rionaleonhart | Someday The Dream Will End.

Lately, I've been replaying Final Fantasy X (the original PS2 version, rather than the HD remaster). It's so strange to go back to this game after experiencing PS3 graphics. I remember when I first saw a trailer for Final Fantasy X and was absolutely floored. How were graphics this good even possible? They all looked exactly like real people!

It took me a while to get into my replay, and for a while I was afraid that I might have lost my affection for this game, but then I suddenly plummeted into the desperate depths of love again. It's so good. I love the battle system. I love the characters. I love the music. I do not love all the terrible minigames, but I will look past them because everything else is so great.

Spira is a low-technology world built on the ruins of highly advanced cities. I like the backstory of Final Fantasy X for the way it sets up a very logical explanation for this and then veers off wildly to the left. 'Centuries ago, mankind waged war. Both sides built more and more powerful weapons. In the end, they built weapons so powerful it was thought they could destroy the world.' Okay, so the previous society annihilated itself in an arms race? Nope. 'Then a giant flying whale showed up and destroyed everything.'

Replaying Final Fantasy X has intensely reawoken my desire to see a prequel in which you follow Auron, Braska and Jecht on their pilgrimage. The problem, I suppose, is that we already know how that story ends. Then again, we knew how Crisis Core ended, and I thought that game still managed to justify its existence.

It might not be the time for that game now, though, with Final Fantasy XV coming out. I'm fine with one Final Fantasy game that's All About Men, but two in quick succession might be a bit much.

Initially, learning that Final Fantasy XV would have no female party members bothered me, but I've relaxed a bit now. The Final Fantasy series has almost always included several fully-developed women with their own storylines, and of the last five single-player console games (X-2, XII, XIII, XIII-2 and Lightning Returns), the main character has been female in four (two, in fact, have had no playable male characters). Square's inability to design a female character over the age of twenty-two is troubling, but they're still one of the better game developers for female representation and they've built up some faith with me. If they go, 'On this occasion, we'd like to tell a story about boys,' I'm more likely to go, 'Well, if that's the story you'd like to tell, bring it on!' than I am with, say, Rockstar, for whom my reaction would be, 'Well, yes, but you've been telling stories about boys exclusively for seventeen years.'

It also helps that I suspect Final Fantasy XV's homoerotic roadtrip theme is in part calculated to appeal to women. There are different forms of representation, and recognition in the form of 'hello, we see you behind the controller and we want to draw you in' makes the lack of recognition in the form of 'hello, here you are on the screen' feel less alienating to me. (The former - being welcomed as a member of the audience - might actually be more important to me; Final Fantasy X-2 had an all-female cast, but I never felt entirely at ease with it because I felt it was very much aimed at men. It's been a long time since I last played it, though, so maybe I'll give it another chance once I've finished my X replay.)

None of this is to say that being upset at the lack of female party members isn't valid, of course; this is just my personal attitude. In summary: I'm fine with stories about dudes, so long as they welcome me as part of the audience and so long as they're not the only thing I'm being offered.

Now give me my Auron/Jecht/Braska tragic boyfriends game.

(Auron is so in love with Braska. The flashbacks are so painful to watch. Why do I want to subject myself to an entire game of this?)

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That feeling of "WOW GRAFIX" is even more endearing/appaling in the PS1/N64 era. I look back on those games and think how far things have come, yet when I saw that trailer for Ocarina of Time I remember nearly pissing myself with absolute joy.

You know... I never thought of the FFX story that literally, but when you say it like that...

A prequel would be phenomenal. Not even for knowing how the story ends, but seeing how Braska, Jecht, and Auron grow together. The memory spheres were teasers that barely whetted my appetite for what could have been a great back story. But alas, we're likely done with FFX for the foreseeable future (save for the PS4 HD Remake).

It makes me wonder whether the graphics of Final Fantasy XIII, for example, will look awkward in the near future. I can't even imagine it.

But alas, we're likely done with FFX for the foreseeable future

Sadly, I think you're right; if they were going to make a prequel, it'd probably have been for the ten-year anniversary, and we're well past that. But we can dream!

It makes me wonder whether the graphics of Final Fantasy XIII, for example, will look awkward in the near future.

I think in some ways it does, but maybe not as severe or harsh as it was from the generation five consoles to generation six. Now, we look at six to seven (or even eight) and we see further rendering distances, more stuff on screen at the same time, and cutscenes that are nearly indistinguishable from gameplay. It is far less of a dramatic difference, but one we notice nonetheless.

I wish I could say we see less load times, but unfortunately, they are still very prominent, even with the 10-35GB game installs on our consoles.

My response to this post is full of spoilers. If I haven't e-mailed you about it in 2018, remind me.

If they go, 'On this occasion, we'd like to tell a story about boys,' I'm more likely to go, 'Well, if that's the story you'd like to tell, bring it on!'

This is a really good point and kind of the place I would like our world to be in! And I hadn't really realized the Square has actually made so many games featuring female leads. (And really, I would still argue that the main character of FFXII is actually Ashe, not Vaan, but whatever.)

And yeah, getting to actually play through Braska's quest would break my heart in all the best ways.

Final Fantasy XII is definitely Ashe's story! (And X is very much Yuna's, and I'd argue that XIII is actually Vanille's; the Final Fantasy series has an odd habit of putting you in the shoes of someone who isn't actually the main focus of the plot.) If we take a story-based rather than gameplay-based definition of 'main character', we haven't had a male-led Final Fantasy, except on handheld consoles, since... IX? It's been a while since I last played IX, but I seem to remember Garnet was mainly the one pushing the story along. VIII, then, although Squall shared focus with Rinoa. VII was the last main-series game with a male character unambiguously at the centre of the plot. I've never really thought about it before. It's an interesting realisation.

Square aren't perfect, of course - there's the age issue, and the fact that the party always skews male-heavy in the games with larger casts - but they're far better than the rest of the industry. So, as long as they keep on making games with plenty of interesting, plot-relevant women, I'll forgive them the occasional dudefest.

I like that about the giant whale!

That's a good point about representation. I don't think every piece of fiction needs to be fully or equally representational, and I'm a big fan of looking at overall trends. (Which is why I quite liked the original comic behind the Bechdel Test, for instance, and dislike it when people go "Every movie that fails this test is Bad and Sexist!" The problem isn't that someone sometimes wants to make stories about boys and men, but that Hollywood is only making about 12% of their stories about girls and women.)

Final Fantasy X has a lot of ridiculous plot points. At one point there's a Star Wars-esque 'the antagonist is your father' moment, which made a lot more sense in Star Wars on account of the antagonist not being a giant flying whale.

Definitely agreed on trends! There's nothing inherently wrong with telling a story about men; the problem is that we're so flooded with stories about men already.

I'm guessing that the son of the giant flying whale isn't also a giant flying whale for some reason? It'd be hilarious if he was, and he was still completely shocked.

FFX is one of the few games that I managed to fall in love with without playing. (And then I played it and fell in more love.

The only other game that holds this distinction is Transistor, which is thematically similar to FFX. I am, if nothing else, completely predictable.)

A prequel game would be interesting! It sounds like something I might be more inclined to read than to play, though that may be influenced by all the Auron/Jecht/Braska prequel fics already floating around the interwebs.

While the jury's still out on FFXV, I'm cautiously optimistic about it. I was never quite bothered by the all-male cast (probably because I recently played FFX-2 with its all-female cast), and the graphics so far look gorgeous. Just keeping my fingers crossed for interesting characters. I can tolerate a train wreck of a story as long as the characters are mildly compelling.

I think the first game I fell in love with without playing was Silent Hill 2, weirdly enough. It's not at all my usual thing, but somehow I found myself constantly looking through transcripts and plot analyses without ever having played the game.

And then I actually played it and was filled with regret. (Although it still fascinated me.) I'm so bad at coping with horror!

I can tolerate a train wreck of a story as long as the characters are mildly compelling.

Ha, me too, which is probably why VIII is one of my favourites. The plot is a mess, but it has such a delightful cast.

Ah, that's a good point about XV. I personally don't think there's ever a reason to have an ensemble game with no playable female characters because I can't imagine what is so important about Men Being Men that one of them can't be a woman, but it's true that the reason XV stands out in this regard is that Final Fantasy has had such a good track record thus far. So XV still feels like a disappointment to me by having its playable cast be five adult men of similar builds, but this post definitely makes me feel better about it.

the reason XV stands out in this regard is that Final Fantasy has had such a good track record thus far

You've articulated this much better than I could! It took me a while to realise that my initial 'no' reaction, when I'd just shrug and sigh at other Ten Million Men games, was because Square is usually so much better than the rest of the industry on the female-character front. I can definitely understand your disappointment, though.

Yaaay, FFX is that other game I actually know stuff about, although I committed the cardinal sin of watching a Let's Play rather than actually playing. Hehe, cardinal sin. See what I did there?

(It was actually an accident but I'm going to pretend I'm clever.)

I don't remember -- was Sin's appearance ever really explained in any way? Was he created by somebody or did he just show up and decide to wreck everyone's day?

I've never been sure about why Sin showed up. One day, a giant tick named Yu Yevon decided to armour himself in the souls of the dead and destroy everything. To... make more dead to armour himself with? Maybe? I'm generally very confused by Sin.

Someday The Dream Will End.

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har! har! har! har! har!

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