What are you, a middle school English professor? Since when does a good and thought provoking story have to have a word limit to even count as such?Originally Posted by Bolivar
You don't need dialogue and text to have a well thought out story man, Ico and Shadow of the Colussus have very little to no dialogue(even what they have is unintelligible in Ico's case), probably not as much as the NES entries and they run about 5-7 hours in length, but not many people will argue that means the games have no story. You've been playing too much MGS, with its text dumps. that you've forgotten how easy it is to make a great story without a 10 page backstory interlaced with deep psychological and religious symbolism, details don't always mean the character has real depth. There's quite a bit of background info on Zell from FFVIII, but I would argue his character is just as flat and two-dimensional as some of the SNES entries B-Squad cast members like the Twins in FFIV or Strago from FFVI.Zell's got a far more detailed past than all three of the examples I listed but it doesn't change that he's written to be a hot head boy scout jock type character. Hell I could use the same description to describe Edge from FFIV. So sometimes, having a detailed past really doesn't amount to much, depending on who is writing.
I don't necessarily disagree, but I'm sure that if you were to go into more detail, you and I would be at odds at what that statement really means.The power of video games as medium often means something different for each of us and I'm sure if we both gave an example and explained why, we would be more likely to be closer to understanding our own differences on such, rather than actually comming to an consensus on what the definition is of the true power of the video game medium.But once again, we have a misunderstanding. You seem to think I proposed, "moments are what makes people play these games on their initial playthrough." What I meant was that moments are what have made Final Fantasy such an enduring pillar of gaming culture, it's a combination of all of its artistic elements, which is also what makes video games such a unique medium.
I disagree completely, but that should come as no surprise. I'll explain what I mean below.I think we have a chicken-or-the-egg debate here, if the moments are only powerful because of the buildup with the story. I would definitely disagree. To go with your example, the build-up to Cecil becoming a Paladin is pretty poor.
You could ask the same thing to the German people in the 1930s and 40s.Why would someone pursue a dark path if he was going to be so conflicted about it? As a matter of fact, why would Cecil choose that route for his King if Baron truly was a good man?It is not a stretch at all to do the duty of a man you respect and trust, but actually raised you without too questioning going on. This wiki article could also give you a perfect explanation as well. Suffice to say, Cecil is a soldier following orders, he doesn't really need to question what his superiors intentions are, military structure is all about following orders, I don't see how this rule doesn't imply in a military kingdom placed in a high fantasy setting should be different.
Cecil is simply the indebted adoptive son/vassal of his king, who is he to question him? A vassal and subject trust their good king to have their subjects best interest in mind when he makes decrees and since Baron was said to be a good king, why should anyone question him? They all just assume that there is a method to his madness. Leaders start wars with other states with the justification of it being in the countries best interest all the time. Considering Baron has an order of Dark Knights, Dragoons, and now the powerful Red Wings, I feel it's safe to say that Baron has always been a pretty militaristic power in the world of FFIV. So invading and neutralizing future threats, is not far fetched for a King to ask.
He does recognize that something is off, in fact everyone in Baron who isn't a monster notices that Baron has changed in recent times. Yet, I would say that game never says one way or the other about Cecil's relationship with the King of Baron. While we know he was raised by the man along with Kain eventually, all of Cecil's interaction with both the real King and fake King are purely formal. Cecil never even calls him father, so I would argue this suggests that the king raised him informally, as in Cecil lived in the castle and the servants did all of the actually parenting. It's not a terrible stretch to believe a head of state would do that when that isn't far from historical accuracy of courtly affairs. I think you're thinking too much like a guy from the 20th Century.And if Cecil was raised by the man, how would he not be able to tell that it was Cagnazzo?
This is all of course just ignoring the fact Cagnazzo just seems to be a shape-shifting water demon, so outside of some personality quirks, it's not like anyone is going to notice anything physically different about him. Still, talking to the other soldiers in Baron and the town people, it's likely Cagnazzo was going to be found out anyway eventually, Cecil is just the first person who actually spoke up about the King acting a bit funny, which is why Cagnazzo sent him away anyway.
We can say that about most of the games, but as I've shown above, I don't feel any of it very far fetched, you would have done better discussing some of the actual bad writing in the game like Cid's "Sacrifice" instead of trying to pick apart the section of the game that is actually written pretty well.Why do any of these things exist other than the fact that the game tells us that it should be so? We accept them because we didn't solely buy the game for a story, we bought it also for its gameplay, for its entertainment.
Besides, the later entries don't quite escape the problem of the player having to accept a plothole because the author says it. While Holy is the perfect antithesis created by the Cetra to save the planet from Meteor, where does the Black Materia come from? All we know of VII's past is that the peaceful environmental friendly utopian society of the Cetra ruled the planet, and all materia comes from their condensed knowledge, so who the hell thought up a planet killing super spell? Time Compression in FFVIII is never properly explained, we don't know how it's cast, only that it has to be done in the past, why Ultimecia desired it, nd why she's the only person who can exist within it. In FFX, the dead have the power to make thought into reality, the living on the other hand have to fight monsters with weapons and low profile magic. The entire plot hinges on the dead being omnipotent beings, of which point, why don't they just create their own version of Sin to kick the crap out of Yevon's Sin, and then blink it out of existence when he tries to possess it and just repeat the process until every Aeon is gone and then Yevon will just cease to be and have to be Sent? FFXII's plot has mankind getting free from the domination of a near immortal godlike race by breaking their Crystal which said alien race simply used to manipulate Humes due to the Crystals power. It's not like the Occurians are killed or somehow separated from the world, it's not like when you visit them we didn't bear witness to a huge incredibly hi-tech civilization floating in orbit above the planet. So how did Vayne's plan work to help mankind again? FFXIII's climax hinges on two characters suddenly learning how to push their power to 11 and transform into Super Ragnarok to ease Cocoon's fall before transforming into mountain size crystal versions of themselves to stop it from landing. Not to mention when Orphan transforms most of the party into Cieth and then suddenly they are not after the long and distasteful torture scene, even if the transformation was an illusion, what the hell was the party doing all that time? Also all the characters got their l'Cie cursed removed with no explanation unless you read the Ultimania or play XIII-2 which basically hand waves the whole thing by saying a Goddess who is mentioned once in some background text did all of that.
So I wouldn't necessarily say that the advent of longer games and more text has somehow saved us from plotholes and inconsistencies. Of anything, with some of these games, it just allowed writers to do it more often. So I don't necessarily feel that writing has improved in the series due to the advent of better technology.
I also like most of the plots. In fact I love the concept of every entry, it's just the execution of said concepts doesn't always work out the way I would have found enjoyable. It's just in my nature to deconstruct a game and talk about it's failings, because I often find flaws to be more interesting than what something did right.I'm not one of those peculiar fans who thinks that the stories in FF are bottom of the barrel. I love the stories in all the games and appreciate them for what they are, but especially for the whole that they contribute to.
I disagree, I just feel you take everything at face value and if the plot doesn't fulfill some arbitrary list of rules to be considered "deep" you don't bother observing any possible merit that might have been there. To bring this back to FFV as an example, I mentioned that one of the game's strengths was that it had an interesting theme of inheritance that is not really blatantly told to you like VII's environmental themes or FFX's Greek Tragedy, the theme can be seen by what actually happens in the course of the game. Ex-Death is born from mankind trying to seal away all of its troubles in the Forest of Moore, said evil is only defeated and sealed by the Dawn Warriors, and Ex-Death is only finally defeated by the youngest generation that is made up of the descendants of the Dawn Warriors. Each generation inherits the problems of the last generation, this doesn't even include the message about misusing resources that is the opening quest of the games, or the theme of the crystals representing the virtues of mankind. There is a lot of symbolic significance in the games story and plot. People don't discuss a lot of it anymore because many of these games 15-25 years old, and everything that can be discussed has been. It's like trying to ring out anything new out the original Star Wars trilogy. If you can't see the significance of the story and characters, I would say it's less about the games inefficiency and more of your own personal hang-ups as a consumer of story telling.But for the first six games, there isn't much story to examine, and when placed under a microscope, the characters are molecule thin.
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