More Thoughts on Final Fantasy XV

I finished Final Fantasy XV a few days ago, and I still like it a whole lot. This blog isn't meant to be a full review of the game - instead, I want to focus on something that I brought up in my last FFXV blog post, something that came to much more of a head the further into the game I got.

I'm not going to spoil anything for those of you who still haven't played it, but once you're a decent way through the game, you leave the main continent where you've basically spent all of your playtime thus far. From that point until the end of the game, you stay away from that main continent - there is a way for you to go back if you want, but really, once you're there, you do all the remaining main quests, one after the other, until the game is finished.

I always thought this felt a bit odd, and after giving it a bit of thought, I figured out why. This was literally the exact opposite of what I was used to with my RPGs. With most RPGs, you started, honestly, with very few side quests you could do, if any. Once you're a bit further into the game, though, more possibilities open up, and by the end, when you can travel the entire world freely, you can do even more. Final Fantasy XV, in opposition, started you off with so many different side quests you could do, but once you got to the end, it was essentially nothing but the main story.

It's not just Final Fantasy XV that's doing this - I feel that this has become the norm with many RPGs. Xenoblade Chronicles, famously, has more sidequests than you can count. Bethesda-style western RPGs like Fallout or The Elder Scrolls make this their raison d'etre. For so many of these games (I don't feel Final Fantasy XV is one of them, at least not to an Elder Scrolls level), the side quests seem almost more important than the actual main story. Why the hell is this the case?

If I were to venture a guess, I think game designers today are afraid of linearity. Since Grand Theft Auto III introduced us to the notion of a massive open sandbox-style world, the idea of strict linearity in games has lost a lot of appeal, and I think RPG designers have taken this hard. Final Fantasy XIII had a lot of issues, but one that so many reviewers brought up was it was far too linear. After that, it seemed as though Square went out of their way to subvert linearity in Final Fantasy games - even the sequels to XIII were noticeably less linear than the original. The most noteworthy RPGs of this decade (see above) are all non-linear. More linear RPGs (I'll call them traditional RPGs) are being made, sure, but they're not getting the attention anymore.

As you can probably tell, I don't necessarily think this is a good idea. Perhaps I'm a traditionalist, but I grew up playing '90s RPGs, and I don't want to see that style die out. I feel there is a lot of merit to that style of game design that modern RPGs just don't take into consideration.

Introducing non-linearity early in the form of massive amounts of side quests may, to some, be more realistic - after all, in the real world, one is not limited to what you can and can't do. I get that. But at the same time, when I see it, I can't help but think the game designers are more or less waving their dicks at you, saying "look how much extra shit we put into our game!" Massive worlds are great, and it takes a lot of thought to build the kind of setting like we see in Skyrim. However, designing a game like that more or less tells me that's where they put all their effort. Or most of it, anyway. I don't care how massive your world is, or how many things you can do in it - if you don't have a solid story for it to fall back on, it's all for naught.

Traditional RPGs, at least the very best ones, were able to achieve a harmony - you had an expansive world (not Skyrim expansive, but still, expansive enough), you had great stories, and you had a balanced amount of side quests. I'm going to use Chrono Trigger as an example here - Chrono Trigger being a traditional RPG as well as being, quite honestly, one of the greatest video games ever made. What do you do at the very beginning of Chrono Trigger? You show Marle around the Millennial Fair, before finding Lucca and volunteering to test out her teleportation machine. The focus is on character, story, and setting introduction - we're supposed to get acquainted with Crono, Marle, and Lucca, and by extension learn a little about the kingdom of Guardia. And we do. But in the middle of all that, there are a few little bonus games we can do to add flavor to this new world. We can hit the bell, we can do the soda drinking contest, we can fight Gato, he has metal joints, and if you beat him you get 15 silver points.

The point is, there are still side quests here, but they're small. They're also appropriate to what's going on in the game thus far - you're just a couple of kids wandering around a fair, so it makes sense for the side quests at this point to be games you'd play at a fair. As the game progresses, naturally the scope and intensity of the sidequests increases, to the point where, at game's end, you're literally traversing through a doomsday fortress commanded by the evil Queen Zeal. But again, this makes sense, considering by this point you've got command of a flying time machine and are the only force in the universe capable of stopping a massive alien parasite threatening to destroy the world.

See the progression? The game started off very straightforward and became more nonlinear by the end. In the context of not only Chrono Trigger, but many other RPGs as well, this makes sense - you start off naive and inexperienced - the world is a big, scary place, and exploring it all at once, right from the beginning, is a bit much. The context in the game itself meshes with the context of the player - even if you've played hundreds of other RPGs (like myself), each game is its own world that will be immediately unfamiliar at the start. You, the player, grow with the characters, so by the time you've progressed in the game, you've got the experience to tackle the complex side quests, and can more or less focus on those almost exclusively if you choose to. To me, designing a game like this just makes sense.

Final Fantasy XV attempts, I feel, to try and combine the feel of both the traditional and the modern. You can, from the very beginning, have access to a number of side quests, but those are limited, because the area on the world map you can traverse is limited (there is actually a story reason behind that limitation). I appreciate that attempt, but I still feel the side quests far outweigh the main story from the outset. I'm not saying this makes Final Fantasy XV not fun - I wouldn't have put around 40 hours into the game if I thought that. But I do wish the game would have focused a bit more exclusively on Noctis' immediate story before getting into all the other stuff. I actually quite enjoy Final Fantasy XV's world-building - it's not as extensive as, say, Final Fantasy XII's is, but a lot of careful design and planning was put into it, that much is obvious. I wanted to enjoy that more, but the emphasis on side quests and nonlinearity kept pulling me away.

I think what we all need to understand, in video games as well as virtually every other aspect of life, is nothing is good in extremes. To find a balance is the ideal situation, and what modern video game designers seem to have lost is the desire, or ability, to retain that balance. It may, honestly, be an issue of novelty - the power to create the massive worlds that we see in modern RPGs did not exist in the recent past, and so designers may be so intoxicated by the freedom they possess that they are simply forgetting to balance their games out. Things will probably correct themselves in the future, and I hope they do, quickly. Just because we're given heretofore unheard of potential for the future doesn't mean we have to abandon the inheritance of the past.

Anime Roulette #4: Kaze to Ki no Uta

One of the shows I've been keeping up with during the current anime season is Yuri On Ice, the very popular drama about ice dancing. I figured, I really liked Free, which is a sports show ostensibly made for a fangirl audience, and Yuri On Ice seems much the same, so why not give it a shot? Like Free, I ended up enjoying Yuri On Ice quite a bit - I won't go into all the reasons why, but there's one aspect of the show that really impressed me. With most of these sports shows, there's usually a lot of homosexual innuendo - the characters aren't actually gay themselves, but hinting at homosexuality is an effective method of fanservice for the female fanbase. Yuri On Ice seems to be transcending that - the potential romance between Yuri and Victor has become a focal point of the show, one that is refreshingly understated and unsensationalized.

I can think of very few anime that is willing to tackle the subject of homosexual relationships on that level - manga, yes, but anime is very much lacking. Perhaps gay romances don't have enough mainstream appeal to ensure a successful anime series, or perhaps its easier to just churn out another fanservice show instead. Whatever the case, there are a few shows that have examined the idea of gay relationships, and I can't think of any that's more important than Kaze to Ki no Uta, or The Song of Wind and Trees.

Kaze (I'm just going to call it Kaze from now on, because typing Kaze to Ki no Uta is too damn obnoxious) began its life as a manga series written by Keiko Takemiya, one of a group of women collectively referred to as the Showa 24 Group. To put it bluntly, these women revolutionized shojo manga. They raised the level of storytelling in the genre to that of high literature. Their artwork was elaborate and set the standard of quality that continues to this day. Most importantly, however, was that they were unafraid to tackle controversial social issues in their works, whether it was examining gender roles (still a big social problem in Japan) to, most relevant for this post, homosexual romances. Without the Showa 24 Group, what we now call Yaoi or Shonen Ai in the west simply would not exist.

Despite their undeniable quality and importance, the works of the Showa 24 Group are, sadly, still very much unavailable to us in the United States. We only recently started getting Moto Hagio's major works. We have the fantastic Rose of Versailles anime series, but absolutely none of Riyoko Ikeda's manga has been translated professionally. Even Keiko Takemiya is represented in the US by only two works: To Terra and Andromeda Stories, and both of those are actually shonen manga. Needless to say, the Kaze manga hasn't been officially licensed by any American manga company - there is one group of fans scanlating the series, but their release schedule is inconsistent, and so I haven't read any of it because I'm not confident it'll actually be finished. Thankfully, there is an OVA adaptation of Kaze which has been translated and is widely available on the internet, so that's what I'm going to be taking a look at here.

License this shit, goddammit!

Now, I admit, I was a little worried going into this one, for a few reasons. First of all, Takemiya's manga ran for 17 volumes, and this OVA is only an hour long - there's literally no way to tell the entire story in one hour. Secondly, the fansub that I downloaded began with about five minutes of explanatory notes which basically served to ensure the viewer isn't totally lost at the start. This adaptation of Kaze, then, is one of the millions of OVAs made specifically for fans of its source material, to the exclusion of basically everyone else. Since I've never read a single page of the manga, I was wary - am I even going to stand a chance at enjoying this?

Thankfully, my faith was renewed when I saw that, of all people, Yoshikazu Yasuhiko directed the damn thing. Yas is most famous for doing the character designs for the original Gundam series, but in the 80s he made it big directing awesome movies like Crusher Joe and Arion. How and why a director who more or less exclusively works on sci-fi and fantasy stories ended up directing an adaptation of a '70s shojo manga is beyond me, but I was happy to know such a talented artist was responsible for bringing the story to life.

So let's actually get into the story - it begins, taking a page from A Separate Peace, with the main character, Serge, revisiting the boarding school he attended as a teenager. I don't know if that's how the manga began, but it's honestly a good way to set everything up. The rest of the show is more or less a nonstop flashback to Serge's youth, and right away, we know that whatever follows is going to be some heavy shit.

Who is this Gilbert Cocteau that Serge is literally waxing poetic about? He was his new roommate when he started school, and boy, does he have some issues. He more or less never goes to class, yet he continually gets good grades because he sleeps with other guys in exchange for his exams. And honestly, his personality is quite turbulent on its own. Of course, Serge doesn't have any indication that his new roommate is so tumultuous - I have to say, the OVA more or less beats you over the head with his relative optimism and innocence.

As soon as I saw that scene, I knew that something crazy was going to happen almost immediately, and hey, I was right. Gilbert storms in to the room, violently ill and in the throes of passion. Serge is quite taken aback, though he seems to be the only one on his floor who has any sort of reaction - that reaction intensifies when his floormate Pascal fills him in on what's going on. This all comes to a head when Jack Dren, one of Gilbert's jilted lovers, comes into their room at night, tries to strangle Serge to make him pass out in his bed...

...and then rapes Gilbert. It's an absolutely unpleasant scene, but it works - we aren't told anything of Jack and Gilbert's past, we see only the aftereffects. And those aftereffects make us question everything - what really is going on with Gilbert? Why is he drawn to these frankly homicidal men?

We aren't given any quick answers, but instead we're treated to a side of Serge we've never seen, and honestly were never expecting. Upon waking up from his impromptu strangulation, he fights with Jack until he flees the room, and then, even more unexpectedly, starts barking orders at Gilbert in an attempt to make him feel better.

Not only is his assertiveness completely new, but so is his attitude of care towards his new roommate. Obviously, we can understand that he's horrified by what's gone on, and we already know that he's a pretty good guy to begin with, but this all begs the question - is Serge, who up to this point was horrified by Gilbert's lifestyle, actually developing an attraction for him? That question comes up again and again, and even Serge's other classmates pick up on it, albeit in the most offensive and dismissive way possible.

Though we aren't told explicitly, the impression that I got is that Serge has virtually no romantic or sexual experience whatsoever, so the struggles he has are that much more complicated. This gets even more complicated when, eventually, Gilbert seems to put the moves on Serge himself.

What does Gilbert see in Serge? Like so much else of Gilbert's past and inner thoughts, we aren't told, and again, it works - we want to watch more and find out what the hell is going on in this guy's head. But, sadly, at only an hour running time, it ends before it answers much of anything. Though, I'll be honest, it works surprisingly well here.

Kaze's story, though incomplete and leaving much for us to read in the manga, feels complete in itself. Perhaps the Kaze manga, in its 17 volumes, gives us the entire panoramic view of Serge and Gilbert's relationship, but the OVA gives us only the prelude to that relationship, and it's satisfied with that. It doesn't feel random or arbitrary - Yas was skilled enough as a director to pick one small part of the story and make that feel complete, and he did.

There is a lot left unsaid - we only know Gilbert on the surface, and we only know a tiny bit of his relationship with Auguste, which, from what we're seen, seems to be the determining factor in his violent life. We're given suggestions, though, and those suggestions help us at least come to some sort of understanding of his character. Granted, I was helped by the wonderful notes presented at the beginning, but I feel that even if I didn't have them, I would have understood, and enjoyed, this show just as much as I did.

I did very much enjoy this show, and I think anyone who enjoys tragic love stories or character dramas will get something out of it. It probably was written primarily for fans of the manga, though I think it was well done enough for even someone who hasn't heard of the manga to enjoy. I now very much want to read the manga, and can only hope the scanlation group actually does get around to finishing it - this story has too much potential to leave unfinished.

First Impressions of Final Fantasy XV

Like Power Rangers before it, I can't understate how important the Final Fantasy series has been in my development as the person I am today. I vividly remember the first time I saw one of my friends play Final Fantasy VII back in 1998 - this was my first encounter with any Role Playing Game, so I had literally never seen anything like it. The world was expansive, the story was epic and cinematic in scope, the music was unbelievable, and the graphics, silly as they may look today, completely blew me away.

Yeah, that's about right.

I could honestly write an entire post just about my history with the Final Fantasy series, and perhaps someday I would. But in the interest of keeping this simple, right now I'm just going to talk about my first impressions playing the newest entry in the series, Final Fantasy XV, which was released last Tuesday. I wanted to have this out a few days ago, but I've been playing it so much that I haven't had the time to write. Let that be an early indication as to how I feel about the game at this moment.

In the game, you play as Noctis, crown prince of the Kingdom of Lucis, and candidate for the worst haircut in the history of the human race. I refer to it as emo bitch boy hair.

Lucis is for lovers.

Anyway, Noctis and his entourage are on their way to Altissia, where he will marry Lady Lunafreya, Oracle and princess of the kingdom of Tenebrae. Things don't quite go as planned - the EVIL EMPIRE of Niflheim breaks their pact of nonaggression with Lucis and destroys the capital city of Insomnia, killing Noctis' father, king Regis. In the aftermath, Noctis and Lunafreya are pronounced dead by the empire. As the sole heir to the throne of Lucis, Noctis and his friends must both find Lunafreya and somehow restore peace to their homeland.That's the basic story in a nutshell.

Of course, since this is a role-playing game, there's a lot more going on than just the main plot. There are an incredible amount of side quests in this game, with many of them requiring detailed exploration of the game's world of Eos. This is not a bad thing - Eos is an incredibly detailed, beautifully designed world that, more than any other Final Fantasy world (VIII is probably the only other comparable one), feels like our own. Sure, there's kingdoms run by magic and giants sleeping in caves of fire, but there's also quaint forest villages and outposts settled in the middle of open fields, complete with colorful locals you can talk to. In a way, exploring Eos feels as though you're taking a road trip through the United States.

I saw road trip purposefully - one of the main things people talked about before this game even launched is the fact that you spend a lot of time driving around, in a very 21st Century looking car. I think some were turned off by that, which I found really dumb. First of all, you drove cars, and trains, in Final Fantasy VIII, and I've never heard anybody complain about that. And unlike Final Fantasy VIII, driving in this game is fun, if for no other reason than you can admire the architecture of the game's world.

Let's not talk anymore about the driving - let's discuss the characters instead. Noctis is the most fleshed out so far (of course) - he's a good guy, but being the prince of Lucis, he can come across as very privileged, especially when wandering around what may as well be Eos' version of southern Illinois. His privilege doesn't make him annoying, though, which I feel is hard to pull off. Now that his father is dead and he's effectively king of Lucis, he has to do a lot of growing up, very very quickly. Thankfully, he has his advisors, Ignis (the soft spoken smart guy) and Gladiolus (the tough talking bodyguard) and his friend Prompto, who reminds me of both Tidus and Zell from Final Fantasy X and VIII, to back him up. The four characters are built on fairly reliable character archetypes, but they work well and are effective when played against one another. We haven't gone too far in depth with the other three party members yet, and I'm looking forward to seeing where they come from.

Combat-wise, it's actually fairly similar to Kingdom Hearts, in that everything is in real time, you can only directly control one party member (Noctis, in this case) and it's chaotic as hell. Unlike Kingdom Hearts, thankfully, enemies don't fucking hit you a half a second before you heal yourself and kill you and make you have to fucking watch that cutscene with Riku for the five-hundredth time and...oh, maybe I'm getting off track. But anyway, it's a lot more manageable than Kingdom Hearts, and it gives you plenty of opportunities to retreat if you happen to walk into something that's too far above you.

Honestly, I don't really have too much to complain about (not that I feel bad about that). If anything, Final Fantasy XV has the same problem that similar modern RPGs, like Skyrim or Xenoblade Chronicles, has in their structure. There are so many side quests that the main story can be left by the wayside for hours upon hours - this can drastically reduce the tension provided by that main story. To be honest, I don't know how to fix that - though I will say that I found it more tolerable than Skyrim, since unlike that game, the main character isn't a complete blank slate.

I do have to take away some points for Noctis' hair, though. Anyone who thinks styling yourself like that is a good idea must be insane.

So yes, maybe this blog went on a bit longer than I wanted (it's a recurring trend), but that's what I feel about Final Fantasy XV. Honestly, it's my favorite entry in the series since X was released in 2001. I don't know if I'm alone in that - I don't read reviews for Final Fantasy games anymore, because ever since IX was released, the fanbase has been impossible to please completely, with every game getting mixed reviews. So just do yourself a favor and play it.