Final Fantasy Type-0: A Story Retrospective, Part I - The First Opening Cinematic

[If you're wondering what this blog post series is about, read the introduction.  This article only talks about the game's opening; therefore I don't consider any of its contents to be spoilers.]

I long assumed Final Fantasy Type-0 to be a game that I'd never play.  Released in Japan for the PSP back in 2009, it was never announced for release in the West.  And that was okay, since I half-suspected the game to be a third-rate cash grab.

That all changed when I saw the opening cinematic.

Thereafter it became the game I had to play someday, the game I might even learn Japanese for.  Thankfully, Square decided to release it in the West after all, and I was spared a flashback to the humiliations of my high school language classes.


The Opening

I'm going to narrate my impressions of the opening cinematic below.

 

00:00 - 01:54: Okay, this part is definitely skippable.  It lays the foundations of the world of Final Fantasy Type-0, but does so by using incomprehensible words while barraging us with bizarre names - not a good recipe for understanding.  That's okay; it's not the game's world-building that impresses me.

I will say that melding each of the four nation's symbolic animals with their flags is very cool.

01:55 - 02:42: This narration is much better.  It clearly establishes the key conflict of the story - the Militesi Empire's invasion of the Kingdom of Rubrum - and zooms in on a specific event - a sneak attack on Rubrum's capital.  So much less confusing than what came before!

The documentary affectations - the naming of specific dates, the newsreel filter applied over the cinematic, the dispassionate voice of the narrator - also lend the cinematic an interesting ambience.  It gives the audience some distance from the proceedings, while simultaneously giving the event the weight of history.

Incidentally I think that this initial 'distance' is an important narrative trick, one that helps enhance the theme of the game.

02:43 - 03:21: The neutral narration continues as the violence begins.  We have the faceless troopers of the invading Milites against magic-wielding teenagers and their powerful summons.  In the real world this result in horrific tragedy; in a video game, sure, it's fine.  The plucky kids and their magic always win.

03:22 - 03:35: Okay, maybe the kids will suffer a minor setback, but...

03:36 - 03:37: !!

03:38 - 04:32: This slaughter is one of the most horrifying scenes I've witnessed in a video game.  It's bloody and unrelenting and cruel and unfair.  Sword-wielding cadets are gunned down; the wounded are executed; cries for mercy are unheeded.  And in the background the narrator continues his unrelenting catalog of events, refusing to judge what the audience is seeing as if to say, This is simply what happened; this is just the way the world is.

04:33 - 04:43: I think a scene like this - a prayer to forces unknown and unseen -  can only work if the audience feels the desperation behind it.  And all I can say is that it worked for me.

04:44 - 04:49: The music turns, promising that not all hope is lost.  The narration disappears, not to be heard again for the rest of the cinematic.  The audience is drawn closer to whatever happens next.

04:50 - 05:03: This part of the cinematic is witnessed through the invaders eyes.  This shift invites the audience to understand, and maybe even empathize, with the fear of the Militesi soldiers as a mysterious blade plunges out of the heavens and into their midst.  And it reminds the audience that the powers being wielded here are not only wondrous; they're terrifying as well.

05:04 - 05:13: It's okay if you don't think this part is cool.  If you don't, show it to some children, watch their faces, and maybe you'll remember what it's like to live in a world of wonders.

05:14 - 05:47: Do we immediately identify with this stranger?  I think we do.  Why?  Because the cinematic thus far has been cleverly designed to push the audience to a point where they're aching to find someone with the power to destroy the Militesi invaders.  And because of that...

05:48 - 06:02: ... his words, which can reasonably be said to be laughably devoid of meaning, instead become imbued with an almost mystical weight...

06:03 - 06:22: ... and the final reveal of Class Zero becomes an iconic "F-ck yeah!" moment rather than a "Why the hell are they posing on a battlefield?" moment.


This opening cinematic ends on an incredibly heroic note.  The next cinematic, which plays once you actually start the game...

Selling Your Soul for Nothing

I can be a bit of a snob (I can hear my friends gasping: nooooo), and one thing that I'm snobby about is audio books.  I can't help but think: books are meant to be read, not listened to!  This despite the fact that many people I respect enjoy audio books.

Recently I was faced with driving to Atlantic City, a drive that takes six hours either way.  I had made a similar commute a few weeks ago, and the monotony of the road was a hard beast to face - by the end I was slapping myself in the face to keep awake.

So I decided to bite the bullet: a few days before my trip, I swallowed by pride, went to the library and checked out some audio books.  Was I a bit ashamed?  You bet!  Why?  Because I'm a snob!

And in the end it was all for naught: it turns out that the CD player in my car is just a facade.  There's a labelled opening on the dashboard, but after spending ten minutes trying to jam a disc in, I discovered that it's pure metal underneath.

I slapped myself all the way to Atlantic City and back :(

Too Many Cooks

It turns out I may have something against cooks.

Let me back up a bit: a few months ago, my daughter decided that it was time to switch up our car adventures; we would now be ninjas.  Tragic ones, of course (I had told her a heavily, heavily, HEAVILY edited version of the anime Basilisk).

We picked different powers.  I had 'whisper powers', used to disorient foes and communicate long distances.  She could, uh, cut herself and create blood constructs (like dragons, or dragons, or... actually, her constructs were always dragons).  We belonged to different clans, and due to events of a suspicious nature, our clans fought each other to near extinction.

Of course a third party was involved, and as the last surviving members of our clan, it was our duty to hunt down those responsible and terminate them.  In order to do so we had to destroy four competing ninja clans: a wind clan, a water clan, an earth clan, and a fire clan.

We started with the water clan, whose stronghold was located within the hollows of twin rocks jutting out of the sea.  Carefully swimming to the entrance (which was located near the bottom of the ocean), we made our way up to the peak of the rock... only to have an alarm sound.

With little options, we ducked into a nearby room.  This was the kitchen.  There was a ninja cook inside.  And my daughter TOOK CARE OF BUSINESS ("you know what that means," she said).

After we finished off the water clan, we started hunting the earth clan.  They were located, well, below the earth.  So even though we knew the general location of their hideout, it was impossible to find the way in... that is, until we thought to survey the skies on the back of her, uh, blood dragon.  From there we were able to spot a thin plume of smoke seeping out of the ground.  It was a tiny chimney, one that we used to gain entrance through the use of explosives, and once the hole was big enough we jumped into a kitchen, only to have...

"Wait," my daughter interrupted.  "Are we fighting another ninja cook?"

"Oh.  Uh.  Yes.  Yes, we are."

"Do you not like cooks or something?"

"I like them fine!  It's just that..."  I trailed off, unable to give a satisfactory answer as to why we kept murdering ninja cooks, and the next day we switched to a different game.

I still don't know why my mind kept getting drawn to ninja cooks.  I can say that creating adventures on the fly in the car is a situation that does not always lend itself to inspired creativity.  Either that, or I really do have something against cooks.

Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII: A Story Retrospective

[If you're wondering what this blog post series is about, read the introduction.  The first section of this article deals with the opening of the game; the second is marked as containing spoilers for the rest of the game.]

Final Fantasy XIII-2 was surprisingly excellent, considering how much I disliked Final Fantasy XIII.  Another surprise was realizing just how much I wanted to enjoy Final Fantasy games, like a jilted lover who secretly desires a reunion.

Which is all to say that I was fully back on board the Final Fantasy fan-train by the time Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII was announced.  Sure, there were reasons for trepidation, the biggest being that the game featured, well, Lightning, and seemed more like a direct continuation of Final Fantasy XIII rather than Final Fantasy XIII-2.

Still, as I said - I wanted to enjoy the Final Fantasy series, and thus found it very easy to ignore my misgivings.  And thus I ensured that Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII was in my hands on the very day it was released.


The Opening

It's true that the opening cinematic has its flaws.

 

Like the other games in the Final Fantasy XIII series, it doesn't provide much explanation about what's going on.  Lightning was last seen frozen in crystal; Snow has seemingly changed from a good-natured brawler to a cynical gang boss; there's no sign of Noel or Serah from Final Fantasy XIII-2; and who the hell is Lumina?

That being said, my confusion wasn't as thorough as when I sat through the beginning of Final Fantasy XIII.  Why?  One simple reason: this is clearly Lightning's story.  Having a character to follow is reassuring to the audience, engendering confidence that a guide that will lead us through the twists of plot up ahead.

Is it ideal that I came out of this opening in a state of befuddled optimism?  Probably not, but there are worse feelings to endure.


The Rest of the Story


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The basic story of Lightning Returns is this: far off in the future the earth is dying.  Lightning is contracted by the god Bhunivelze to "save" human souls so that they can be used to re-populate a new world.  And so Lightning travels from place to place, solving problems and setting minds at ease so that they're in the proper state for this upcoming transcendence.

In this manner Lightning encounters former friends and allies - Snow, Noel, Sazh, Vanille, and Fang - and returns hope into their lives.  Just as in Final Fantasy XIII-2, this journey has the feel of a series of inter-connected short stories, and it's just as welcome here as it was there.

There is some disappointment, however; the true ending of Final Fantasy XIII-2 revealed that every event in the game was carefully manipulated by Caius, setting him up to be a grandmaster villain.  Lightning Returns shows him as just another patsy, and even though he maintains his arrogance, he somehow seems lesser because of it.

Fortunately, the true villain of Lightning Returns is a worthy one.

The events of Lightning Returns causes Lightning to realize just how much of mankind's history is manipulated by Bhunivelze, god of light and existence.  And in the re-making of the world, she sees an opportunity to free all of humanity from the gods' terrible influence.

The conversation before their final fight does an excellent job of portraying both of their points of view.


Bhunivelze isn't a traditional villain; he sees himself as a shepherd with mankind as his sheep.  He knows what's best for us, and the idea of being opposed is literally incomprehensible to him.  His attitude as Lightning rants and spews threats is that of parental indulgence, willing to bear miniscule abuse with the understanding that all will ultimately bow to his will.

This attitude is carried through in a final battle which is truly awe-inspiring in nature and scope.


Some highlights include:

• 4:20: Bhunivelze ascends to the skies in truly bizarre fashion, allowing the audience to see just how truly connected he is with the world.  And what does he do?  His attack is called "Genethiliac Hymn": he is literally weaving a star with his hands, all so that he can drop it upon your head.
• 6:30: "Resist no more. Come to your god. A new goddess is born!"  There is true joy in his voice; Lightning has passed his trials and now, surely, she must accept her place in his pantheon.
• 10:55: His will defied, Bhunivelze warps the fabric of reality to destroy the impertinent.

I don't usually talk about gameplay here, but I will say this: this was a hard boss fight.  Hard, but somehow not unfair, not even when I initially got utterly destroyed in the first of the four stages.  Gradually improving try after try tells a story of its own; the difficulty of the battle was key in conveying the understanding that this was the confrontation to end all confrontations.

 Lightning Returns is not a perfect game, but I enjoyed it nonetheless.  Its story is direct and, at its heart, uncomplicated, allowing the writers to crescendo to an impressive finish with the minimum of needless distraction.  Does it redeem the Final Fantasy XIII series as a whole?  Who knows, but in the end, I'll endure a bum game like Final Fantasy XIII if that's the cost for games like Final Fantasy XIII-2 and Lightning Returns.

What's in the Box? (A Silent Hill Appreciation)

I read a gaming article recently that made me incredibly depressed: Silent Hills is cancelled.  The game had been surreptitiously announced through an anonymous game demo simply titled 'P.T.'.  And with the cancellation of the game, the demo was now due to be yanked from all distribution channels.

So I did what I suspect many other video game aficionados did as well: I ran downstairs, booted up my PS4, and downloaded the demo before it disappeared.  And now it sits on my console's hard drive, very likely to never be played.

Why?  Simply put: Silent Hill games are really f-cking scary.

We're not talking jump scares or zombie hordes; Silent Hill is nothing like Resident Evil.  Silent Hill is... well... check out the trailer for Silent Hill 4.



The other day I found myself trying to explain to my daughter what makes Silent Hill so scary (in very, very vague terms).  "Okay," I said.  "Silent Hill is a game where there's two worlds.  One is the normal world, just covered in fog.  Lots and lots of fog.  And the other world is this kind of ruined hellscape, where the ground is replaced by rusted grates and everything is broken and falling apart."

"Now, your character goes from one world to the other throughout the game.  And at one point, he comes to a locker which starts rattling from the inside.  And when you get open it... a cat jumps out.  It's just a cat."

"Then you return to the same place in the other world.  The locker starts rattling.  You get close, you open it, and this time..."


"... there's nothing."  (And yes, I left out any and all additional details about the trail of blood, etc.)

I'm not sure my daughter quite understood what I was getting at, but here it is: there's a lot of different ways to scare a person.  One way is a cheap jump scare: a zombie lurching out of the bushes or a killer bursting out of the closet.  It can be effective, but it can also be forgettable: it's a temporary moment of surprise.

Another way is to build tension: say, a long walk through a dark forest infested with beasts unknown.  The 'unknown' is pretty key here: put in such a moment, the mind will naturally assume that there's something bad lurking out there.  And with each passing moment, as the rustles quicken and the shadows grow longer, the mind will betray you and imagine something worse and worse.

At that point, the moment of revelation becomes a relief: you see the monster, and it's terrible, but at least you know what it is and what you have to deal with.  At least now you know you have to run.

But what happens if you take away that reveal?  What happens if you leave the audience with suspended dread?

Let me tell you.  I played the very first Silent Hill at a friend's dorm room while he was at class.  When he came back, all the lights were on, all the doors were wide open, and I was in a state of desperate terror.  I was scared of continuing on in the game, but I was more scared of not finishing it and leaving the story forever unresolved.  I was clutching the controller, huddled into myself as I fought to complete the game, and when my friend spoke to me I screamed.

Final Fantasy XIII-2: A Story Retrospective

[If you're wondering what this blog post series is about, read the introduction.  The first section of this article deals with the opening of the game; the second is marked as containing spoilers for the rest of the game.]

I rolled my eyes when Final Fantasy XIII-2 was announced.  Final Fantasy XIII had disappointed any desire to play another game in the series right out of me.  I was done with Final Fantasy.

Every incidental tidbit I learned about Final Fantasy XIII-2 confirmed my judgement.  The game featured Serah, Lightning's annoying and underdeveloped sister.  A moogle with a cartoon design and an annoyingly squeaky voice played an important role.  And the story had very little to do with Final Fantasy XIII, which probably meant that the writers were pulling strands of plot out of their... well, you know.

The release date for Final Fantasy XIII-2 came and went.  I ignored it.  Life continued on, and...

... and a year or two later, I quit World of Warcraft and was immediately bored.  Looking for something to do, I checked out the review for Final Fantasy XIII-2 and discovered that... they were not terrible.  Cautiously interested, I went to the local video game store and learned that the game was now heavily discounted.

All right then!  Why not.  Why not...


The Opening


The opening cinematic did not reassure me that my purchase was a good one.

 

The biggest issue with this opening?  We're supposedly continuing the story of Final Fantasy XIII, and yet this cinematic appears to take us completely away from that plot and throw us in media res into a new one.  That mismatch of expectations is disorienting, to say the least.

On the flip side?  This opening does an admirable job of focusing attention on the primary antagonist of the game, Caius Ballad.  His recognizable humanity, shown by the contrast between his tenderness as he lets Yeul go and his fury as he battles Lightning, is intriguing.  It hints at a story that is very personal in nature, and I think those are the stories that audiences respond to the strongest.


The Rest of the Story


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Here's two ways to describe the story of Final Fantasy XIII-2:

• All of existence is threatened by a megalomaniacal villain who seeks to crack time itself by traveling back into the past and creating paradoxes.
• Inadvertently punished with immortality, our villain is forced to watch his love continually die and be reborn with no hope for her to find peace.  Driven nearly mad over eons of this cycle, he seeks to end this curse the only way he knows how.

Both are apt descriptions of the game, but I'm willing to bet that you find the second one more involving.  I certainly did.  And fortunately Final Fantasy XIII-2 doesn't make the mistake of losing focus of the latter in pursuit of the former.

What results is - simply put - incredible, a grand tale with epic sweep that never loses sight of the personal stakes involved.  It begins when Noel journeys back from the far future when he and Caius are the only humans left alive.  Foregoing his friendship with Caius, Noel joins Serah in a mad pursuit through time in an effort to fix the paradoxes that Caius has been instigating.

This quest device is interesting, as it essentially turns the game into a linked collection of short stories.  These smaller stories vary in tone, from saving a city from an invasion of demons to finding an extinct flower to place on the grave of a grieving father's child.  Each feels properly sized, with none overstaying their welcome.  And as Serah and Noel travel from time to time, they learn a bit more about the doomed history of Caius and Yeul.

A brief word about our heroes: they were nowhere near as annoying as I feared they might be.  Why not?  Simply put: because they're not whiners.  Serah and Noel and Caius all have clear purposes from which they do not deviate (which two exceptions, but these are presented as self-contained mini-stories with clear boundaries from the greater tale), and this clarity is extremely welcome.  If an audience is waiting for a climax where two trains to crash together, why slow their velocity with swerves that question whether the collision will happen at all?  Isn't it better to constantly increase their momentum?

And that final collision is grand indeed.  Here's the video; it spans the entire fight, so I'll talk about individual sections below.

00:00 - 13:30: Caius comes to destroy mankind's final hope in stabilizing time.  There's much here that will make no sense unless you've played the game, but what's neat is how various supporting characters are brought back to play a role in the finale.  It's always neat to have individual threads from the long story woven back together in the end.

13:31 - 15:49: A final confrontation between Noel and Caius.  Here Caius's controlled and calculating demeanor finally breaks, revealing the eons of pent up rage that drives his actions.  And here is when I realized the most incredible thing: I actually sympathized with Caius.  If I felt like the person I loved the most was cursed to suffer for a literal eternity, I think I might do everything in my power to free that person too.

The moment when Noel turns Caius's assumptions around is also chilling.

15:50 - 17:05: Lightning brings Noel and Serah back from the dead or something.  Okay, this part still makes no sense to me, but oddly enough - I don't mind.  Why?  Because I wanted Noel and Serah to come back and face Caius one final time.  If a story responds to the audience's desires, I think the audience will be more than willing to overlook any plot holes or other bits of nonsense.

17:06 - 25:35: The final boss fight against not one not two but three dragons!  This is a flippant comment, but in truth I was intimidated like hell when I realized what I'd have to face.  And the music that plays when the fight starts in earnest is still my favorite boss theme - dark, discordant, and full of rising power.

Note the little details as well: the red dragon fights with physical attacks, and when he appears he slams his claws against the platform.  The yellow dragons fights with magic, and he crosses his hands over his chest.  Minor details, sure, but I have much respect for the thought process that goes behind making everything just right.

25:36 - 29:25: The finale, where assumptions are turned on their heads as Caius begs Noel to kill him, and Noel refuses.  The words spoken are (generally) lean and to the point, without the overwrought excess that can sometimes haunt a story.  And Caius's final act... wow.

29:26 - 33:53: And I usually pretend the rest of the ending doesn't exist, as it goes full circle back to the opening cinematic - but only in the sense that it's disconnected from the rest of the story.  Oh well, nothing's perfect.


So, just in case you can't tell, let me say this unequivocally: I loved Final Fantasy XIII-2.  In some ways I think the game was helped by the negative reaction to Final Fantasy XIII, as it allowed the creators to forge something new for the series.  Its biggest flaw?  The cliffhanger ending that clearly indicates another sequel.  But that doesn't detract from the essentially self-contained story of the game.

And with my exceedingly positive reaction to Final Fantasy XIII-2, I found myself thinking: maybe a third game wouldn't be so bad after all...

Final Fantasy XIII: A Story Retrospective

[If you're wondering what this blog post series is about, read the introduction.  The first section of this article deals with the opening of the game; the second is marked as containing spoilers for the rest of the game.]

I had my doubts about Final Fantasy XIII.  Final Fantasy XII had appealed to me tremendously with its realistically-motivated characters and politics-driven storyline.  From what I read about Final Fantasy XIII, the game was a deliberate step away from all of that.

Early trailers deepened my concerns.  The main character, Lightning, felt like she was created to reflect Cloud and Squall, the moody and angst-ridden protagonists of Final Fantasy VII and VIII.  Combat was overly frenetic and busy, spectacle for the sake of being spectacle.  Environments looked like they were designed to show off the power of the PlayStation 3, and not for the sake of supporting the game itself.

Still, my enjoyment of Final Fantasy XII made me want to give the series the benefit of the doubt.  And that's just what I did.


The Opening

It's easiest for me to talk about Final Fantasy XIII's opening by contrasting it with other Final Fantasy openings (skip to 2:45 to bypass the introductory credits).

 

• Final Fantasy VIII's opening had its own flaws, but one thing it did capture well was the notion that the conflicts had highly personal elements: Squall against Seifer, Rinoa against Edea.  Without that personalization, the story has as much drama as a little kid kicking over action figures - which is what the fighting in Final Fantasy XIII's opening feels like.
• Final Fantasy IV's opening had Cecil troubled by his actions in forcibly taking the Crystal from the Mysidians.  This inner conflict gave Cecil dimensionality, something noticeably absent from the cinematic above.
• Final Fantasy XII's opening managed to neatly tell a complete story of its own, efficiently parceling out details both great and small without overwhelming the viewer.  By its end there's a firm grasp of who the major characters are and what their motivations might be.  This clarity is distinctly missing from Final Fantasy XIII's opening.

If it's not obvious by now, I'll state it straight out: I do not like the way FFXIII's story begins.  And I remember thinking that its flaws did not bode well for the rest of the game.

The Rest of the Story


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In the interests of saving the Internet from yet another rant, I'm going to summarize my overall impression of Final Fantasy XIII: a muddled over-produced mess whose characters feel like they were individually designed to be 'cool' rather than relatable. 


That being said, there are some positive aspects to the story.  I'll describe two of them.

The first is the character of Sazh.

Before the game was released many people thought of Sazh as an unfortunately stereotyped joke character, inserted for loose comic relief and nothing more (note: there is a chocobo chick living in his afro).  I shared this same dread, and was therefore pleasantly surprised when I found him to be the most fully-formed character in the game.

My daughter was four years old when Final Fantasy XIII was released.  The other protagonists in the game fight for freedom, or vengeance, or some simplified notion of justice.  Sazh fights to save his young son (please don't ask me "from what?") and I found his single-mindedness and desperation and self-loathing at the prospect that he might fail to be emotions that I innately understood.  He expresses this all while still being the comic relief of the group, and that jagged mess of feelings, both light and dark, is something that is very real.

The other thing that impressed me about FFXIII?  The sheer weirdness of the villains.  Check out the boss fight at the midpoint of the game, when the curtain is drawn back on the full scope of the story.

It is here that it is revealed that the antagonists of the game are not a powerful and corrupt human Empire, but the gods themselves.  And it is here that the over-designed nature of FFXIII really works in its favor, producing a divinity that is horrific in its ineffable strangeness: I remember starting when Barthandelus's true form was revealed (2:00 in the above video), and again when he revealed his strongest attack (5:50).  True gods would not be like us; they would be foreign and alien and awe-inspiring and terrible, and Final Fantasy XIII captures that well.

But overall?  The game was a tremendous slog to get through.  And I remember thinking: this is it.  This is the last Final Fantasy I'll ever play.

A Horrible Lesson

Stories are an avenue into worlds unknown.  Sometimes these worlds are magical and wondrous.  And sometimes they are dreary and frightening.  Sadly, I recently (and accidentally) introduced my daughter to one of these latter worlds.

Here's how that happened.  As I've mentioned before, my daughter and I play through story-adventures in the car.  Our current one involves being members of Final Fantasy Type-0's "Class Zero" - battle-trained cadets asked to go on secret missions for the sake of their country.  I am "Diamond", who wields a giant axe and a fiery temper.  My daughter is "Spade", a quiet and thoughtful ninja with "shurikens attacked to ropes".  Sure, why not!

On this particular day we were embarking on a mission to infiltrate the capital city of the belligerent Milites empire.  They were on the verge of creating a supremely powerful mech, you see, and the prototype just had to be destroyed before the Milites could start mass producing the new model.  Otherwise, all... would be lost.

Since this was a "sneaky mission", we couldn't simply fight our way through the city and into the research laboratory; we had to go through the sewers.  And of course (since I'm the way I am) we emerged from the sewers... into a bathroom.

There was a Milites soldier peeing as Spade cautiously lifted the floor grate and peeked his head through.  "I'll go up quickly and wait then," my daughter said.

"Are you sure?  He can just turn his head and see you."

"Really?  How?"

"He just has to turn his head," I explained, confused by my daughter's confusion.  She hesitated, shrugged, and jumped out from the floor and knocked the soldier out with a single punch.

"Oh no!" I exclaimed.  "There's a flush from the stall with the closed door!  You didn't realize that -"

"Wait," my daughter interrupted with dawning horror.  "Wait.  Wait.  Does this mean that... boys can see each other when they pee?"

"Oh.  Uh, yes.  I mean, you're not supposed to look - and most don't - but in theory it's -"

"GROOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!!!!!" she shrieked as I instinctively hit the brakes.  "OH.  MY.  GOSH.  I am so glad I am not a boy!"

And that's how a story taught my daughter a fundamental truth of the world: boys are definitely gross.






(Later, after a few minutes of stunned reflection: "Wait.  Daddy, you're a boy, aren't you.")

Final Fantasy XII: A Story Retrospective

[If you're wondering what this blog post series is about, read the introduction.  The first section of this article deals with the opening of the game; the second is marked as containing spoilers for the rest of the game.]

Despite my tepid reaction to recent entries in the series, Final Fantasy XII excited me beyond all reason as soon as it was announced.  Why?  Because that's when I learned that the Final Fantasy XII development team was led by the same people who had created two of my favorite games of the PlayStation generation: Final Fantasy Tactics and Vagrant Story.

In the years that followed between the game's announcement and its release, I fed on every interview, screenshot, and trailer that Square released.  I was delighted when it was declared that FFXII's story would have a more adult tone.  The series I had grown up with was finally growing up with me.

I got the game a minute after midnight on release day and popped it into my PlayStation 2 shortly thereafter.  I remember bouncing up and down on my butt impatiently as I waited for the loading screens to clear.  Did I have any trepidation that my expectations would not be met?  I did not.


The Opening

Here's how Final Fantasy XII opens.

 

Watching it now makes me think that that good storytelling requires contrast.  Without contrast, action and emotion and size all feel flat; there's no sense of grandeur because each beat of a story is the same as the others.

That's why Final Fantasy XII's opening cinematic works for me.  You have the large scale celebrations and battles that contrast with intimate moments featuring major characters; this allows us to understand the enormous scope of the world in which these people try and survive.  You have the love and joy present at Princess Ashe's and Prince Rasler's wedding, and then the sorrow that follows as Basch fails to protect the prince from his death; this allows us to understand the stakes and consequences.

All of this invests the viewer in the story that unfolds, and also makes it easier to drop in some needed exposition without running the risk of having the viewer's eyes glaze over: the Empire is on the warpath and conquers Rasler's homeland.  Ashe's homeland is next.  It would have been easy to delivering this information through a text crawl.  But FFXII chooses a better option in order to draw in the audience: it presents the information naturally in the characters' actions and speech.


The Rest of the Story


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SPOILER WARNING
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The central point-of-view characters of Final Fantasy XII are Vaan and Penelo, two orphaned children who fall into a grand adventure to free the kingdom of Dalmalsca from the clutches of the Empire.  There's a rumor that they were shoe-horned into the game by executives that were worried that the intended focal characters would not be marketable draws.  I don't know if this rumor is true or not... but I do know that the original direction of FFXII stepped down for "health" reasons.  And I also know that the opening cinematic does not feature Vaan and Penelo; it features Basch and Ashe.

I will say that if the rumor is true, Vaan and Penelo are remarkable for not feeling completely out of place.  Having said that, I do agree that they don't really fit into the politically-realistic storyline that follows the opening.  So I'm going to pretend they don't exist.

Shortly after the events of the opening cinematic, the king of Dalmalsca begins peace talks with the Empire.  During those talks he is assassinated, and the assassin is identified by all to be Basch.  Dalmalsca is declared a protectorate of the Empire, to be governed by Lord Vayne Solidor, eldest surviving son of the Emperor.  Princess Ashe is nowhere to be found.

What follows is a highly complex series of events.  We learn that Basch was framed by his twin brother Gabranth, now a highly-ranked Judge in service of the Empire.  He is freed by Ashe, who has started a movement to free her kingdom from the clutches of the Empire; they are eventually joined by the charming mercenary Balthier and his partner Fran.  In the meantime Vayne has arranged for the death of his father and ascended to the throne.  From there he is free to pursue his real goals, which are far greater than they appear.

There's far too much plot to summarize, so I'll just hit upon some points that interested me.

Unlike other Final Fantasy games, the characters in Final Fantasy XII never sit and whine about whether they really want to do whatever it is that they're doing.  Ashe and Basch know exactly what they want, and never deviate from their goal; Balthier and Fran stay loyal to who they are.  Some people mistake this constancy for lack of character development.  I disagree, as the characters do change; however it is their journey that directs their growth, and not the other way around.  I think this is entirely appropriate for a sweeping historical epic.

Some of this growth is apparent.  Ashe evolves from a resistance fighter bent only on destroying the Empire's hold on her kingdom to a stateswoman who - especially after meeting Lord Larsa, Vayne's kind and intelligent younger brother - understands that a compromise may be the only way to secure her people's future.  The story of Basch and Gabranth is different, showing how the weight of events led two brothers onto opposing paths.  And Balthier...

... well, Balthier's story is one of the most subtle.  He's a Han Solo-like rogue, quick of wit and ever-ready with a quip ("Spare me your quiddities" is my favorite), and he remains a constant even after his backstory is revealed.  It's a bit complex and requires an understanding of the greater plot; just try to hang in there with me...

Balthier's father, Cid, is a high-ranking Imperial researcher who is close friends with Vayne.  It is Cid who is contacted by Venat, a rogue being of a god-like race of immortal beings called the Occuria.  He learns that the Occuria have been manipulating the mortal realm throughout history by tempting them with powerful Crystals.  Venat wants to break mankind free of the Occuria's grasp, and that is what Vayne and Cid ultimately hope to achieve as well.

His father's preoccupation with this task drives Balthier away from the Empire and into a vagrant life.  The party eventually confronts Cid and defeats him, and father and son have one final conversation.

This is the one time when Balthier is left with nothing to say.  And there is a payoff at the very end of the game.

But before we get there, I'll talk about the final battle with Vayne.  This confrontation takes place when Vayne gathers an immensely powerful air-fleet with the intent of wiping out the last rebels.  The Crystals have already been destroyed, Ashe having refused the Occuria's offer of power in return for sparing the Crystals.  With no other hope left, the party steals aboard Vayne's flagship, the Bahamut... and defeat him.

Stumbling away and dying, Vayne calls out to Venat, and the last act of their friendship is darkly moving.


Venat's final sacrifice was one of pure altruism, and not born out of desperation or need.  Its goals had already been fulfilled, and it had no more need of its mortal allies.  The final battle is entirely unnecessary.

But that's how life works.  Life is messy and accidental and full of unnecessary events that ripple outwards in strange ways.  The truth is that people don't really influence the present so much as they react to the past.  Final Fantasy XII is a story that embraces that idea whole-heartedly, and it is pretty unique in doing so.

Let me wrap up Balthier's story now.  After Vayne's death, the Bahamut begins to fall out of the sky, threatening to crush the city of Rabanastre.  And in a moment of heroism, Balthier and Fran stay behind to massage the engines long enough to have the Bahamut fly over the city and crash just beyond.

His act is completely uncharacteristic - unless you remember Cid's final words to his son, the ones that Balthier had no answer to and which I imagine he could not dismiss.  It's a subtle resolution and easily missed.

And in the end Final Fantasy XII might be a bit too subtle.  Whether it's a fault of the storytelling or a consequence of the original director's departure, FFXII feels like an ambitious dream whose flaws are readily apparent under close scrutiny.

Still, I can marvel at the grandeur of the original vision; and I can appreciate the many points of execution that Final Fantasy XII did get right.

"I Dodge Away From The Psychically Controlled Car And Have It Hit The Giant"

Shadow of the Colossus is one of the best games for the Playstation 2, mixing jaw-dropping battles against panoramic gargantuan beasts with a contemplative mood that adds a sense of disquiet to your actions.  I sneaked a review of the game's story into Goodreads; if you're curious, you can read it here.

For some reason the game popped back into my mind recently, and as is my tendency I immediately ran to my daughter and started babbling all about it (I'm lucky that she's of an age where she still listens).

Fast forward a few days, and my daughter decides that we are going to play a new game in the car: each of us will take turns creating a Colossus, and the other person has to try and defeat it.  Here are my daughter's creations:

• A Colossus found in what I can only imagine is an abandoned multi-story parking lot (and nevermind the early medieval feel of "Shadow of the Colossus").  It's made of cars and can also control "loose"cars, using them to try and ram you.  Defeated by having those cars ram it instead.
• A Colossus that is a giant turtle.  Lives in a giant swamp surrounded by ravenous alligators (I got close to one and... "GAME OVER DADDY!  It ate your head!").  Has three holes on its back, only one of which is a true weak point; the others are distractions.  Its final weak point is located on the top of its head.  The turtle doesn't attack you; instead it swims around in desperate circles.  I felt bad defeating it, which just proves that my daughter was actually listening to my description of the game ("And you should feel bad!").
• Some sort of armored Colossus dragon that blots out the sun, yet is small enough for the hero to quickly shimmy up its legs (my daughter does not really have a sense of scale).  Defeated by having it try and eat you, at which point you have to stab at its tongue.
• A humanoid Colossus riding a giant horse.  It attacks by summoning one of four ephemeral avatars: a phoenix made out of fire energy; a tiger made out of light energy; a turtle made out of earth energy; and a dragon made out of air energy.  Reveals a different weakness each time it summons an avatar.

"Wait," I said.  "That last one sounds like it was inspired by the four kingdoms in 'Final Fantasy Type-0'".

"Yeah!  It's really cool, isn't it?"

 "Yes, but... do you just want to play a Type-0 game instead?"

"Yep!"

And that's why we each created our own cadets of Class Zero and are now running them through the plot of 'Final Fantasy Type-0'.

A Single Spark

I finished Final Fantasy Type-0 at 4am in the morning and was immediately thrust into a state of near-panic at not having anyone around to share the experience with.  It was all I could do to stop myself from retrieving my daughter from school early the next (well, 'same') day, and once I did so (begrudgingly waiting until her normal pickup time), my excitement spilled out in the form of a promise that once we got home she'd be able to see something 'really cool'.

During the drive home I attempted to setup the final boss battle and ending she was about to see.  JRPGs do not necessarily have the most... lucid... plots, however, and I found myself regurgitating half-formed plot points.  To her credit my daughter can be extremely patient with me; she sat in the back seat with her brow furrowed, slowly trying to comprehend what I was saying.  And after a while she started to ask questions.

It immediately became obvious to me that I understood far less of the story of Final Fantasy Type-0 than I thought - and the fault was not mine.  The game's story is told in unequal fragments, some of which are possible to miss entirely.  Important characters wander in late and leave as mysteriously as they arrived.  Major unchoreographed plot twists turn the viewer's bewilderment into outright confusion.

These are not small issues.  And yet not only was I able to ignore them while playing the game, I found myself willing to remain blind to them afterwards.

Why?  Because Final Fantasy Type-0 did so many things right!  From the opening cinematic that introduces a conflict filled with both horror and glory, to the ending where... nevermind.  Suffice it to say that the positives of the game were more than enough to offset the negatives.

This has happened to me with books as well.  Stephen King is one of my favorite authors, and even so I have to admit that "Insomnia" is far from a great book (my review).  And yet there are three scenes that have undeniable power, and once a year I find myself picking up "Insomnia" to re-read those three scenes.

It's easy to appreciate perfection.  It's much harder to take a flawed work of art and look past its obvious flaws in order to focus on its strange beauties.  I don't claim to be able to do this with any consistency.

But I do think that being able to do so is an incredibly useful ability.  After all, if you're trying to build something yourself, isn't it better to fill your mind with beautiful sparks instead of cold ashes?

Final Fantasy XI: A Story Retrospective

[If you're wondering what this blog post series is about, read the introduction.  The first section of this article deals with the opening of the game; the second is marked as containing spoilers for the rest of the game.]

I remember being disappointed when Final Fantasy XI was announced as an MMORPG - but not as disappointed as one might think.  Yes, turning an RPG into a social endeavor meant that playing the game successfully was beyond an introvert like me (or so I thought at the time).  But instead of gnashing my teeth and rending my garments, I gave a half-hearted shrug.

My "meh" reaction to FFIX and FFX had a lot to do with this change in attitude.  I felt like I had grown up while the Final Fantasy series remained stuck in my past.  FFXI being an MMO was simply an added incentive to put childish things away.

To make a long story short - I failed to do so.  All it took was one week of overwhelming boredom before I "accidentally" found myself in a game store and "accidentally" picked up FFXI off the shelves so I could "try it for an hour or two".  Whoops...


The Opening

Back in the ancient days of 2002 I didn't realize that an MMO could feature a story.  Thus Final Fantasy XI's opening surprised me quite a bit.

 

A castle town is overrun despite the heroic efforts of its defenders; a boy is thrust to safety by his older sister and left alone in the world.  Many years later he and others return, ready to reclaim the land that was taken from them.

It's a simple story, neither unexpected nor original.  Yet the presentation gives it a resonance beyond a simple two sentence summary, and despite finding the scene between the two siblings rather overdone, I found myself unexpectedly moved.

How this would translate to the rest of the game - I had no idea.  The opening presents a main character, but how could FFXI possibly expect millions of players playing different races and classes to relate to a single protagonist... ?


The Rest of the Story


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The answer was so obvious that I missed it completely: players are not supposed to do so.  They're supposed to be swept up in the grandeur of the final shot of the opening movie, when the camera pulls back to reveal the massive army ready to go to war.  FFXI taught me something new about stories: every single character has complexity and history, and is a hero in his or her own eyes.

This was never more clear to me than when I explored around the world of Vana'diel, marveling at all the players running off to points unknown, embarking on their own goals and adventures.  The sense of stepping into truly foreign territory was heightened - in a good way - by the fact that servers were shared by both Japanese and American players, with communication handled by a system of complicated preset phrases and emotes.

I dipped my toe into the water; I waded in deeper; then I dove in whole-heartedly.  I partied with Japanese players who were alternately grudgingly patient and extremely accommodating with my lack of skill.  I joined a 'linkshell' of US-timezone players and made friendships of greater diversity - by far - than any I had made before.  I learned that while some individuals may be cruel, the majority are genuinely kind.

If the above sounds like I was an explorer traveling through a previously unknown continent, well, that's exactly what it was like.  I played previous Final Fantasy games in the role of an observer, but in Final Fantasy XI I lived as my own hero.

At this point I'd like to describe the plot of the game - except as much as I am loath to admit it, my understanding of the story was always weak, and it's a bit of a muddle in my mind.  There definitely is a story; however it's revealed in bits and pieces at a non-constant rhythm (since players set their own pace), and important details can be missed entirely if players skip certain quests or regions.

All I can say definitively is: the invasion of the Beastmen featured in the opening cinematic is triggered by the rise of the Shadow Lord.  Eventually you have an epic confrontation against him.



And then you win!  And... the game keeps going.

From a story perspective, one of the problems with MMOs is that they're designed not to have an ending; otherwise, all the precious subscribers with their precious monthly payments slip away.  And so the game keeps going, powered by players addicted to their routines, and eventually the game becomes a chore rather than a fun activity.

It was a relief to finally break away from Final Fantasy XI.  But it's still an experience I'm glad I had.

Cheering Up My Daughter with Insect People

I was away on a business trip during the past week, and one night I begged out of dinner with my co-workers in order to Skype with my daughter, whom I missed dearly.  I caught her during her own dinner, and after she made a few grudging remarks I realized she was a bit out of sorts.  So I fell back on one of my parenting techniques, one that begins with the question, "Did I ever tell you about this book I read?"

In this instance I started telling her about China Mieville's "New Crobuzon" novels, a loosely connected series of three books: "Perdido Street Station", "The Scar", and "Iron Council".  And boy, I knew these books had some crazy ideas, but I never quite appreciated how crazy until I tried to verbally explain various concepts to her, including:

• Handlingers: Sentient hands that come in pairs - dextral, and sinstral.  Can parasitically control a person.
• Scabmettlers: A humanoid race whose blood hardens immediately upon contact with air.  Will cut themselves pre-battle to compose intricate patterns of armor upon their own body.
• The Possible Sword: A blade with an attached "possibility engine" that allows it to strike in multiple locations at once.
• Remaking: A punishment imposed on criminals and dissidents in New Crobuzon where...  ("Wait, forget I said any of that," I said to my daughter.  "I don't want to give you nightmares.")
• Slake Moths: Giant moths with hypnotically shimmering wings.  They entrance their sentient prey and suck their consciousness away.
• Toro: A dissident who forged a helmet in the shape of a bull's head.  Its horns allow Toro to tear space itself, and the reason Toro... ("Nevermind, I can't go on without spoiling the book.  I guess you'll just have to read it some day."  "Daddy!")
• Armada: A city on the ocean consisting of thousands of ships and boats linked together.  Split into several ridings, each governed by its own ruler.  Rulers include...
• The Lovers: A man and a woman who "love each other so much" that they share thought and movement
• The Brucolac: A "good" vampire who imposes a blood tax on his citizens so as to provide sustenance for himself and his fellow vampires without killing anyone in the process.
• Khepri: A humanoid race with scarab heads.
• The Malarial Queendom: A long-vanished empire of - mosquito people (I forget the name of their race).  The males appeared as normal humans, but the females suffered from blood hunger where they would rush towards other humanoids with their long proboscis fully extended and drain them completely.
• The Golemancer (his name is Judah Low, but I couldn't remember it at the time): A man with the power to make golems, but not just out of earth and stone; he can create fire golems, moonlight golems, and in an extremely cool sequence near the end of "Iron Council" he... nevermind, spoilers.

 I'm lucky that my daughter's mother finally came to rip her away from Skype in order to go take a bath; by the end I was running out of child-appropriate things to tell her.  But I'm glad to say that she left far more cheerfully than she arrived.

Thanks, China Mieville!

Inspirational Video Games I Have Known

Writers need to read.  Professionals in every field learn from their peers, and writers are no exception.  There's no other way to understand what others can accomplish with language and voice, and if you don't gain that understanding, you run the risk of having your own words molder.

Reading is great, but it's not the only avenue to learn more about the possibilities of storytelling.  I have had my mind broadened by more than a few movies; somewhat more controversially (for my parents at least - HI MOM AND DAD), I can say that the same is true of more than a few video games.

I'll list a few here without going into detail about any of them; hopefully I'll get a chance to do that in a future blog post:

• Silent Hill 2
• Shadow of the Colossus
• Final Fantasy Tactics
• Final Fantasy XIII-2 (seriously guys, it's really good)

And the latest video game whose release inspired me to start my Final Fantasy story retrospectives: Final Fantasy Type-0.  I finished this game at the lively hour of 4am last night (I guess technically  that should be "this morning") and then spent the next hour unable to sleep as I marveled at what the game accomplished with its story.  Sure, objectively speaking the larger-scale story was both convoluted and nonsensical; but the personal journeys of the twelve cadets was...

... I'll stop there before I write out my retrospective two months ahead of schedule.  It's not the point of this rambling anyway.  My point is this: I finished Final Fantasy Type-0 and was immediately inspired to try and put some of the emotions I felt into a story of my own.  I won't go into details as to how, but suffice it to say that the story I'm working on about my daughter's stuffed animals now has a much needed injection of drama and stakes.

I'll end this by saying that movies and video games cannot be substituted wholesale for books; things like style and pacing and imagery and a host of other writerly considerations can only be learned through the written word.  But I will say that a story is a story no matter how it is told.

Final Fantasy X: A Story Retrospective

[If you're wondering what this blog post series is about, read the introduction.  The first section of this article deals with the opening of the game; the second is marked as containing spoilers for the rest of the game.]

I should have been more excited about Final Fantasy X.  The first Final Fantasy introduced for the PlayStation 2, it promised to be a technical showcase for the power of the console.

And yet... in the months and weeks and days leading up to FFX's release, I felt curiously flat about the game.  Two years removed from my college graduation, I was now living on my own for the first time in my life.  I had outgrown roommates, outgrown the overwrought dramas of FFVII and FFVIII, and no longer appreciated the nostalgic adorability of FFIX.  Had I outgrown the Final Fantasy series as a whole?

"Yes" might have been a legitimate answer, but at that time I was not yet ready to let go of the relics of my younger days.


The Opening

The opening is a bit schizophrenic.

 

On the one hand you have a peaceful moment around a campfire set to the strains of a beautiful piano melody.  It's quiet and sedate and wistful, and it feels like the setup to an intriguingly introspective game.  On the other hand, you have what comes after: a frenetic and confusingly busy cutscene accompanied to metal rock, movie seemingly designed to appeal to a targeted demographic looking for a hardcore game experience.  After watching the opening, the question became - which hand would win out?

A quick note: FFX was also the first Final Fantasy game to feature voice acting, and boy, was I nervous (and if you've watched dubbed anime, you know why).  I'm glad to say that my fears were unjustified; the voice acting in this series has ranged from surprisingly bearable to excellent.


The Rest of the Story


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SPOILER WARNING
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The gist of the plot is this: Tidus, a star blitzball player, is transported to another time where a monstrous entity known as Sin threatens to destroy the world.  Yuna is a summoner whose father - along with Tidus's father - turned back Sin ten years ago.  She and Tidus and others embark on a journey to prevent this destruction, only to learn that the the situation is not as simple as it seems.

This is a fairly generic summary, and in all honesty I found much of the game to be similarly generic.  Other than Tidus and Yuna, the characters are not all that interesting to me - not even Auron, the "cool" laconic wandering samurai - so I'll skip the bulk of the story and just mention the parts that stood out.

Before talking about what's really going on in the story, let me talk about two relationships.

The first is the romance between Tidus and Yuna.  At the time I found it lacking in both drama and passion.  Now when I think about it, it feels honest and surprisingly subtle.  Again, I don't know whether my mind is playing tricks on me; but I will say that my views on love fifteen years ago could be charitably described as "naive".  Now I'm... well, perhaps I am still a bit willfully naive, but I also appreciate that a good relationship requires steadiness and a thousand quiet moments that build into something strong and lasting.  And I think FFX does an excellent job depicting that.

The second relationship is that between Tidus and his father, Jecht.  Abandoned as a child (it's not revealed until later that Jecht left to join Yuna's father in a quest to turn back Sin), Tidus harbors a deep-seated resentment towards his father.  It's an intriguing bit of darkness within an otherwise sunny personality.

Although Jecht is presumed dead, the truth is far more complicated.  Although Sin is presumed to be turned back every ten years through the trials of a summoner and a guardian, it turns out that this cycle is what actually allows Sin to renew itself.  Each journey to defeat Sin merely destroys a form, one that is almost immediately renewed through the body of either the summoner and the guardian.  And so when Tidus and Yuna and the others embark on their quest to turn back Sin, they are unknowingly also seeking to destroy Tidus's father once and for all.

Twining together two threads of the plot - the world-spanning one and the highly personal one - is a neat device that adds weight and consequence to both.  It all comes together in one final battle that is preceded by an emotional meeting (1:39 - 7:00).



Okay, the animation is stilted and the voice acting is excessive, but I still find the dialogue effective: beneath the spoken words you can infer everything that the characters are leaving unspoken.  There is subtlety in the scene, and it's hard not to appreciate that.

Then, of course, we get another heavy metal ballad.  To further belabor my point, I'll mention the tragedy of the ending where Tidus and Yuna are pulled apart, and praise the emotional maturity of both characters upon realizing their fates.  Then I'll mention that there's a sequel - Final Fantasy X-2 - that completely undoes this ending.  I only know this because I read the plot of the sequel on Wikipedia; the game itself I found to be honestly abhorrent.

That's the FFX experience  It's a haunting tale covered in layers and layers of unfortunate excess.  When I played it I was unable to separate the two, but now I find myself feeling far more charitable towards the game.  Was I overly judgmental back then, or is my memory kinder now?  I'm not sure.

Committing to a Story; or, Why I Talk To Myself In Public

Last Sunday my daughter was in a foul mood, overtired after an exhausting day.  It was the early evening, and after finishing her work she slammed her butt down in a chair and slumped over to play a computer game.  I was a bit concerned.  I tried talking with her, I tried teasing her, I tried making her laugh - but everything I did resulted in a grunt or an annoyed stare.

It's possible that I should have just waited her mood out; sometimes that's all you can really do with a person.  But I had to leave for a week-long business trip in a few minutes, and it hurt my heart to see her like this.  So I decided to try one more thing.  After seeing that her game involved guiding a polar bear through arctic waters, I went to her room and fetched her stuffed polar bear.  Then I sat next to my daughter and slowly guided the polar bear next to her hand.

She looked down.  "Oh," she said.  "Hi polar bear."

The polar bear jumped up and down excitedly and nosed at the polar bear on the computer screen.  Then he backed up slowly, confused, and looked up at her with a questioning sound.

"It's not real," my daughter said.  "It's a computer game.  I'm controlling the polar bear.  See?"  She demonstrated the keyboard and mouse controls to the fascinated polar bear, and as she did so her body quickly filled with the liveliness and energy that I'm used to seeing and that I love so much.  And right before I left for the airport I was rewarded with three hugs and eight kisses (yes, I counted).

My daughter and I share many similar traits, and I'm telling this story because it made me realize that we share one more: we both fall easily and naturally into the stories that we see around us.  Whether it's a curious polar bear or a head pig or a cabal of small stuffed animals planning on getting rid of the mean dragon that keeps punting them off the bed ("CHARIZARD! We talked about this!"), I can count on my daughter to perk up and join the tale with much enthusiasm and delight.  She is a storyteller's dream.

It's something that I do as well, except I can't always control the stories that pop up inside my head; put another way, the problem with having an imagination is that you imagine things.  This scenario has happened to me more than few times: I'll be walking by myself down the sidewalk when some odd environmental detail suddenly catches my eye.  A story ravels itself together, and the next thing I know I'll be audible actor in the theater of my mind, and there'll be a person half-a-block in front of me quickening his pace and glaring back at me.

It's something that I've learned to control to a certain extent; experience has taught me the dangers of falling too deeply into the fictions that my mind can create.  And yet I don't think it's the worst quirk a person can have.  For example, I suspect it's the reason that I can read other people's moods so quickly.  Plus, a credulous imagination can certainly liven up a boring day!

This trait that my daughter and I share is probably neither good nor bad in and of itself, but merely something else that needs to be moderated within.  Here's hoping that we succeed!

On Libraries

I remember being raised by the library for large chunks of my childhood.  This is not a criticism of my parents in any way - they both did (and do) wonderful things for their children, and in all honesty?  The library was my preferred babysitter, one that I would pout about not getting to see.

Around first grade or so I snuck out of the children's area and started trawling the far more imposing shelves of the adult sections.  It's a bit of a laughable cliche to say that 'books are worlds', one used to try (and usually fail) to persuade a recalcitrant child into reading.  At the same time, what I learned growing up is that those three words are completely true: books are worlds.  Brushing my fingers along the spines of shelved books was like spotting a new planet through a telescope.  Pulling one down and reading the cover flaps was like sending a probe into the upper atmosphere.  And when I finally worked up the courage to read one...

... well, I remember telling my first grade speech therapist that I had just read my very first Stephen King book.  "Oh Mainn," I remember her saying, "please don't read those."  I readily agreed, and if I noticed her shock through my childish self-absorption, it's only because I was pretty shocked myself.  'The Long Walk' (review) is one of King's more existential horror novels, and it more than broadened my horizons; it shattered them.  Through that book I glimpsed hazy vistas of mortality and pain and sacrifice and the implacably uncaring nature of life.  After reading 'The Long Walk', I wanted nothing more than to return to my safe and comfortable world of fairy tales and easy adventures.

Except a) I couldn't, and b) I didn't really want to.

I'll spare you the rest of my childhood, except to mention that whenever I was particularly disobedient as a child (this usually involved really not wanting to practice a musical instrument), my mother would threaten to take the library away from me, and I would throw a tantrum for a few minutes before giving in.

Fast forward 15 years or so.  As a freshly employed college graduate I was overcome by the high of having an income of my own for the first time in my life.  How did I waste my money?  I bought a laptop and a Playstation to play the newest Final Fantasy.  I bought a few DVDs.  And then I went to the bookstore and purchased whatever book I damned well felt like.

I marched out of that bookstore supremely self-satisfied.  I returned home to my new apartment, plopped down on my sleeping bag (did I mention that I didn't think it necessary to buy a bed?), started reading... and made a terrible discovery: the books I had picked were terrible.

What I hadn't realized is that although the library had taught me to love books, it hadn't taught me to be discerning about choosing them.  Taking a book home from a library is cost-free; if you make a mistake, just exchange the book the next time you're at the library.  The return policy at a bookstore is not always so forgiving.

And you know what?  I think that lack of discernment is great!  Books are worlds, and while it is easy and safe to visit and explore worlds that are all the same - and there's nothing wrong with wanting a comfort book - we don't broaden our horizons that way.  We don't grow, we don't change, we don't challenge ourselves.  And I think that's a bit of a shame.

I don't have a grand point here (just a desire to force myself to write a bit every single day), so I'll end somewhat anti-climatically with a few numbers.  In the past year I've checked out 89 items for myself from the library.  Assuming an average cost of $10, that's a savings of $890.  And the psychic savings for not having paid for the five or so books that I thought were terrible and did not finish?  Well, as they say in that old credit card commercial, that's priceless.

Final Fantasy IX: A Story Retrospective

[If you're wondering what this blog post series is about, read the introduction.  The first section of this article deals with the opening of the game; the second is marked as containing spoilers for the rest of the game.]

If I remember my gaming news articles correctly, Final Fantasy IX was consciously developed as a course correction.  The previous Final Fantasies had lost the fantastical feel of the early games in favor of technological dystopias, and the series was growing increasingly somber and dark.  So Square decided that Final Fantasy IX would be set in a medieval world and created a story with a lighter heart (although with some serious themes).

I was disappointed.  In some odd way the Final Fantasy games and I had grown up together.  But now I was a fresh college graduate with his first real job, and it was like my 'friend' had retreated back to the safety of elementary school.

Still, Final Fantasy was Final Fantasy, and so I bought FFIX on release day, hoping to quiet the skeptical voices in my head.


The Opening

The opening did not reassure me.

 

The first three minutes are frankly bizarre - sedate rural county fair music and visages of characters that we don't know overlaid with ponderous quotes that are meaningless without context.

The opening cinematic proper starts three minutes in, and it begins a bit more promisingly with three hooded figures stranded in a tiny boat fighting against the raging ocean.  But that's just a half-remembered memory; the cinematic cuts to the present where Princess Garnet is alone, preparing for a kingdom-wide birthday celebration.  She's distracted by the sight of an airship flying against the rosy skies, and then we see glimpses of Zidane, the monkey-tailed thief, and Vivi, the wandering black mage with wide spotlight eyes.  And then the cinematic is over.

This opening does a few things well.  Show, not tell is the classroom maxim, and I think the cinematic performs well in detailing two characters.  First, there's Garnet's loneliness and desire to experience the larger world.  And then there's Vivi childish confusion, innocence, and wonder.  Square's cinematic department does an excellent job with subtle motions and facial expression.

However, for me the opening falls short in another area.  FFIX is the only Final Fantasy game I played whose opening I could not recall from memory.  Why?  I think it's because it fails to provide the tension and conflict needed for viewers to quickly invest themselves in the story.  Start off with a bang!

The Rest of the Story


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The rest of the story is also similarly unmemorable to me, so I'll just list the general arcs of the characters that I do remember:

Zidane: the archetypal good-hearted thief and main protagonist of the game.  Has a secret connection with Kuja, the main villain of the game.  He and Garnet become romantically involved.  And then...

... honestly Zidane's just not that interesting; he feels like a character that could have been spit out by an extremely simple plot-generator program.

Vivi: one of many artificially created black mages constructed to be weapons of war with limited lifespans.  But his 'programming' cannot overcome his essentially kind nature, and his creators try to hunt him down as a defective.  This is a 'can-robots-become-real-people' story in a fantasy setting!

Vivi's arc is well-told and moving, and I can't quite explain why it didn't connect with me more.  Thinking about it, I suspect it's because I played FFIX when I had just graduated from college and was trying to assert myself as a non-clueless adult who possessed complete mastery over the ways of the world (spoiler alert: I was pretty clueless).  I think people are often most embarrassed by the things that they secretly identify with.

Garnet and Eiko: although Garnet is a princess, she is actually the adopted daughter of the evil queen who once destroyed a village of summoner mages and stole away the baby who would grow up to be Garnet.  The only other survivor from the village is Eiko, who is an extremely temperamental young girl.

Although initially in conflict over a shared affection for Zidane, they each gradually realize that the other provides a missing piece of their lives: for Garnet, knowledge of her forgotten origins; and for Eiko, a sense of family that she never knew that she needed.  And in FFIX's most dramatic cutscene, their shared understanding allows them to unleash a great power.




For me, the image of Garnet and Eiko with palms pressed against palms, sharing acceptance of themselves and each other, is the enduring image of the game.  In my opinion it is their story that forms the emotional heart of Final Fantasy IX, not Zidane's.  They should have been the central protagonists.

Ninjas My Daughter Has Known

Ninjas are a big thing in second grade right now.  My daughter plays ninjas with her friends at recess, and we have an ongoing 'Ninja Story' that we relate to each other during trips in the car.

Of course, these aren't just ordinary ninjas.  No, these are ninjas with Powers!  And our ninja clan is often forced to fight against another enemy ninja clan, only discovering too late that both clans are being manipulated by a cruel and uncaring shogunate (I may have told her a heavily edited version of the manga Basilisk).

Here are some ninjas that she has created (I've forgotten all their names - but that's okay because she forgets them too):

• A ninja with the power to cut himself and shape his blood into different forms.  Oddly enough, this form is almost always 'dragon'.
• A ninja with hair that grows - and I quote - "six inches every two minutes".  This ninja can control her hair like a whip, and also cut it off with sharpened finger-claws.  When the hair is off her head, the ninja can mold it into different shapes, like a sword or, uh, a sword.  I pointed out that this power would invariably leave the village completely buried under hair, so she decided that the ninja can also set the hair on fire with her mind.  Except it's not hot fire, because "then the world would, you know, burn up".
• A ninja covered with eyeballs.  He can pop his eyes, creating a sort of eye-goop that is impervious to slashing cuts.  His eyes grow back at an unbelievable rate (actually, any positive rate of 'regrowing your eyeball' is pretty unbelievable).
• A ninja that can blow his breath at you and cause your head to explode.  Oh, ouch.
• A ninja that could turn into a cloud.  Mostly used by others to disguise their movements.  Defeated by, uh, a giant fan.

Final Fantasy Tactics: A Story Retrospective

[If you're wondering what this blog post series is about, read the introduction.  The first section of this article deals with the opening of the game; the second is marked as containing spoilers for the rest of the game.]

I think I was desperate for something to do the day that I picked up Final Fantasy Tactics.  I had heard good things about the game, and it was certainly intriguing that Square had almost decided against releasing it in the West due to controversial religious content - but the graphics were a step backwards from Final Fantasy VII and Final Fantasy VIII, and as a tactical RPG the gameplay was not what I was used to.

And so I delayed, and delayed, and delayed some more.  I might still be delaying to this day if not for the most powerful force known to man: boredom.


The Opening

Sadly, Final Fantasy Tactic's opening movie is not the most thrilling.

 

The music is great, and the idea of turning chocobos - the cute yellow birds omnipresent in Final Fantasy games - into war steeds is really cool, but the movie itself is dated and doesn't reveal much about the story.

I do find its restraint admirable, though; better too little than too much.  And it segues nicely into the introductory level.  The player controls Ramza and his party - the chocobo riders - riding to the church to protect Princess Ovelia.  But they are too late; they fight off a wave of attackers, only to see another kidnapper ride away with the unconscious Ovelia.  And Ramza is shocked when he realizes that the kidnapper is his former friend, Delita.

The game is split up into four chapters, and I'm going to detail most of Chapter One now (stopping right before the shocking moment neat its end) to add some context to the rest of the game.  Chapter One flashes back to a time before the introduction.  Ramza Beoulve is the third son of a noble house, training to become a knight.  Delita Hyral is the son of a servant, but despite their class differences, they are the best of friends.

But trouble is brewing: a group of disaffected peasants-turned-bandits led by a man named Wiegraf threatens local stability.  Wiegraf and his band kidnap Delita's younger sister, Teta, believing her to be a Beoulve.  Ramza, Delita, and various Beoulve retainers chase after the bandits.  Along the way they rescue Algus, a noble fallen upon hard times.

Algus shows great respect towards Ramza and his name.  However he is far less respectful towards those he considers his inferiors and constantly belittles Delita.  They fight battle after battle against the bandits, but arguments eventually come to a boiling point.  Ramza siding with Delita, and Algus leads the party in disgust.

Matters come to a head when the bandits are cornered at their mountain hideout.  Ramza and Delita arrive at the scene at the same time Algus does.  Algus has joined up with Ramza's elder brother, Zalbag.  Without hope of escape a bandit holds a knife up to Teta's throat, screaming at them all to leave, and...


The Rest of the Story


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Up until this point in Final Fantasy Tactics, I had been playing on auto-pilot - concentrating on the game mechanics, fast forwarding through the text scrolls.  I had already marked the plot as uninteresting.  Bandits?  Who cared about the bandits?  Where were the dragons and sorceresses and world-ending threats?

And then I watched as Zalbag commands Algus to shoot both the bandit... and Teta (0:35 - 1:55).




Only now do I realize that my shock was pretty much the same as the bandit's: "What's this?"

It was a transformative moment, and readers of epic fantasy who have been punched in the brain by George R.R. Martin's "Game of Thrones" will know how I felt.  It was the moment when I realized that games could tell dark and moving stories on a human level, ones that moved you and pained you and made you look at the world in a new way.

The rest of Final Fantasy Tactic's story is extremely complex.  There's the tale of Delita's wrath and vengeance against the Beoulves; how his morals fall away as he intrigues his way ever upwards, eventually marrying Ovelia and becoming king.

That's the background story of the game.  In the foreground Ramza and his growing party learn about secrets and deceptions and plots within plots.  There are nefarious noblemen and sly clergymen (in fact the entire church hierarchy is revealed to be evil, if you're wondering about the potentially 'objectionable religious content') and awakening demonic forces.

Ramza defeats the truly inhuman evil, of course.  But in doing so he is branded a heretic by the church.  His story is suppressed by King Delita, with the one surviving historian with knowledge of the truth burnt at the stake.

After the ending credits, there is an epilogue.



A story that ends with an ellipsis, the final weight of a man's ambition crushing within that silence.  The contrast between the dry sweep of foregone history and the truth of all the blood and tears needed to fulfill that outcome.  It was Final Fantasy Tactics that made me understand those things, and that's really not bad for a game I picked up because I had nothing else better to do that day.