Where the Weight Is
May 8, 2005
I was having a chat with Zoetica about people that play old-style console RPGs like the Final Fantasy series. She told me about an ex-boyfriend who would come home from work, have some dinner, and play Final Fantasy VII until he fell asleep. I think her exact words were something like "I was like 'Why are you alive? I don't see a reason.'" This hurt my ears a little, because I remember when I played FF7 for the first time--it was a contributing factor to very poor academic and social performance my freshman year of college. Since our discussion, I have been thinking about just what it is about that sort of game that tends to be so life-stealing, for better or for worse.
In a stroke of serendipity, I have actually been playing one of these games lately after a two-year drought. I decided to play through FF6 in Japanese, because the first time I played it, I didn't speak the language, and I am curious about any differences. Also, it allows me to put up "studying" as my status on AIM, and has given me something to observe regarding the content of this article.
So what is it about CRPGs that make hours of pressing A interspersed with simple dialogue and the rare cutscene so rewarding? (I won't enter into debate over whether or not the CRPG is 'rewarding', as that is completely subjective - I will assume that the people who actually play them through find them rewarding.) A lot of folks go on about the great writing, the carefully crafted plot, even the 'gotta-catch-em-all' aspect of getting the best weapons, armor, and every last ability for each character. A case could probably made that the player is far more sympathetic to the main character of a CRPG than a book or movie because they are physically initiating each scripted plot point and control the character's success or failure.
I think that these are all minor contributing factors, but I propose that the most important factor is none of these. I think the reason that CRPGs steal so much time for such little meaningful narrative and succeed wildly at doing so has to do with the plot. I don't mean that the plots are superior to books or films. As a matter of fact, I often find CRPG plots to be very flat, very cliched, and definitely not suited to film or literary adaptation. I think the key lies in the pacing. That's right, the secret of compelling your player to fight green slimes over and over again for an hour and
love it has little to do with the final goal of said levelling up, it's the rate at which you drip plot advancement and character grown through their dualshock IV.
Think about it - what is a common criticism of film adaptations of epic novels? "It doesn't capture the grand scope of the book." In other words, a story about something as big as the end of the world needs to be big - bigger than can be fit into standard movie format. Look at the Lord of the Rings trilogy - the director's cuts are almost four hours long, times three films! I think the reason that a game like Final Fantasy VII succeeds for fifty hours where a fantasy flick full of apocalyptic environmentalism might fail in two is in its length, its
bigness. Sure, you could tell the whole story of a CRPG in three or four hours of film, but would the weight of the story and the characters' actions be as tangible? I don't think so. I think that the long slow foreplay of leveling up and having to put effort toward each plot point makes the climactic release of each dramatic element all the more satisfying. It's not for everyone, but for those who 'get it', stories paced CRPG-style can pack a uniquely visceral punch that is hard to find in other media.
Brian Kerr commented, on December 5, 2007 at 6:23 a.m.:
There's also something to be said for the raw simulationist aspect of these kinds of games; this is what those in the interactive fiction community would call "mimesis."Smoke and mirrors, of course, because, with some exceptions, Final Fantasy-style games present little to no comprehensive simulation. (Contrasted against, say, Fallout.)There's still the compelling illusion, though, of a simulated world, not just to save, but to see; what Nick Montfort (New Media Reader 6.6) calls the "experience of enclosure in explorable, extensive spaces" -- an experience no less real for being illusory (or perhaps "constructed").You could also take a more cynical approach, but that's maybe a conversation for another time.