adore all of these games and I've never felt a need to put them in order. One doesn't have to be better than another. If you asked me to put them in order, I would be hard pressed to do so.

And then there are other games which don't have the dubious honor of being in my "favorites" circle. Take, for instance, the action-RPG "The Adventures of Spike McFang", which came out near the end of the SNES. Do I personally feel this game is as good as other action-RPGs I love, like Terranigma or Secret of Mana? No way! But did I have fun playing it? Sure. It isn't a favorite game of mine, but I had a good time playing it and I didn't spend the whole time I played saying, "If this were more like Secret of Mana, this would be a better game," or "If this had gameplay more like Terranigma's, I would be having more fun." I don't feel that I wasted my time playing it, and playing it hasn't adversely affected my life in any way.

As people are always saying, take each game as it is. Why do you need to put them in some kind of order? You'll destroy your own fun if you sit there playing a game and keep wishing it were FF7, or Xenogears, or something. And you'll destroy the fun of other people if you keep harping at them about how the game they're playing isn't as good as FF7 or whatever. Not only are you trying to force your opinion on them, but let's say they love FF7 a lot too. So what if the game they're playing isn't as good as FF7? That doesn't mean it's BAD. It doesn't mean it's not fun or that it's going to make their life worse in some way. It is entirely possible for something to not be #1 and still be good. Trying to put the things you love in order is like trying to put all of your friends and loved ones in descending order of being liked. It won't make anyone happy, least of all you, and in the end what do you have? An orderly list of things you like, but instead of enjoying each one for what it is, you'll only think of where it is on your list, and you'll be constantly comparing it to the other things, wondering if you've put it in the correct place. It's not fun anymore.

Of course, if you play games for reasons other than having fun, the things I say here certainly don't apply.

Comments or ridicule? Feel free to e-mail me at krswolfe@inav.net BTW, I just saw "Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind" (subbed, not the Screamline hack) this afternoon at club, and it was SO GOOD. I cried a lot.