I see you like games…
…so I put some games in your games.
In an attempt to get through some of my backlog, and avoid the achievement scene, I thought I would hit up some PlayStation 2 games. Having spent some time in Final Fantasy X-2, I thought it would be the best choice. After all, I was over a dozen hours into the game, I must have liked what I was doing. Right?
I know many people really loved Final Fantasy X. I liked it. I didn’t love it, to be sure. I found the Sphere Grid system of upgrading to be rather annoying most of the time. I ignored all occasions to play Blitzball and did not invest time into the various other side-quests as I would have traditionally done. Final Fantasy X caught me at a time when I was moving into the new generation of systems and was burned out after playing through Xenosaga I and Xenosaga II back to back over a couple of months. I had loved Final Fantasy VII, IX and even came to really like VIII when I played it for a second time. But Final Fantasy X? No, I just couldn’t get into it. I beat it, but did little else.
Coming to Final Fantasy X-2, a sequel to a game I was left feeling “meh” to, was maybe not the best choice. Most of the critics, I had heard, were not fans of it. Many people had never finished. No one in my circle of friends had even played it. Yet, it was a Final Fantasy game and I was going to play it. This oath to get through games with this specialized label of Final and Fantasy was nothing too locking but was something I felt I should do. It was something to prove how much of a role-playing gamer I was. So, it was with pride that I approached a game I felt I might not like but was determined to play.
I was mostly right. I’ve managed to get up to about thirty hours at this point. However, much of it was through sessions where I was skipping through dialogue and dreading visiting new places in the game. While I like the battle system, the job system — the dressphere — is good. The locations are, well, exactly the same as the previous game. It’s nice to see some of the same people, see what they are up to several years later. The world is neat. What is so frustrating to me, what is slowly driving my crazy, is the reliance on having the game be broken down into a series of mini-games, each one a separate ”mission”.
It’s not that I don’t understand the want of some developers to add some small mini-games into their larger games. They help break up the pace. When there is a great degree of tension, developers need a way to release that. After the same actions over and over, players want a break, something new. Mini-games give the players this needed break. They can learn and participate in a new dialect of the game language. They have learned the grammar of the actions, how they fit into the greater game world. A mini-game allows the developers chance to try out a new sub-set of the language in a slightly new way.
Final Fantasy X-2 has several shooting games. One in which a series of pictures flash and only one, of several, counts toward the goal. I did it six different times, losing in five of them. The other shooting game, a run and shoot, I had to cheat at. As enemies run at you, you must shoot them. They constantly respawn and as you score shots, you gain combo bonuses. The more you gain, the better. But getting hit is bad. I lost quite a few times before finding a place I could hide in and not get hit. Each mini-game, regardless of its manner, is based in using guns by Yuna, the same woman who was the High Summoner on the first game. The same one who was about using peace to settle arguments is now quite fine shooting everything in sight.
That dissonance is probably at the root of my annoyance. Whereas the first game was about saving the world from an overwhelming force, this game is about finding spheres, recorded video clips from the present and far past. Yuna might also be looking for someone, but has changed so much it is hard to tell. She has gone from a priestess to a warrior. Putting down her staff of office, she had taken up with a gang that roams the world. Side missions were optional in the first game. Here, they are part of nearly every mission. X was about a long narrative, X-2 is about a series of side stories, almost short stories that happen to be in the same world.
The mini-games in Final Fantasy X-2 are distracting, distancing. Instead of providing me with new moments, new takes on this world, I find them annoying. They are not adding to my experience, they subtracting from it. I have had to spend more time within the sub-sub worlds than in the actual dialogue of the game. It’s not a matter of learning the grammar of the game, I’ve had to suffer through the various dialects over and over. And over.
Life Narratives
While the power was out at my place, the group of us decided that we would play some games to pass the time. Given that there were six of us, we searched for something we could all play at the same time and, upon looking through all our options, we settled on the board game Life. I had never played before. Several of the others had. We started with a lesson on the rules.
All movement is decided by a wheel with the numbers one through ten. Each player spins the wheel and the outcome determines how many spaces each player avatar moves on the board. Various place on the board, which has a looping path that routes the players from one end to the other and back, hold represent encounters. Some places cost the player money. Others give it. Some spaces reflect nothing of the mechanics, the flow of money, but were story moments.
We each had to pick a colored vehicle, a career and a salary. Each would, in turn, define how we moved, earned money and how much we received or payed out. I ended up with a yellow car, a job as tech. support and a salary of $60,000. Average on all counts. Wanting to ditch mediocre then, I opted to have my character be gay. Some of the other players weren’t happy about this.
I’ll spare you the political breakdown of all the players, but suffice it to say that most were Republicans, conservative and not at all happy that I had added a homosexual to the game. But, having checked the rules and seeing that my option was not strictly against the rules, forced into letting me keep my “life choice”.
Although it was not my intention, I sparked off a series of rationalizations for the random acts that followed. Every time that someone had to give money to the person with the artist profession, there was a justification that the who landed on the space was buying art for their house or funding a gallery. Most of the time, these small story bits weren’t nothing more than the sentence on the space. But occasionally the players went into more details.
One character having picked the career of a doctor at the beginning of the game, at to get another career due to a game mechanic. She had landed on a space that forced her to switch out her career for another one. She had, after progressing over half the spaces on the board, gained several children and bought one of the nicer houses in the game. Forced to change her job, she tried to think up a reason why her experiences as playing as a doctor would lead this woman to become something else… an entertainer.
“She spent time with Doctors Without Borders.” This woman said in explanation of this random chance. “All that suffering… She wanted to raise money for it. Now, she’e an entertainer. She saved up money from the doctoring. Her kids will be cared for.”
For a long time, this player and I had a bit of a meta-game. We kept trying to see how much money the other player had gotten. Each time a Pay Day would be crossed, the tallys would be done anew and a comparison would be made. How much do you have now? was a frequent question. Once she became an entertainer and, through another space had to trade her salary care with another player though, started to earn less, the game between us grew fiercer. She had started with the best salary in the game while was at the middle salary. She had gained kids, wealth and a nice home. I had one of the worst homes, no children and, to the dismay of nearly everyone, an alternative lifestyle.
I ended up winning, much to surprise of everyone. Although I started at a loss, I slowly inched my way to the top place. I saved my money in the game only when necessary. I bought Car and Home Insurance as soon as I could. I invested in stock by the second turn. I spent my money very quickly early on, within the first few turns. Then, I waited, watched and planned. I hit my own set backs, had to pay money on various spaces. I even went into debt at one point. But I kept going, me and my partner. While the others had wives or husbands, lots of kids and a bunch of goods, I had a few prized items. I had invested early but saved later.
In the end, the gay couple won the game of Life. Several of those with kids ending up losing more money. Those with goods had to sell them off. The doctor turned entertainer ended up lower, economically, than she planned. Everyone who had played by the traditional roles, had followed the script of the nuclear family, ending up doing the worst overall. The closer they were to the past, the worst they did in the present. There is probably a lesson or moral there. Maybe. I was more interested in the fact that I’d won to care too much.
I do things.
Hello. I'm Dan. I write things.
Contact:
dan.cox [at] videlais.com
Contributor:
Nightmare Mode.
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The School of Athens Podcast (Site)
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We Were @Play Podcast (Site)
