R P G A M E R . C O M   -   E D I T O R I A L S

Tease

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Michael "Macstorm" Cunningham
STAFF EDITORIALIST

Hooray, a new character! Yes, you have a new character in your party. Wait a second, maybe you don't really have that character in your party after all. Hmmm, well here is a battle let's see what happens. Ok, this character is playable after all. Wow, that was fun; I can't wait to customize this character. Cool, another battle, time for some new character fun. What? Where did my new character go? Umm, someone give me back my character. What a tease.

You are playing Final Fantasy VI and are quite a few hours into it when you encounter Kefka in Thamasa. Suddenly, you are fighting as General Leo, the honorable general of the Empire. You battle Kefka and seem to win, but then things take a twist and General Leo is killed by the real Kefka. Wow, that was fun, one whole battle as General Leo. What was the point really, just to tease us? I know his death was just part of the plot and that's fine, but why even give us that one battle?

Lunar: Silver Star Story had to tease us as well. Alex returns home with his new extremely overpowered pal Ghaleon in tow. The two of them battle around the island for a while when suddenly Ghaleon has a slight change of heart and doesn't want to be your friend any more. In the case of Leo, I wanted to play as him for longer. In this case, it was just gratuitous giving us a cool, powerful character to play with only to take him away. I would have rather not have played as him at all.

Seifer. There is no better example of a tease than what Final Fantasy VIII did with Seifer. He's in your party for a small handful of battles near the beginning of the game and then gone. We get a cool looking character with an attitude and he's playable? Nope, it was just another tease. Thanks for taking the time to make him playable, all three seconds of it.

Not every character tease is as painful as these others though. In Final Fantasy X, the boss battle in which Seymour joins you has a much better feel to it. I would imagine that most people that fought that battle took the time to work up to Seymour's Overdrive. It felt like less of an afterthought than the others. It is still a tease, because the game gives you a playable character for one battle and then takes him away, but at least you feel like you accomplished something with this battle.

Why tease us? I don't really have a good answer to that, but for the most part I don't like it. I like getting new playable characters, so when I'm given one I really want to play as that character for a while. So, please, if you are not really going to let me have them, don't give them to me at all.