With Final Fantasy VII remake coming out, we talk about Square Enix’s recent failures and past successes, and how good writing in games helps create epics.
For the past three years, I’ve been busy in my free time making a card/board game. To do so, I’ve been refreshing my game writing skills from way back when, and I’m reminded how much thought process goes into the craft.
It’s not just the story
A great misconception about game writing is that all that is required is the skill to write a good story. But to be a good game writer, you also have to be a designer.
While designing my games, I had to pay attention to not just the words, but the flow of the mechanics and how the text reacts to the gameplay.
To not get too bogged down in self plugs, with the recent announcement of the Final Fantasy VII remake, I want to look back on two of the Final Fantasy series games and point out their pros, and one of the same developer’s latest game in a similar series and point out its flaw.
FF VII, THE game IS THE story
One of the greatest reason why Final Fantasy VII succeeded was it’s incredible customisation when it came to its characters. In most modern games, such grand freedoms would usually follow a 1 hour tutorial of boredom.
But FF VII incorporated those concepts into the story itself, so you learned while playing the actual game. One of this concept is materia.
To keep it short for those who have never played the game, materia is basically the magic system. There’s a complicated mastery system to it that would take hours to explain and learn.
However, the game interweaves it into the story. Materia becomes a major plot point. To understand the epic being told, you have no choice but to also learn about the materia system, and vice-versa.
FF X, the story is the tutorial
Another good example is Final Fantasy X, my personal favourite game in the series. In the beginning of the game, you are introduced to these creatures called aeons, which you can ‘collect’.
In the first act, you are told of 5 temples, each temple corresponding to one aeon, meaning that there are 5 to collect. But somewhere in the middle of the game, a character called Seymour summons a 6th aeon, Anima.
30 hours in, you are given a tutorial through storytelling. There are more than 5 aeons, and you can find them. That message, interwoven naturally through the script, not only served as a tutorial but starts a side quest for you to find the optional summons.
KH III, The tutorial is the game
Kingdom Hearts III, and the Kingdom Hearts series in general, are games that have the players journey through familiar Disney stories and landscape in the Final Fantasy-esque epic with recurring characters from both Disney and Final Fantasy thrown in.
In prior games of the series, the players start out in original towns, made for the games with original stories. It sets the mind to know that what they are experiencing is new, and they should pay attention to their mechanics and story.
However, for the 3rd game, the 1st world you’re thrust into is… Olympus. The setting for 1997’s Hercules. It’s familiar, and you immediately get the sense that it’s just, “Oh, this again.”
The sense of exploration, the taste of ‘new’ is washed away. The story failed to compel the sense and genre set by the game.
The Story is the game
In an era of copy-and-paste video games, the ones that stand the tests of time are the ones that understand the fundamentals of combining both tale and interaction.
Why has Angry Bird faded from the minds of so many despite being a cultural phenomenon, yet Journey remains fresh in the memories of the few who has ever played?
Because there is something there to connect the player, the reader, from start to finish. The story is interwoven into the gameplay, the mechanic, the tutorial, the idea itself.
When done properly, you don’t just play a game, you live a story.
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