The Consequences of Innovation

by impact24 

The editorial by Lord Bahamut first starts off by the acknowledgement of "anomalies" in the recent Final Fantasy games. Let us then first then analyze exactly what an anomaly is.

The dictionary defines an anomaly as a "deviation from a rule". I then ask, "since when was having heroes without any personal, psychological, physical, etc problems a rule?". Granted, I must admit that there are standards that are recognized in almost every aspect of media, including video games. The present standards seem to dictate that all RPGs must have a main hero, and this hero always has to be stalwart, courageous and be the overall "perfect" guy. Unfortunately, lowering oneself to these standards all the time is actually limiting oneself to mediocrity. When an artist and his concept overcome these barriers of mediocrity, he or she has then "innovated" and thus produced a revolutionary concept. This new concept will then be considered the new "standard", and the cycle will repeat.

I'd like now to state my two principal points. One is, by being "different", one then initiates progress and keeps the genre from becoming stale. The second is that, these "anomalies" in the recent Final Fantasy games are simply deviations from the mediocre to attempt to innovate and revolutionize. You see, Cloud's wussiness, Barret's hard-headedness turned mushiness, and Squall's "screw-the-world" attitude are not "blatant screw-ups", because they are really meant to be part of the game.

Let me give an example that can more or less be analogous to story driven video games, particularly RPGs. Action Comics released the immensely-influential comic book "Superman" in 1938. When Superman was introduced, people were certainly wowed by this idealistic hero who almost had it all - strength, wisdom, intelligience, and -depending on the artist- ...good looking. Superman then spawned a whole array of comic book heroes that were generally all like him in the aspects aforementioned, differing only in their "special powers". What happened next? As decades passed along with these carbon copy personalities saturating the comic book scene, people started to lose interest. A typical fan would tire of the old flawless, problemless, and seemingly immortal hero stereotype.

Then came Spiderman. Stan Lee, the creator of Spiderman was at first discouraged by publishers to create such a different hero. After all, who'd ever heard of a superhero who had problems with his job or wife? A hero with personal problems?? I could imagine the publisher commenting "This...this is flawed and screwed up! What's this?? This Peter Parker guy, feels pressured by his boss, tries to fight badguys, and tries not to make his wife worry by coming home at once?? What a wuss!! A jerk!! Why can't he a bit more heroic and cool like Superman?"

I presume we all know what happened next. As it would turn out, Spiderman would soon eclipse Superman in popularity (until the next innovation would come out that is). The same goes with story driven video games. You can't have characters like are "perfect" and standard all the time. Innovation produced an RPG seemingly without a main character. Revolutionary ideas broke the mediocrity barrier, and produced the psychologially troubled Cloud, and the introvert Squall. However, If one dislikes the concept of implementing such concepts and characters, then it is only a matter of individual taste and I honestly respect that. These however, are NOT "blatant screw-ups" or "problems" by squaresoft. The reason is simply because squaresoft MEANT it to be that way. Saying otherwise would be like saying bad animation is a problem and "blatant screw-up" in South Park. It would be more accurate for translation mistakes and grammar errors to be considered the blatant screw-ups because they weren't MEANT to be that way by the game designers. In this case, I will agree with Lord Bahamut that statements such as "this guy are sick", "spoony bard", and "I got a good feeling" are undoubtedly the real screw-ups.