SPOILERS FOR: Final Fantasy Tactics Advance
When I finished Final Fantasy Tactics Advance, I thought of the story and
remembered as how it regarded as weak by some people. I personally purely
bought it for the tactics part, but after some thought, the story is not
without merit. There are some philosophical themes and conflict of interest
themes. The story is not as epic as a Xeno game or a regular Final Fantasy,
but it does have a point with some questions raised to the reader.
The cast of characters could be considered one of the most eclectic ever to
grace a game. You might think I’m joking, but let’s look at the characters.
Marche is a normal new kid that gets picked at school. Ritz is a kid that
has white hair and is very embarrassed about it along. Not only that, her
mother’s depression bothers her. Mewt is a short kid that faces hardship at
school and at home. His mother died, causing his father to become a
drunkard. His father is unreliable and unable to keep a job. Doned is
Marche’s brother who cannot walk and stays in a wheelchair for the rest of
his life. Those are the kids from the present. Now, when they enter Ivalice,
they all enter a position of power. Marche, Ritz, and even Doned are leaders
of a clan of their own. Mewt is a prince, and his parents are both alive,
judgemaster and queen of Ivalice. He has servants who care for him. All
those people should see no purpose of going back. For them, this world is
not terrible, in fact it is great. Ritz has her color hair which she always
wanted. Marche is respected. Doned can walk, and Mewt has his mother back.
What more can these kids want? Basically, the point of the story is that
Marche wants to go home and his strife to convince others.
Home? Marche gets picked on, his brother is a cripple, and he is the leader
of the most powerful clan in Ivalice. The bottom line is that Marche
acknowledges that Ivalice is not real. Does it really matter if it is not
real or not? This is very contrary to real life. Addictions are described as
the escape from the real world. Some people flock to Everquest for the
purpose of escaping real life. I would know because I did a term paper on
that, and they avoid the issues that bother them. This world is much better
because they don’t have to return. Things are not going to worse back home,
and to them, how the hell can they get worse? Out of the group that is in
Ivalice, Marche might be the most normal one and he can bear the harassment
to want to go back home. Why does he want to go back home? He didn’t see
Doned until later in the quest. Some would say that they are unaware of the
difference between the illusion and the reality, but then later the group
admits and acknowledges that it is an illusion. The group’s arguing case
would be if you can perceive it with your five senses, is it not reality?
Because Marche suffers the least out of the group, he could be construed as
being selfish for wanting to go home. Why is Marche selfish? His wants
should be met too, no matter how selfish it would seem to us or to other
people. Surely, Marche has no intention of destroying the hopes and
happiness of his friends and brother. He is the only one that truly
acknowledges that Ivalice is an illusion. According to the criteria for
reality list above, Ivalice is as real as the world before them. Because
Mewt, Doned, and Ritz want Ivalice as their home world, they all fight to
protect their home as anybody will do. Mewt is the centerpiece of the story
along with Doned because they are the people who suffer the most. Mewt is
the resistance to Marche’s effort. Doned does try to prevent March from
achieving his goals. They could be understood why they would want to stay.
So what Marche did was wrong? It really depends on the point of view.
Marche wasn’t sure either. He felt that he should go back, but there was
doubts instilled in him at the fifth crystal then he reaffirmed his desire
to go back home. It reminds me of Star Trek’s episode, “The Inner Light”
where Captain Picard gets teleported into a world and he takes the place of
a person. He has no way of getting home and he accepts the world but deep
down inside, he always long to get back. It could be ultimately summed up
into this phrase, “Home is where the heart is!” For Marche, home is back in
the real world. For the rest of the group, home is in Ivalice. It is too bad
that worlds couldn’t compromise; only having one way or the other.
Spoilers of the ending
Marche goes out to complete his task which is to restore the world to its
true self. After destroying the wish giver, Mewt, who was the fiercest
opponent to destroying the world, finally concedes and becomes willing to
return. Before returning, Ritz was told of the beauty of white hair by her
friend Shara and Shara explained why maybe her mother is depressed. So, Ritz
became more proud of her hair, and she has better self esteem for herself.
Mewt’s father got offered a job from his former employee, and he started to
become stable and more of a father figure for Mewt. A friend asked Doned for
help on Final Fantasy Tactics Advance, and he feels involved. Mewt and
Marche still gets picked on, but in the end, they have the last laugh. So
things do get better, but the problem is that how was Marche to reassure
them of this ending (Well for them, it is not an ending) or this fate? How
were they to know that things were going to get better for Mewt and Doned or
rather all of them? Calvin in “Calvin and Hobbes” said, “That’s the amazing
thing about life. It’s never so bad that it can’t get worse!” That is how
Doned and Mewt feel and who can really blame them?
End spoilers
This story along with any other RPG requires some close reading and close
thinking. This story should raise some questions for the players to think
about. If something was so perfect that the real world is terrible, would
you want to go back? What would you do if you wanted to go back, yet other
people doesn’t? How do you meet your needs without harming the opposition
view if they are your friends? What is real or reality? Those questions
might not be obvious to the player as the game format is not very smoothly
organized, but yet these are questions that we should ask ourselves and we
should analyze what the game’s response to those questions. In my opinion,
this story overall could be considered weak, but once the story is broken
down into essential questions, suddenly it becomes interesting, at least for
me.
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