31st March 2005, 1:55 PM
No one here has any idea what i'm saying.
FF6 does not have a good story, it is trite 'save the world' backyard mythology with an inate hero fighting inate evil with no character driven plot. You walk around and get in fights to boost your stats so you can fight more difficult enemies and progress through the game in that way, occasionally having bits of story thrown at you that seem more random than crafted. The entire story element is built around the idea of exploring strange new worlds and dealing with circumstances and conflicts within each new area, in essense a collection of tiny stories to make one large one. RPG's (and most video games in general) have to be designed around that otherwise it gets boring. Unfortunately it's that sub-plot after sub-plot that makes the entire story trite sense those sub-plots aren't even that good to begin with because they were built around the idea of gameplay which in an RPG is building stats and strategically fighting enemies with a team of extremes.
A fighting type person, a healing type person, a person who only uses long-range weapons, a defensive person, etc. Each one comes from a different town and has an extreme personality to go with their extreme visage. The fighter is overly heroic with a strong body and mad sword skills, the healer is usually a cute woman with a weak body against attacks and so on. They do this so it's more fun to play the game.
But this is krap story telling, this is comic book-writen by a 12 year old-bullshit story telling where there's no guidelines, it simply happens because "It's cool". Your progress is blocked and you cant reach the next town, you must accomplish these goals and defeat this enemy. The enemy is a horrible one-eyed tentacle monster that lives in the north cave and eats puppies (unlike the last town that had a horrible one-eyed tentacle monster that eats ham), however in this fight you will have the added features of your new magic skills and a new character on your team. Okay, did you learn your lesson? Good, you are now set up for the next major boss battle you may progress to the next town or area.
A good story has guidelines, it has context, it has rythem and scope. Final Fantasy 6 is shit on the boot of Gone With the Wind which has REAL characters with REAL context and trials and it is an extremely well defined story built on guidelines created by master story tellers, including but not limited to the Jewish high priests that wrote the Bible, Star Wars is a good example of that. The story of Star Wars is one part actual history (The French Revolution and the Civil War) and one part Christian Mythos (Darth Vader being God, Luke being Jesus, etc) and will consistetly mesh the two ideals through the story of the films in a way that is genius and conducive to audiences. In fact it's so good, it's only been done by one film maker's vision. George Lucas is a good story teller, he focuses on what the story needs before peppering it with things that are "just damn cool". But Video games never get that treatment, they only get the "Let's do this because it's damn cool".
Can you name one video game with a story that doesn't involve fighting something? You cant because it would be a boring video game, But there's thousands of world acclaimed films that have heros in them where no fighting occurs, no great evil, just a good story with memorable characters and scenes.
Silent Hill has an awesome story that fits well with gameplay. It has hidden meanings and subtextual design, a 3 act paradigm, an already existing character that evolves through trial. A hook, an expo, and a resolution. All of it scoped in to a web of complimenting sub-plots, characters and scenary that are based on the STORY not the main character. This is the first mistake most video games make with their story design. Yes, i'm going to play as this character for the entire game but the story doesn't have to revolve around him; You need antagonists to cause change to the CHARACTER, that's what story telling is! In FF6 there are no antagonists, just monsters that you go find and pick fights with because they're eating the children or poisoning the water, you're playing as the antagonist; You're the one causing the change and that my friends is bad story telling but excellent game design.
If you weren't the antagonist, you wouldn't have a video game. You'd sit around waiting for something to happen to you. YOU have to go find the conflict and cause change in the characters and environment around you.
You guys just wont understand because you dont write scripts or read them, but there are strict guidelines a story MUST follow in order for it to reach your soul and video games by their very nature cannot do that effectively because video games call for a completely different type of story telling that should revolve around the game player, not the game's character.
FF6 does not have a good story, it is trite 'save the world' backyard mythology with an inate hero fighting inate evil with no character driven plot. You walk around and get in fights to boost your stats so you can fight more difficult enemies and progress through the game in that way, occasionally having bits of story thrown at you that seem more random than crafted. The entire story element is built around the idea of exploring strange new worlds and dealing with circumstances and conflicts within each new area, in essense a collection of tiny stories to make one large one. RPG's (and most video games in general) have to be designed around that otherwise it gets boring. Unfortunately it's that sub-plot after sub-plot that makes the entire story trite sense those sub-plots aren't even that good to begin with because they were built around the idea of gameplay which in an RPG is building stats and strategically fighting enemies with a team of extremes.
A fighting type person, a healing type person, a person who only uses long-range weapons, a defensive person, etc. Each one comes from a different town and has an extreme personality to go with their extreme visage. The fighter is overly heroic with a strong body and mad sword skills, the healer is usually a cute woman with a weak body against attacks and so on. They do this so it's more fun to play the game.
But this is krap story telling, this is comic book-writen by a 12 year old-bullshit story telling where there's no guidelines, it simply happens because "It's cool". Your progress is blocked and you cant reach the next town, you must accomplish these goals and defeat this enemy. The enemy is a horrible one-eyed tentacle monster that lives in the north cave and eats puppies (unlike the last town that had a horrible one-eyed tentacle monster that eats ham), however in this fight you will have the added features of your new magic skills and a new character on your team. Okay, did you learn your lesson? Good, you are now set up for the next major boss battle you may progress to the next town or area.
A good story has guidelines, it has context, it has rythem and scope. Final Fantasy 6 is shit on the boot of Gone With the Wind which has REAL characters with REAL context and trials and it is an extremely well defined story built on guidelines created by master story tellers, including but not limited to the Jewish high priests that wrote the Bible, Star Wars is a good example of that. The story of Star Wars is one part actual history (The French Revolution and the Civil War) and one part Christian Mythos (Darth Vader being God, Luke being Jesus, etc) and will consistetly mesh the two ideals through the story of the films in a way that is genius and conducive to audiences. In fact it's so good, it's only been done by one film maker's vision. George Lucas is a good story teller, he focuses on what the story needs before peppering it with things that are "just damn cool". But Video games never get that treatment, they only get the "Let's do this because it's damn cool".
Can you name one video game with a story that doesn't involve fighting something? You cant because it would be a boring video game, But there's thousands of world acclaimed films that have heros in them where no fighting occurs, no great evil, just a good story with memorable characters and scenes.
Silent Hill has an awesome story that fits well with gameplay. It has hidden meanings and subtextual design, a 3 act paradigm, an already existing character that evolves through trial. A hook, an expo, and a resolution. All of it scoped in to a web of complimenting sub-plots, characters and scenary that are based on the STORY not the main character. This is the first mistake most video games make with their story design. Yes, i'm going to play as this character for the entire game but the story doesn't have to revolve around him; You need antagonists to cause change to the CHARACTER, that's what story telling is! In FF6 there are no antagonists, just monsters that you go find and pick fights with because they're eating the children or poisoning the water, you're playing as the antagonist; You're the one causing the change and that my friends is bad story telling but excellent game design.
If you weren't the antagonist, you wouldn't have a video game. You'd sit around waiting for something to happen to you. YOU have to go find the conflict and cause change in the characters and environment around you.
You guys just wont understand because you dont write scripts or read them, but there are strict guidelines a story MUST follow in order for it to reach your soul and video games by their very nature cannot do that effectively because video games call for a completely different type of story telling that should revolve around the game player, not the game's character.