REBUTTAL TO: The Nostalgia Factor
A good friend of mine had his editorial published online. In the article, he discussed the ever-present rift between “old-school” RPGs and the new age of RPGs. The editorial itself was very well written and in the last few paragraphs, a friendly challenge was laid forth. I am here to answer that challenge.
First, I’ll start with the ‘ancient’, but often considered the golden age of RPGs, the SNES. Truly fantastic RPGs found their way onto these square plastic cartridges and into our homes providing hours of entertainment. Final Fantasy II & Final Fantasy III (IV & VI for some of you), Chrono Trigger, Breath of Fire I & II, Lufia I & II, and those are just to name a few. These games have what Mike, the author of the editorial I’m replying to, calls a “simplistic” storyline, and by everything that’s holy, I agree. They were simple. Move from one town to the next, accomplish some kind of goal, and continue on undaunted like a hero generally does. What often made these games stand out from the crowd and earn the acclaim that they did differed from game to game, but there was always something magical about them. CT had an outstanding combo-battle system, not to mention the engaging time-twisted storyline, FFVI had the huge array of characters to choose from as well as one of the best endings to an RPG a gamer could hope for. The Lufia and BoF series are a personal favorite of mine and I know that some people didn’t like them, but they were both terrific games in their own right (not to mention the music from the Lufia and BoF series is some of my favorite ever). The storylines of these games were fairly straightforward, but there was never a lack of action. Something was always happening. I liked that about those games.
Next on the list is the new age of RPGs that started with the PSX release of FFVII, which I’d been following ever since it was first announced on the Ultra 64 (I used to have the video demo of their battle engine, but it was lost years ago on another computer). For the record, I loved FFVII and FFVIII. VII had a brilliant storyline that rivaled that of the famed Xenogears while VIII had the most interesting set of characters I’d seen in an RPG to date. I have to admit that when I first saw IX, I was skeptical. I played it through to the third disk and, to my chagrin, lost interest in it. I wanted to love that game, I really did, but several things bugged me about the game that I couldn’t get over. The first, and probably the most trivial of them all, was the card game. I was a diehard fan of Triple Triad and Tetra Master was a letdown, but I digress. Where I really had problems with IX was the characters and the storyline, two of the most important elements in a long RPG. The characters were diverse, but they lacked the flavor and personality the cast of VIII had. The game also nearly forced you to use a certain combination of characters to succeed in the game. Vivi and Steiner had to be paired up to do the Magic Sword attacks, which were extremely powerful; you couldn’t live without a White Mage/Summoner so Garnet/Dagger was definitely in your party. Eiko was a possibility, but her summoning and magic skills were too weak to compare to Garnet’s. And then you had Zidane. Why you would take him out of your party I have no idea (and I’m not entirely sure you CAN take him out of your party). But that left two of my favorite classes of characters out to dry with their paltry abilities that used to be some of the best in the series. The Flaming Amarant followed the Ninja class and Freya was a Dragoon. Amarant was a decent enough character, but he didn’t have any combo abilities like Steiner and Vivi did. The same goes with Freya who’s Dragoon magic and Jump skills were drastically underpowered. The storyline was, I admit, catchy, but it didn’t move along with the pace of an exciting RPG and didn’t contain enough mystery and intrigue to make the long wait worth the while. Also, while I wasn’t too thrilled about the ability system in the game, I suppose it could’ve been done worse.
The last game, and probably the one with the most mixed feelings, is Final Fantasy X (I don’t count FFX-2 because it wasn’t as much of a game as it was a cutesy Fan-Service romp through hell). The game itself was outstanding. Battle system was superb, the story through most of the game was gripping and hard to walk away from without withdraws, and the characters were very memorable, most in good ways, and a few in very bad ways. My only true beef with FFX was that later on in the story, everything got a little too… how should I say… dramatized. It went from being a struggle between good and evil into an off-kilter love story struggling with characters that didn’t actually exist and figments of imagination, coupled with the worst ending boss fight ever experienced in an RPG. The whole “dreams of the faith recreating someone dead 1000 years ago to save the world now” didn’t really have the impact of a good storyline, especially when a good portion of the main plot characters were already dead at the start of the story. I could’ve lived with that if the ending didn’t remind me of a Public Service Announcement about not giving up hope and the finale of someone who doesn’t exist grinning at the screen with a look on his face that was enough to incite nightmares. After putting in 80+ hours to create an ultimate team of unstoppable characters to find that the last boss couldn’t kill you off because you had auto-life on you permanently followed by a boring ending, I was disappointed to say the least. But regardless of that, I still enjoyed the game and have played it at least 4 times through.
Personally, I’m letting bygones be bygones and seeing where the next FF game takes the gaming community, but in the meantime I’m eagerly awaiting Xenosaga Episode II and playing Final Fantasy XI. Who knows, I may even try to play IX all the way through this time. But like Mike said, there is a certain something about those old games that is irresistible. I suppose that since I grew up playing them I have a certain inborn affection for the old days where games were made with more quality than quantity. That sounds like a bash on new games, but back in the SNES days, graphics could only take you so far. Those cartridges could only hold so much. Those games didn’t have a 4 cd set for 60+ hours of storyline or FMV sequences to spice up the game, but they still hold their own in greatness in the final scheme of things. This may sound vague and sketchy, but in the end it all boils down to personal opinion. Some people love certain games and make other people want to vomit. An eternal struggle if you ask me, but one that will always inspire healthy debate to open-minded people.
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