Graphics, Music, and Voices: The Art of Storytelling

[Wolf Kanno]

This has been a topic I've wished to discuss for some time now. Granted this is going to result in some mud-slinging here and there but at least it will be interesting to see where other people view this.

Technically this topic could be in general gaming but I feel the FF series works as a perfect gaming paralell to this technological phenomenon and to make things easier to debate, we could use the series alone.

Basically, we've watched the series grow from 8-bit squashed children to hi-res 3D designs that allow us to see Lightening's pores on her body. We listened to catchy and repetitive songs on the NES grow into fully orchestrated musical masterpieces that easily rival (and in some people's opinions, like my own) surpass big budget Hollywood musical scores. We've watched as little sprites squeak out a small piece of text helping you figure out where to go next grow in Balthier giving out monologues of his past to characters in fully voiced cinema whose quality rivals the best of high stage theatre.

But the question remains between the old guard and the new guard: Does technology create a better story? Is Final Fantasy X a better written story than say FFIV because it's technology allows it to be? Is Aerith's death more meaningful than say the death of Josef in FFII?

Sakeguchi said himself when he was making FFVII (the controversial start of this "cinematic revolution") that "...this game will make everything we did before, look like puppet shows..." but can one truly say that only the later games have merits in storytelling? Should the older games only be looked upon as evolutionary relics and only games starting from FFVI be considered the games that stand for the qualities we see in the FF series.

On the other hand...

Are the older games truly worth the praise they get? Or are we blinded by nostalgia to see the inherent flaws they carry? A character like Rosa is well loved by older fans but she does come across two-dimensional when compared to some of the newer female leads to appear in recent years.

Basically, is storytelling a universal prinicple or is it merely a sum of it's parts?

[Renmiri]

I think storytelling is cultural, i.e., you appreciate it the way you learned to hear it.

My kids are fully in the "cinematic age" and don't get much into the 2 dimensional squashed characters. I get books, with no graphics, no interaction and no soundtrack. My younger sister is a movie / TV kind of gal, she needs the soundtrack and the graphics. You who are younger than us both enjoyed the 2D game storytelling. I'm not saying you, my sister or my kids don't read books, I'm just saying how people have preferences for the way they hear stories: interactive, graphics / sound....

Just in this small sample, were we are all in the same basic culture, i.e. western modern world and we already have slightly different ways we prefer our stories told. I imagine that even centuries ago, there were people who preferred plays or opera to books, while in some places story telling got even sacred, i.e. to native americans and Christianity.

My point is, storytelling is a basic human endeavor and is evolving as we speak, just like all else in our society :)

[Vivisteiner]

I think that graphics just help to heighten the story even further. Facial expressions, voice acting can all increase involvement in the game.

I dont notice music quality so much. Midi sounds bassically as good as fully orchestrated music.

A videogame doesnt require good graphics and music to create a good overall story. However, those things greatly help.

I think the reason FF stories have generally gotten better as they progressed is not necessarily to do with the graphics. I think it was just the evolving nature of how people tell stories in games. When FF was born, stories were generally simple - that was the norm. Nowadays people expect more.

[Bolivar]

Very interesting thread and it'll be good to see what some of those in our little community have to say. Onto my post:

When you look at the original FFI, NPCs could only display one dialogue box each. So due to the limitations of the 8-bit cartridge, the stories were inescapably constrained. Therefore, at a very basic level, you have to admit that better technology does allow for a better story to be told.

With the advent of the 16-bit cartridge, stories of new worlds with rich history and character backgrounds & development could be experienced by the player. Cecil began as a Dark Knight questioning his motives and became a Paladin on a mission to do what's right.

However, these characters still acted like video game characters stuck inside the cliche video game world. So even though the text restraints were finally broken, there seems to be something else holding them back from the next step.

In Final Fantasy VII Barret and Cloud are having a conversation on the social structure of Midgar and why it is the way it is. Cloud says:

"It's like this train. It can't run anywhere except where it's rails take it."

To which Barret responds something like "S%$#! Never expect to hear something like that out of you! You jes' full of surprises!"

This statement isn't just Barret's surprise, it's noting the fact that up until then, video game characters didn't really say things like that. Indeed, if you look at much of the dialogue from FFVII, alot of it is commentary on the evolution of video games, which FFVII was a milestone in. It wasn't just Cloud that jumped off of that train in the opening scene, it was the new era of RPGs.

So why is it that characters in the PSX generation had more complex and interesting things to say than the SNES one?

The answer to this question is that you can't rely on technology alone for a better story. Some of it has to do with the changing nature of the industry. The first few games had very small development teams - Sakaguchi, Tanaka, and Amano to come up with the ideas and direction, Uematsu to make the music, and a few programmers to implement it all. However, due to the rising complexity of technology, much larger teams need to be assembled to accomplish the task.

FFVII, for the series, was the birth of the scenario writer - one developer whose sole task is to take ideas and translate it into a script that can be implemented into the video games. The economic principles of comparative advantage and division of labor had become fulfilled in the video game industry.

So I don't think it's just technology, or the creative force behind it, but as a whole we've been watching the video game medium evolve into a fully credible artform. That is not to say that everything has been progress and forward-moving - it is blatantly obvious that there are plenty of games being made today that have terrible stories and just aren't fun to play. But for Final Fantasy, you can witness how each individual component of the games was further developed and made more intricate. As far as the debate between the old guard and new guard of American fans, I'll have some more thoughts on that as this thread advances.