The Video Game Revue

Mt. Ordeals

Fair warning: hefty Final Fantasy IV spoilers ahead.

One of the things that I really admire about the console RPG convention of locking the player into a particular story path is that the extra executive control that the game has over developing the plot can make for a stronger thematic message. Final Fantasy IV is an excellent example of this, which I'll contrast it with Neverwinter Nights.

In Final Fantasy IV you follow the story of the Dark Knight Cecil. Yes, you can change his name, choose his equipment, decide where he goes and who he talks to, but as a player, ultimately you cannot stray far from the primary story path. Cecil feels conflicted over executing his King's orders, he is horrified when Mist gets levelled by the Bomb Ring that he is ordered to deliver, and he chooses to care for Rydia largely as an act of repentance. These are not choices that the player can make; they are scripted elements in the game.

Such a story would have to be told very differently using a Neverwinter Nights module, because the module creator has to account for the fact that the user can choose to create any type of character, and the player expects to have greater control over the game's storyline. Sure, you could script your NWN module to force the player to be a certain class, have a certain name, and carefully engineer everything so that the player cannot do anything that they are not supposed to, but to do so is to fight against the natural order of a Neverwinter Nights module. The player is supposed to be able to choose whether to be selfish or helpful, mean or nice, ultimately even good or evil. Much of the story is statically scripted, yes, but the tendancy is to attempt to limit the number of assumptions about what kind of character that player has chosen to play. I'm not saying that the story of Final Fantasy IV could not be told through a Neverwinter Nights module, but rather that the creator of such a NWN module would have to be conscious of certain limitations and perhaps make certain concessions to choices that are best left up to the player, whereas FF IV limits the player in obvious ways. This results in the story being told in a different style.

Many hardcore RPG gamers are big fans of the more open-ended style of RPG that one typically finds in PC games. One could argue that FF IV would be a more interesting game if the player could decide whether Cecil chooses to leave Baron or to embrace his career as a Dark Knight. FF IV could be re-written with massive scope such that the player is able to explore all kinds of "what-if" scenerioes, thereby making the world of FF IV a much larger and more fascinating place. The appeal of that is obvious. However, I largely prefer the hard-coded style of storytelling that Final Fantasy IV employs. FF IV takes control out of the player's hands because the game is not simply about a fantasy world for the player to explore--it is about specific characters in that fantasy world that are not of the player's divising. By limiting the player's choices, FF IV is able to present a unified, canonical story about particular characters in a particular storyline, and thereby develop specific themes. FF IV is not the kind of game where the story unfolds differently every time you play it, so every time a player notices some new aspect of the plot of Final Fantasy IV, he can be certain that it truly part of the FF IV saga and not the result of some decision that the player made on that particular play-through.

One of my favourite examples of how far FF IV takes this philosophy is in how Cecil's character class is used as a thematic device. Character classes in FF IV are scripted, and these choices of character class help to cement each character's role in the game. Yang is from a kingdom of warrior monks, so he has to be a warrior monk. Kain talks about how he might have advanced further in his career if he had chosen to be a Dark Knight instead of a Dragoon. Rosa's compassionate nature is emphasized by her role as a White Mage. Bits of story development such as these would be difficult to pull off if the player had the option to choose each character's class. As for Cecil, the roundness of his character is made more explicit by the dramatic transformation that he undergoes at Mt. Ordeals. His transition from a Dark Knight to a Paladin is a thematic device that underscores the consequences of his decision to leave Baron and fight against Golbez.

Such a scripted method of story telling harnesses the full power that playwrights have known about for centuries. Some game developers would argue that the full power of video games is harnessed by giving the player as much control as possible over the game world, but as exciting as that mode of expression is, it loses the dramatic ability that a scripted play has to tell a specific story about specific characters undergoing a specific ordeal. The true power of video games is not simply that they can provide the player with choice and control over the in-game world; it is also that they can effectively incorporate the same static storytelling methods used by movies and literature. Sometimes taking control away from the player in order to strengthen the message of the game results in a more profound work of art.

posted by Parappa @ 1:17 PM