Games as Art: FF6
Intro
I?ve been playing videogames for a long time now, and as a result I?ve come around to believing that games are art. It?s always baffled me, though, that no one in the mainstream is excited about this. I mean, we have a genuinely interactive media here. This isn?t your usual superficial interactive art where viewers ?are invited to explore the space? or you push a button and wait for something to happen or you?re at a play and some actor shoves a mic into the face of some audience member. This is a real dialogue between the viewer and the art work. That?s exciting right?
I think people aren?t excited just because they don?t buy it. Games are escapist, which creates a presumption that they have no value. Games also make money, and thus they have attracted risk-adverse developers who are still marketing to the lowest common denominator (moar pretty war games for teen boys). Also, games have strict narrative constraints ? the player only has a finite number of ways to interact with the word, and the plot must accommodate this while providing constant tasks of ever increasing difficulty to keep things interesting. However, what people miss is that games have unique advantages, too. They can explore the relationship between the player and character and accommodate themes, scopes, and plots that other media cannot.
Still, if you hadn?t played them, you wouldn?t know. So I?m going to write a series of reviews that explore a few great examples of games making statements that only games could do effectively. Well, I?ll do one anyway, and, if I get positive feedback, I?ll do more. They won?t be this long. This one is looooong.
One more note: this is so spoiler heavy that I?m going to have to spoiler tag everything but the game name and the intro P?s. It?s really for people who?ve played the game or don?t mind not being surprised.
Final Fantasy 6
Videogames are leaps and bounds beyond where they began visually. However, as game visuals become more sophisticated, videogame designers seem more inclined to structure game plots as a series of movie vignettes separated by and clashing game play segments, which themselves do not feel cinematic. It seems to me that if you want to argue that games are a valid artistic medium, you have to show that the game play aspect of the experience is integral to telling the story or rendering the emotional or intellectual impact of the game. Otherwise, you?re just playing Scrabble before watching a movie. It?s perhaps not accidental that one of the best examples of a game whose appeal really requires the ?game? part occurred before games drew huge budgets and had sophisticated visuals. Final Fantasy 6 made thematic statements and bolstered narrative with game play in innovative new ways while perfecting storytelling with 2d sprites.
Aesthetics ? Stage Acting
Cinematic cut scenes are the order of the day. These graphical breaks from the in game engine provide the game with ?wow? factor for previews, they reward the player, and they allow the videogame industry to ape film conventions. Although a handful of games seem to be reviving the in-game-engine cut scene (Half-Lifes, MGS4, and Bioshock), they?re outliers at the moment because of the difficulty in creating such impressive graphics throughout the game. In the era of cart-based games, however, most games told the bulk of their plot without cut scenes for the simple reason that they had to.
Cart-based games couldn?t handle the levels of information storage necessary to show elaborate cut scenes or even accommodate voice acting. Thus game developers were confined to using blocky sprites and text boxes to tell the entire story of a game. While this approach was largely abandoned once games went to disc, some cartridge games used it as an advantage rather than a disadvantage. Voice acting was notoriously bad in early games. Likewise, 3d visuals, though they might be prettier, were inferior for showing character interaction. Film acting relies on subtle facial animations and subtle body language cues that games have only recently been able to replicate. It is little wonder that characters in games mostly showcase extreme emotions ? these are easier to animate convincingly.
2d games, on the other hand, focused on simple broad gestures and movement of characters within a space to communicate their intentions and interests. In this way, these games followed the conventions of stage acting. Stage actors, due the their distance from the audience, use blocking and exaggerated gestures to communicate emotional states. However, because of the scope of a game ? these can have plots several times the size of movies or plays ? cartridge games did not need to indulge in unrealistic asides to have characters explain their motivations.
Theme ? Post-Modern-Post-Apocalypse
A lot of (internet) ink has been spilt over which Final Fantasy is the best. Usually posters focus on which villain was the most villainous or which plot twist delivered the biggest punch in the gut. Oddly enough, no one ever seems concerned with the quality of the themes in these games ? even though they are loaded with allusions to things like racism, imperialism, sanity, the role of technology in human identity, the place of humans in nature, and issues of free will. Among Final Fantasies, the sixth installment stands alone as the thematic heavy hitter. Although, there is a lot to choose from, I am only going to focus on two elements of Final Fantasy 6?s repertoire: the use of towns and the existential critique of fantasy plots.
Conclusion
The point of all this has been two things. First, games can have serious themes and thus do more than simply entertain the player. Second, due to the scope of game plots, the relationship between the narrative and gameplay, and between the player and the characters, games can deal with different themes and develop plots in different ways than other similar media. FF6 is an excellent example of this. It uses non-linearity (a game exclusive plot device) to deal with philosophical themes that can only be touched on by other media. A choice by a character simply does not seem as free as a real choice by a player. The way that the player engages with the game really is necessary to experience the message lying within FF6.
Intro
I?ve been playing videogames for a long time now, and as a result I?ve come around to believing that games are art. It?s always baffled me, though, that no one in the mainstream is excited about this. I mean, we have a genuinely interactive media here. This isn?t your usual superficial interactive art where viewers ?are invited to explore the space? or you push a button and wait for something to happen or you?re at a play and some actor shoves a mic into the face of some audience member. This is a real dialogue between the viewer and the art work. That?s exciting right?
I think people aren?t excited just because they don?t buy it. Games are escapist, which creates a presumption that they have no value. Games also make money, and thus they have attracted risk-adverse developers who are still marketing to the lowest common denominator (moar pretty war games for teen boys). Also, games have strict narrative constraints ? the player only has a finite number of ways to interact with the word, and the plot must accommodate this while providing constant tasks of ever increasing difficulty to keep things interesting. However, what people miss is that games have unique advantages, too. They can explore the relationship between the player and character and accommodate themes, scopes, and plots that other media cannot.
Still, if you hadn?t played them, you wouldn?t know. So I?m going to write a series of reviews that explore a few great examples of games making statements that only games could do effectively. Well, I?ll do one anyway, and, if I get positive feedback, I?ll do more. They won?t be this long. This one is looooong.
One more note: this is so spoiler heavy that I?m going to have to spoiler tag everything but the game name and the intro P?s. It?s really for people who?ve played the game or don?t mind not being surprised.
Final Fantasy 6
Videogames are leaps and bounds beyond where they began visually. However, as game visuals become more sophisticated, videogame designers seem more inclined to structure game plots as a series of movie vignettes separated by and clashing game play segments, which themselves do not feel cinematic. It seems to me that if you want to argue that games are a valid artistic medium, you have to show that the game play aspect of the experience is integral to telling the story or rendering the emotional or intellectual impact of the game. Otherwise, you?re just playing Scrabble before watching a movie. It?s perhaps not accidental that one of the best examples of a game whose appeal really requires the ?game? part occurred before games drew huge budgets and had sophisticated visuals. Final Fantasy 6 made thematic statements and bolstered narrative with game play in innovative new ways while perfecting storytelling with 2d sprites.
Aesthetics ? Stage Acting
Cinematic cut scenes are the order of the day. These graphical breaks from the in game engine provide the game with ?wow? factor for previews, they reward the player, and they allow the videogame industry to ape film conventions. Although a handful of games seem to be reviving the in-game-engine cut scene (Half-Lifes, MGS4, and Bioshock), they?re outliers at the moment because of the difficulty in creating such impressive graphics throughout the game. In the era of cart-based games, however, most games told the bulk of their plot without cut scenes for the simple reason that they had to.
Cart-based games couldn?t handle the levels of information storage necessary to show elaborate cut scenes or even accommodate voice acting. Thus game developers were confined to using blocky sprites and text boxes to tell the entire story of a game. While this approach was largely abandoned once games went to disc, some cartridge games used it as an advantage rather than a disadvantage. Voice acting was notoriously bad in early games. Likewise, 3d visuals, though they might be prettier, were inferior for showing character interaction. Film acting relies on subtle facial animations and subtle body language cues that games have only recently been able to replicate. It is little wonder that characters in games mostly showcase extreme emotions ? these are easier to animate convincingly.
2d games, on the other hand, focused on simple broad gestures and movement of characters within a space to communicate their intentions and interests. In this way, these games followed the conventions of stage acting. Stage actors, due the their distance from the audience, use blocking and exaggerated gestures to communicate emotional states. However, because of the scope of a game ? these can have plots several times the size of movies or plays ? cartridge games did not need to indulge in unrealistic asides to have characters explain their motivations.
{
FF6 is notable as one of the games in that it both perfects this stage-acting character interaction, while examining its departures from the source material. There is a famous moment in FF6 in which the main characters are asked to participate in a musical. Gamers were mostly excited by the new game play elements ? blocking and lines. However, at this point the game also shifts its narrative conventions to those of a play. A wild animal who was a boss at an earlier point reemerges. He then indulges in a aside laying out his convoluted and silly plan to trick the main characters by planting a fake letter, which he throws half way across the screen so that it?s difficult to miss. This sort of corny convoluted scheme is common in comic plays but out of place in the game. The game then discards this plot line so that it only functions as a quick jab at playwriting.
The real plotline in the game, however, is also allowed to be a little more play-like than usual. A melodramatic opera owner worries aloud to provide exposition. The characters engage in a complicated plot to deceive an equally melodramatic anti-hero. Immediately after this sequence, the game resumes its normal somber tone, emphasizing the way the game uses stage in its presentation but not its plotting. The game revisits this theme in an interactive back story for one of the characters. However, in this case, the emphasis is placed on a surreal and abstract depiction of sex, which uses character movement in space to communicate with the players, but does so in a way that would be impossible on a stage.
}
FF6 is notable as one of the games in that it both perfects this stage-acting character interaction, while examining its departures from the source material. There is a famous moment in FF6 in which the main characters are asked to participate in a musical. Gamers were mostly excited by the new game play elements ? blocking and lines. However, at this point the game also shifts its narrative conventions to those of a play. A wild animal who was a boss at an earlier point reemerges. He then indulges in a aside laying out his convoluted and silly plan to trick the main characters by planting a fake letter, which he throws half way across the screen so that it?s difficult to miss. This sort of corny convoluted scheme is common in comic plays but out of place in the game. The game then discards this plot line so that it only functions as a quick jab at playwriting.
The real plotline in the game, however, is also allowed to be a little more play-like than usual. A melodramatic opera owner worries aloud to provide exposition. The characters engage in a complicated plot to deceive an equally melodramatic anti-hero. Immediately after this sequence, the game resumes its normal somber tone, emphasizing the way the game uses stage in its presentation but not its plotting. The game revisits this theme in an interactive back story for one of the characters. However, in this case, the emphasis is placed on a surreal and abstract depiction of sex, which uses character movement in space to communicate with the players, but does so in a way that would be impossible on a stage.
}
Theme ? Post-Modern-Post-Apocalypse
A lot of (internet) ink has been spilt over which Final Fantasy is the best. Usually posters focus on which villain was the most villainous or which plot twist delivered the biggest punch in the gut. Oddly enough, no one ever seems concerned with the quality of the themes in these games ? even though they are loaded with allusions to things like racism, imperialism, sanity, the role of technology in human identity, the place of humans in nature, and issues of free will. Among Final Fantasies, the sixth installment stands alone as the thematic heavy hitter. Although, there is a lot to choose from, I am only going to focus on two elements of Final Fantasy 6?s repertoire: the use of towns and the existential critique of fantasy plots.
{
Towns in role playing games are either improbably small stylized cities (Eternal Sonata) or somewhat bland faceless larger towns (Oblivion or Assassin?s Creed). In the 16 bit era, all towns had to be small to accommodate cartridge space. FF6 embraces this constraint by using its towns as caricatures of small chunks of every day life. Each town has a unique game play element to ensure that the player picks up on the essence of the town. The rich town gossips about the poor town. It has an auction house where the player can bid on items, and wealthy patrons pay ridiculous sums for unique but worthless things. In the poor town, the player can get into fights in the street. A farmers market inspired seaport town encourages players to comparison shop. A town in the wilderness full of ex-pats and (those escaping from the central war) has the player doing a game sending letters. An unspoiled idyllic town has a young girl running around flowers, while an occupied town has a young woman running in a similar pattern pursued by a soldier. A mining town features a progressively more dangerous maze.
At a midpoint in the game, the world undergoes a sudden and cataclysmic change. This provides a catalyst for re-examining the game?s towns. Each town deals with the crisis in a way that provides a critique of its particular caricature. The wealthy town that prospered indirectly from the war is consumed by its own excesses. The poor town, still rough but no longer dangerous to the advanced characters, has become a refuge for a character whose personal pain has turned him into an artist or sorts. The isolationists in the ex pat town are killed by a side effect of the conflict from which they abstained. The occupied villages have reached an accord between soldiers and citizens now that the soldiers are robbed of their power. The mining town?s resources are exhausted and it is abandoned.
Existentialism, Narrative and Game Play
The central theme of Final Fantasy 6 is an existential one ? finding meaning in a chaotic world. The game is actually fairly clear about its ties to existentialism. For those who aren?t really into the philosophy thing, here is a quick summary: at one point, folks assumed that there was a singular and correct answer to the question, ?What is the meaning of life?? This generally stemmed from a view or morality as singular and of the world as created by a divine intelligence. However, as it proved impossible to force any sort of agreement as to what exactly that meaning was, there arose doubters. Two of the most famous are Nietzsche and Kafka. Nietzsche is famous for declaring that ?God is dead,? which was a flashy way of saying, ?we don?t have anyone to tell us the real meaning of life ? we can find no unquestionable source from which to derive our morality.? Kafka is also considered a forerunner to existentialism. Though he wrote literature rather than philosophy, he dealt with many of the same issues regarding the personal and intractable nature of meaning and value. After these folks came the existentialists proper who believed that the world is not meaningless, but that it does not carry innate meaning. It is a canvas upon which we create our own meanings and values, which, though not predetermined, are nonetheless valid.
FF6 uses its plot to recreate this intellectual movement. In the beginning of the game, good and bad are well defined. There are evil characters and good characters, and the conflict between them is plain. However, this conflict is merely an insubstantial show that falls apart at the game?s midpoint. At this time, the player encounters the game world?s gods. These gods are physically manifest and tasked with keeping order in the world. The game?s central villain, an amoral trickster named Kefka, literally kills the gods. He then undergoes a strange metamorphosis. At this time, the game?s central conflict between good and evil factions completely falls away. Instead, the second half of the game concerns itself with each of the characters in the cast separating. Each character initially gives up the main question, but while pursuing their his or her own goals, each also finds meaning in the original struggle, and the quest is rejoined.
FF6 doesn?t merely plot in the existential theme ? it makes use of game play to force the player to deal with the game?s story on a thematic level. In the beginning of the game, the player is rigidly forced to play as certain characters in certain scenarios. Each of these plot points serves to illustrate that character?s personality and motivations. As the game progresses, the player is given more leeway in choosing which characters to take to take to a given event. However, these choices are not totally arbitrary. If the player chooses characters whose relationships with each other and the plot element in question are strongest, the game rewards you with additional dialogue, characterization, and events. When a line of dialogue must be spoken irrespective of the characters in the player?s party, there is an order of priority for who gets what lines based on how well the suit each character.
Besides using Easter eggs to encourage players to come to grips with each character, the game has an overall structure that mirrors its theme. The beginning half of the game is linear. The player is guided from one plot point to the next without much room for exploration. However, in the second half of the game, the story becomes completely non-linear. The player can choose which characters? main and side quests to pursue or not as well as their orders. Each side quest grants game play benefits and thus encourages the players to delve deeper into character motivation. Occasionally understanding the relationships between characters or empathizing with characters is essential to unlock the quests themselves. For example, a character named Shadow is a tragic protagonist. He is filled with self-loathing and at one point tries to sacrifice himself for the greater good. The game encourages you to let him do so. However, if you empathize with the character, you can keep him alive. Likewise, another quest only opens if you take an extremely private and secretive character out on his own.
}
Towns in role playing games are either improbably small stylized cities (Eternal Sonata) or somewhat bland faceless larger towns (Oblivion or Assassin?s Creed). In the 16 bit era, all towns had to be small to accommodate cartridge space. FF6 embraces this constraint by using its towns as caricatures of small chunks of every day life. Each town has a unique game play element to ensure that the player picks up on the essence of the town. The rich town gossips about the poor town. It has an auction house where the player can bid on items, and wealthy patrons pay ridiculous sums for unique but worthless things. In the poor town, the player can get into fights in the street. A farmers market inspired seaport town encourages players to comparison shop. A town in the wilderness full of ex-pats and (those escaping from the central war) has the player doing a game sending letters. An unspoiled idyllic town has a young girl running around flowers, while an occupied town has a young woman running in a similar pattern pursued by a soldier. A mining town features a progressively more dangerous maze.
At a midpoint in the game, the world undergoes a sudden and cataclysmic change. This provides a catalyst for re-examining the game?s towns. Each town deals with the crisis in a way that provides a critique of its particular caricature. The wealthy town that prospered indirectly from the war is consumed by its own excesses. The poor town, still rough but no longer dangerous to the advanced characters, has become a refuge for a character whose personal pain has turned him into an artist or sorts. The isolationists in the ex pat town are killed by a side effect of the conflict from which they abstained. The occupied villages have reached an accord between soldiers and citizens now that the soldiers are robbed of their power. The mining town?s resources are exhausted and it is abandoned.
Existentialism, Narrative and Game Play
The central theme of Final Fantasy 6 is an existential one ? finding meaning in a chaotic world. The game is actually fairly clear about its ties to existentialism. For those who aren?t really into the philosophy thing, here is a quick summary: at one point, folks assumed that there was a singular and correct answer to the question, ?What is the meaning of life?? This generally stemmed from a view or morality as singular and of the world as created by a divine intelligence. However, as it proved impossible to force any sort of agreement as to what exactly that meaning was, there arose doubters. Two of the most famous are Nietzsche and Kafka. Nietzsche is famous for declaring that ?God is dead,? which was a flashy way of saying, ?we don?t have anyone to tell us the real meaning of life ? we can find no unquestionable source from which to derive our morality.? Kafka is also considered a forerunner to existentialism. Though he wrote literature rather than philosophy, he dealt with many of the same issues regarding the personal and intractable nature of meaning and value. After these folks came the existentialists proper who believed that the world is not meaningless, but that it does not carry innate meaning. It is a canvas upon which we create our own meanings and values, which, though not predetermined, are nonetheless valid.
FF6 uses its plot to recreate this intellectual movement. In the beginning of the game, good and bad are well defined. There are evil characters and good characters, and the conflict between them is plain. However, this conflict is merely an insubstantial show that falls apart at the game?s midpoint. At this time, the player encounters the game world?s gods. These gods are physically manifest and tasked with keeping order in the world. The game?s central villain, an amoral trickster named Kefka, literally kills the gods. He then undergoes a strange metamorphosis. At this time, the game?s central conflict between good and evil factions completely falls away. Instead, the second half of the game concerns itself with each of the characters in the cast separating. Each character initially gives up the main question, but while pursuing their his or her own goals, each also finds meaning in the original struggle, and the quest is rejoined.
FF6 doesn?t merely plot in the existential theme ? it makes use of game play to force the player to deal with the game?s story on a thematic level. In the beginning of the game, the player is rigidly forced to play as certain characters in certain scenarios. Each of these plot points serves to illustrate that character?s personality and motivations. As the game progresses, the player is given more leeway in choosing which characters to take to take to a given event. However, these choices are not totally arbitrary. If the player chooses characters whose relationships with each other and the plot element in question are strongest, the game rewards you with additional dialogue, characterization, and events. When a line of dialogue must be spoken irrespective of the characters in the player?s party, there is an order of priority for who gets what lines based on how well the suit each character.
Besides using Easter eggs to encourage players to come to grips with each character, the game has an overall structure that mirrors its theme. The beginning half of the game is linear. The player is guided from one plot point to the next without much room for exploration. However, in the second half of the game, the story becomes completely non-linear. The player can choose which characters? main and side quests to pursue or not as well as their orders. Each side quest grants game play benefits and thus encourages the players to delve deeper into character motivation. Occasionally understanding the relationships between characters or empathizing with characters is essential to unlock the quests themselves. For example, a character named Shadow is a tragic protagonist. He is filled with self-loathing and at one point tries to sacrifice himself for the greater good. The game encourages you to let him do so. However, if you empathize with the character, you can keep him alive. Likewise, another quest only opens if you take an extremely private and secretive character out on his own.
}
Conclusion
The point of all this has been two things. First, games can have serious themes and thus do more than simply entertain the player. Second, due to the scope of game plots, the relationship between the narrative and gameplay, and between the player and the characters, games can deal with different themes and develop plots in different ways than other similar media. FF6 is an excellent example of this. It uses non-linearity (a game exclusive plot device) to deal with philosophical themes that can only be touched on by other media. A choice by a character simply does not seem as free as a real choice by a player. The way that the player engages with the game really is necessary to experience the message lying within FF6.
