Lightning Returns Dressed Up For The Wrong Occasion
https://basementmtl.blogspot.com/2014/04/lightning-dressed-wrong.html
I imagine Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII (LR) as a game whose photograph could be placed next to the definition of “irony” in any future iterations of the dictionary...Presumably in this future, people will require photographs to understand the meaning of words. But I digress: returning to the point of this post now, let me begin to explain why irony and LR are so matrimonial.
Over the years, Final Fantasy has devolved from a hallmark brand whose institutionalized presence in the industry and within the RPG genre garnered much praise, to a dirty word that people use to defame JRPGs and discredit their relevancy within the video game scene. Final Fantasy XIII (FFXIII) marked the beginning of this negative pit of internet revulsion, and was often criticized for being too linear, and far to affectless: fans wanted more of the same, more of what made earlier Final Fantasy games fantastic; and FFXIII allegedly embodied the sentiment of Square Enix not caring about their fans.
In order to appeal to their primary consumer base, Square Enix began tinkering with FFXIII, mutating its sequel into a less-linear experience whose characters and story became so removed from competent storytelling that fans could safely conclude that Lightning and her friends were no longer taken seriously by anyone at Square Enix either. Problem solved.
Except that LR is sort of contrary to the message and sensibilities that FFXIII-2 seemingly embodies. Sure, LR is less linear than FFXIII and even FFXIII-2, and sure the story is even more laughable, but the game is also so completely unlike any other Final Fantasy game in the series that it begs the question as to why it even exists in the first place.
To elaborate, I’ve grown up identifying Final Fantasy as the Hollywood blockbuster of RPGs. By this I mean that I viewed every entry as presenting an experimental and engaging combat system, as having a plot whose melodrama and relative linearity was tempered by interesting characters, and as a being gift wrapped nicely by a level of visual polish that helped justify its popularity.
LR is a disjointed mess that’s often too fragmented to truly appreciate. For instance, NPCs are littered across the world, and are seemingly walking around everywhere. One particular zone in the game, the Wildlands, is infested with all manner of wild dogs, who are seemingly everywhere, such as in the neighbouring canyons, fields and villages. No one cares that the world is ending, or at least they don’t express this outwardly based on their actions or dialogue.
Even stranger, LR feels like a right and proper RPG: Lightning can be customized meaningfully; quests and areas can be tackled and visited in any order; and the game is challenging and rewards experimentation and planning. “Right and proper” here is used to differentiate most Final Fantasy games from more traditional RPGs, in which the player is given a great deal of agency to customize their play experience and shape it into something which is meaningfully different from other players experiences with the game. Most Final Fantasies lean so heavily on story progression that meaningful customization suffers. Sure, you can invest time into ensuring that Cloud learns lightning before cure, but he’ll likely end up learning both anyways.
To summarize, LR is ironic insofar as it’s designed as an F-you to most of the Final Fantasies that came before it, in spite of being developed to usurp FFXIII’s lasting negative impact on the franchise: the battle system is solid and remarkable, but plays out in real-time and is more comparable to The Witcher series than to any other Final Fantasy game that came before it; the story borderlines on incoherent and is seemingly written by several children from a future where planning ideas before putting them to print is openly disparaged; and the game lacks visual and visionary polish. And yet, the game rewards experimentation, planning and forward-thinking (the hallmark of any good RPG, in my opinion) over grinding and story consumption. LR has become a Western RPG, wearing JRPG clothing; it is a gaming experience that is all dressed up, but that has nowhere to go.
My brother was gracious enough to lend me the FFX/X-2 HD Remaster and I decided to re-live FFX. (God help me if I start up X-2 again...) FFX in my opinion was the last 'good' FF game. The battle mechanics were my favorite of any in the series, coupled with the stunning CG scenes and the option to travel around as you see fit with the airship brought together some of the best of the past. Although I found the back story story a little difficult to follow, as I usually do with first play through of FFs, I found a certain charm in it that made it a very worthwhile play through.
ReplyDeleteFFXIII is simply overproduced, there's too much. I wouldn't mind these over the top characters so much if the game play wasn't linear, but there's too much "glam". It makes the rest of the story unbelievable and boring. FFX had it's share of moments where the reactions of people and the general feeling of the surroundings made it seem like a paradise when in fact everyone is knowingly being threatened. Feels like there's more of a political threat than the apocalypse. I understand producers don't want to waste much time with NPCs (and their dialogue) as they do with their main story, main characters and battle mechanics but at least square made FFX believable in their CG scenes. Default facial expressions in regular gameplay didn't really help when everything else looks fantastic. But again, this game was released a decade and a half ago, so I won't be so hard on them.
Default facial expressions, character mannerisms, and setting in regular gameplay was not judged so harshly. The technology wasn't as good as it is now and this was why they have the advantage for two reasons: The first, I read an article somewhere (apologies for not being able to cite the source) that one reason why the past games were so great was that producers had very little to work with and they had to make the absolute best of what they had. They had to push console capacities to their limits and filled every nook and cranny. Now, they have so much to work with, they are lost and in turn, lost their ambition for creativity and originality. Almost like having way too many satellite channels and not being able to choose what to watch. This, brings the second reason, that older games, because of their limitations, left a lot to the gamer's imagination to do the rest, which brought the charm with playing 7, 8 and 9. The character's only voice was a dialogue text which left it up to us to imagine what they sound like. Their simply shapes and minimal movements left it up to us to fill in the rest about their character. The simple images and scenery left it up to us to imagine a greater world. These mysteries is what kept me hooked and intrigued.
The biggest favor Square will ever do for us is NOT make a FFVII remake. We easily forget why we loved the game in the first place. Shiny new graphics and voice acting could honor the game just as much as it could completely ruin it. At the rate square is going now, I'd let that idea stay on the shelf.
"This, brings the second reason, that older games, because of their limitations, left a lot to the gamer's imagination to do the rest, which brought the charm with playing 7, 8 and 9. The character's only voice was a dialogue text which left it up to us to imagine what they sound like."
ReplyDeleteI felt a strong sense of melancholy when you described this, specifically because I actually felt that older FF games were so strong specifically because of this.
FFXIII being overproduced is an interesting angle to take with regards to the series becoming derailed. Perhaps you're right, though: maybe having too many resources and too much freedom is a bad thing. I read an article not long ago suggesting that BioShock Infinite suffered from a similar fate. That Ken Levine had too much resources at his disposal and so much of the development time was wasted conceptualizing the game's world and not in implementing finalized mechanics.
That said, I really enjoyed FFXII, ha.