Warning: Long, rambling, personal video game post below.
It’s been a long time coming.
Following nearly two years of depressed interest in all things video game (after an adolescence that revolved around video games and designs to design games as a career), I picked up Final Fantasy VI Advance about a year ago and was suddenly sucked in. Soon after, I fired up my Wii and finished off The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess and Tales of Symphonia, both games I’d had for some time but had abandoned. Ever since, I’ve added video games (specifically Japanese RPGs) as a significant portion of my media roster, alongside an increased interest in novels and nonfiction.
A little over a week ago, I polished off my latest Wii purchase, Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World, which was a captivating and worthy sequel to its Gamecube predecessor. But while I still have a number of Wii games left unfinished, I found myself craving more Japanese RPGs. Like a long,epic anime series that lasts dozens of hours, a good RPG can be immensely and intimately satisfying. So at long last, I broke down and bought my first non-Nintendo video game system–a PlayStation 2. And with it, a flood of quality games that had previously been off-limits. I’ve been stocking up games for winter like some kind of gaming squirrel, knowing full well it may be years before I load up Metal Gear Solid 2, but wanting to make sure that I snag what I can now, including some increasingly difficult-to-find original PlayStation games, before the out-of-print games skyrocket in value.
This first week that I’ve had my PS2 has mostly been spent with two games: Katamari Damacy and Persona 3. Katamari Damacy and its sequel are games that I had seen played a few times, but their true appeal eluded me until I got my own thumbs on the analog sticks. There is something unspeakably satisfying when you roll over an object that mere minutes ago had been an insurmountable obstacle. Its jaunty colors and sound design constitute a remarkably polished, upbeat experience.
And Pesona 3? About 11 hours into the game (I indulged myself a lot on Thanksgiving), I’m marveling at nearly every aspect of it and it’s an instant favorite. It, too, is an immaculately assembled piece. Its story structure and mood are reminiscent of a playable combination of the anime series Neon Genesis Evangelion and Boogiepop Phantom. Assuming the role of a blue-haired character you name (I named mine Junichi Murai to get in the spirit of things) attending a suburban Japanese high school, the social links I create and maintain affect the kinds of Personas, or summon spirits, I can call upon by putting a gun-like Evoker to my head and pulling the trigger. While playing earlier today, I pissed off a Kendo teammate by ditching him to hang out with a shy girl I’m trying to get to know better. Also, I must juxtapose my hunting of Shadows in the mysterious Tartarus with finding time to study for my midterms.
The upcoming Persona 4 (preordered) will adjust the battle system to allow the player’s teammates to be directly controlled by the player. While there are certainly some benefits to this (for example, they can get their goddamned healing priorities straight), I’m very much enjoying the A.I.-control of my fellow combatants, as not directing their every move puts me more in the mindset of viewing these individuals as distinct individuals with personalities of their own.
I lack the kind of critical vocabulary for games that I have for film. Indeed, the video game blogs are abuzz with games journalists trying to determine what shape games criticism is going to take as the medium continues to be refined. I’m frustrated with most video game writing as it too often boils down to a simple description of what kind of guns and framerates to expect (and whether or not the “graphics style” is “weird) and a very base buy-or-skip recommendation. The number of perfect scores issued and sheer volume of near-unanimous consensuses is troubling to someone like me who is more familiar with lengthy film articles that either don’t assign a crass rating value or can still find enough value in a two-and-a-half star film While by no means exactly the same, there are enough similarities in the two media to expect that there are more intelligent things that can and will be said moving forward, which I greatly anticipate.
I see a good deal of potential in video games. Some designers, like my beloved Suda51 (No More Heroes, killer7), are intent on deconstructing and evaluating what a video game is. Others are interested in perfecting established formula, like the Tales series. While I play these games, they get me thinking about what it is that makes them so enjoyable. What actually serves up that emotional punch that games can sometimes deliver on. And I begin to wonder what I could contribute to the medium (I’m considering getting back into game design, at least in a hobbyist capacity). It’s all fairly ineffable. But I’m confident we’ll get there–or video games will dwindle into complete and utter irrelevance (where, I know, some would say they are now).
So far I’m very excited with what I see on the PS2. Its library is vast and diverse. While I’m only missing a handful of what I expect to be essentials from Nintendo’s Gamecube and Wii libraries, I know I haven’t even really scratched the surface of the PlayStation and PlayStation 2 titles I’m interested in.
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NOTE: I intend to keep video game posts down to a minimum (and usually on the weekend, when I know my traffic drops drastically), with no more than one or two out of my seven blog posts per week.
