cephalopod (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
cephalopod) wrote2009-06-15 05:38 pm
cephalopod) wrote2009-06-15 05:38 pm
FFXII is made of love and win
I am re-discovering my love for Final Fantasy XII. It is deep and powerful, like a river that is deep and powerful, but it is also perverse. Like a deep, powerful river with Ultros in it.
FFXII is the sidequesty-est game that ever sidequested a sidequest. In a very real way, the main storyline is a sideline to all the other neat junk you can do. When you can complete the 'real' story in about 40 hours of gameplay but spend 200+ hours messing around with other stuff and still have delicious niblets you haven't even touched, the real story is officially Not That Important.
And when some of these sidequests actually combine to form entire mini-plotlines that have nothing to do with the main story and are frequently cracky as hell, I am in heaven. I am never happier than when I can discover a bit of in-game info by doing something I have no business doing. This is a seriously major thing for me--most of the time I spend playing any RPG is spent avoiding/frustrating/messing with the main story. NPC X says "Oh, Heroic Protagonist! We're so glad you're here! A fire-breathing dragon is just about to come over that hill...you have just enough time to visit Weapon Shop before it arrives!" and that's when I select the > "I'll be right back!" option and fuck off to the next continent to pick radishes or something. The absurdism of it tickles me so--I know that dragon can't attack the village while I'm gone. What does the dragon do instead of attacking, in the month of game-time I spend doing something else? What do the villagers do? How do they feel when I finally come back?
There are vast treasure-houses of story waiting in the gaps between what the plot wants you to do and what the game allows you to do.
FFXII, after a couple of plot points are out of the way, is made up almost entirely of those gaps.
Gaps with cutscenes and hidden romances and fuckup moogles and Gilgamesh. Eeeeee!
FFXII is the sidequesty-est game that ever sidequested a sidequest. In a very real way, the main storyline is a sideline to all the other neat junk you can do. When you can complete the 'real' story in about 40 hours of gameplay but spend 200+ hours messing around with other stuff and still have delicious niblets you haven't even touched, the real story is officially Not That Important.
And when some of these sidequests actually combine to form entire mini-plotlines that have nothing to do with the main story and are frequently cracky as hell, I am in heaven. I am never happier than when I can discover a bit of in-game info by doing something I have no business doing. This is a seriously major thing for me--most of the time I spend playing any RPG is spent avoiding/frustrating/messing with the main story. NPC X says "Oh, Heroic Protagonist! We're so glad you're here! A fire-breathing dragon is just about to come over that hill...you have just enough time to visit Weapon Shop before it arrives!" and that's when I select the > "I'll be right back!" option and fuck off to the next continent to pick radishes or something. The absurdism of it tickles me so--I know that dragon can't attack the village while I'm gone. What does the dragon do instead of attacking, in the month of game-time I spend doing something else? What do the villagers do? How do they feel when I finally come back?
There are vast treasure-houses of story waiting in the gaps between what the plot wants you to do and what the game allows you to do.
FFXII, after a couple of plot points are out of the way, is made up almost entirely of those gaps.
Gaps with cutscenes and hidden romances and fuckup moogles and Gilgamesh. Eeeeee!
no subject
Also there are giant fish men. :3
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But yeah. you try to leave town and your little frog rabbit says "where do you think you're going? Congress is about to start!" but then you ignore him and go have magical adventures and take quests from conspiracy theorists and stuff. Congress can get stuffed anyway. :D
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...there's one who tries to hire you to bring him the Necronomicon.