Through the Eyes of a Child

Final Fantasy XIII is packed chock full o' the gristly bits that traditionally ruin the flavor sensation for me when it comes to Japanese RPGs. It is exactly the kind of game that I would condemn as over-long, repetitious, offensively stereotypical, achingly linear and trite, which is precisely what I would be saying about the game were I not having such a totally perplexing amount of fun.

When I reveal that I am 15 hours into Final Fantasy XIII, what those of you who have played and are playing the game will understand that to mean is that I am nearly done with the tutorial. For me, however, this volume of time is a fully realized purchase and evidence of exceptional staying power. Though not unprecedented, this kind of diligence from me is firmly anomalous.

I've played games I loved unequivocally less than this.

So, why has FFXIII pierced my hardened heart? Is it the intense and staggering visual accomplishments of Square Enix? Is it the epic, if painfully told, story? Is it an elegant battle system that belies simplicity with an underlying complexity? Nope, none of those things. It's that my son loves it.

For nearly two weeks, the first thing I hear about when I walk through the door is when are we going to settle into our over-sized recliner to find out about the continuing adventures of Grumpy Soldier and Maudlin Boy -- my nicknames, not his. For whatever failings I think Final Fantasy may have -- a thorough and complete list that could be delivered in discrete volumes -- my son is wrapped whole into the narrative, invested deeply in the warring factions of Sanctum and Pulse Fal'cie. When I suggested subtly to him recently that perhaps the bad guys in the game were not who we thought they were, I could nearly see the hairs on the back of his neck stand up in revelation, and I knew that I was in for a very long ride.

No matter how syrupy the music becomes, how annoyingly melodramatic a character monologues, how nonsensical the dialogue, he is rapt with attention, and I am driven to reveal to him the next layer of the story. And, through him, I see something of myself and my innocence lost. I see a nearly forgotten age when I could abandon myself to stories such as this without being lost on the stagnant film of my own cynicism.

Looking at Final Fantasy XIII through his six year-old eyes gives the game a life it would not have otherwise had for me, and so I forgive it sins that normally would have ended my experience a handful of hours in. What becomes of my emotionally unstable band of fugitive L'cie matters to him, and so it matters to me.

Comments

This is a very sweet piece, Sean. I look forward to these sorts of articles; you're at your best when you're writing about fatherhood.

I'm having a somewhat similar experience with the game. I'm not playing it with a child though. I'm not even playing it. My roommate bought the game and has been playing it on my 360, and I've been watching him play. Oddly enough, based on what I've seen of how the game plays I feel like I'm just as involved as I would be if I was holding the controller; saying "hey there's a chest" or "I think we should take the time to scan this one" feels like contribution enough, especially since the game doesn't require you to futz with too many other details.

What interests me is how we've got this epic, story-driven, single-player game and yet the real strong point is how well it works as a shared experience.

ClockworkHouse wrote:

This is a very sweet piece, Sean. I look forward to these sorts of articles; you're at your best when you're writing about fatherhood.

Untrue, he's clearly at his best when riling up the internet about DRM!

Very nice piece indeed. This might just be my skewed perception, but I feel like at lot of the games that you write about are games that matter to you because they matter to your son, as opposed to games that matter to your son because they matter to you - or rather, that the games that appeal specifically to you are not games that you talk about in the context of your son. Is this mainly because of the adult content of such games that wouldn't be appropriate for him, or is there some other disconnect? (Or am I just off-base?)

Oh to play FF7 again with such eyes..

It must be a great to share in an experience that you yourself enjoyed as a child.

/lament

@dysplastic
I think you're on the right track. Games that have recently appealed very specifically to me are God of War III and Metro 2033, neither of which I think are appropriate to him.

Our shared experience in gaming is a very different kind of play for me. The foldy-brain-matter that lights up when my son and I are gaming together are very different parts than when I am invested in one of "my games".

The only game I can think of that is important to him because it is important to me is World of WarCraft. When I'm just out doing my thing, questing around and levelling up alts, he sits and watches, but not because he's particularly invested in the game, but I think because he wants to be a part of something that can take up a lot of my time. He will watch over my shoulder and instruct me to watch out for things, or cheer happily when I take down a tough looking enemy. The mechanics of the game are alien to him, and the story is meaningless, but it clearly still is something he wants to be a part of.

Funny. I read in another thread you're playing FF XIII, and wondered how this rendition of the old franchise won your cynical JRPG-jaded heart. As I have similar reasons for disliking the series, I actually wondered whether to buy it based only on your passive recommendation.

Thanks for sharing!

Spoiler:

I'm not buying it, waiting for the price drop. :-)

I love the articles about fatherhood and parenting on this site. Keep up the good work Elysium!

Elysium wrote:

The only game I can think of that is important to him because it is important to me is World of WarCraft. When I'm just out doing my thing, questing around and levelling up alts, he sits and watches, but not because he's particularly invested in the game, but I think because he wants to be a part of something that can take up a lot of my time. He will watch over my shoulder and instruct me to watch out for things, or cheer happily when I take down a tough looking enemy. The mechanics of the game are alien to him, and the story is meaningless, but it clearly still is something he wants to be a part of.

I think that's interesting - I'm glad there's some reciprocity in your video-gaming relationship.

That's funny; I had a very similar experience with my 6-year-old.

After playing through about 10 hours on my own and judging it a decent if annoyingly flawed game, I decided to let him play through some of it (I warned him about a particularly sad moment in the beginning).

Part of my enjoyment of the second playthrough came from my understanding of the story and my ability to explain it to him. I wasn't fumbling around the datalogs trying to piece together the disorienting jargon that's flung around the in medias res opening of the game. Incidentally this is one of the plot conceits that I would argue is a significant flaw at the very outset; it overly complicates a story that didn't require such a device once you grok the narrative.

But a substantial aspect of my enjoyment of the second playthrough was simply experiencing the story through my son who, as you said, has none of the cynicism I've acquired. He's completely open to any system of combat and narrative exposition that gives him a sense of progress and development. He loves the option of playing the FFXIII engine in either a more complicated way, or on semi-auto. He also enjoys the story although he keenly started asking questions about motivation about an hour in, namely where are we going and why are we going there. And to be honest, in the beginning, the game relies on the rail/corridor and doesn't really clarify the impetus.

So, playing with my kid made me appreciate the "wonder" of it a bit more, but also made me understand some of the flaws that, in hindsight, could have been pretty easily fixed by simply being clearer and more straightforward with the story and the characters. FFXIII could have had a much stronger and more motivating opening that possibly would have made some folks more forgiving of the 15-hour tutorial if only the writers hadn't been so intent on being clever or obtuse with the plot execution.

Indeed, the most significant flaw for our first few hours -- we began the game together and did not have the benefit of hindsight from a second playthrough -- is the absolute reliance on key information about situations being delivered through the datalogs. We spent a significant chunk of time just deciphering the narrative by reading the entries, where critical information is found that never actually turns up in game.

But is it all that different from the Codex in Dragon Age? Or are the notions in FFXIII so different and abstract that, yes, indeed, it is that different.

I am looking forward to sharing an experience like this with my daughter:)

Sure life is kind of gay
But it doesn't seem that way
Through the eyes of a child

Or are the notions in FFXIII so different and abstract that, yes, indeed, it is that different.

Imagine if you had to go into the Codex in Dragon Age to have any kind of idea what a Gray Warden or Darkspawn was. Like, if it simply was never even vaguely explained in the game, it was simply assumed that you already had a clear knowledge of who was a Gray Warden, what it meant to be one, and their job. That only does a barely passable job of beginning to explain the ways in which the game itself assumes knowledge of concepts that are only discovered by accident through reading countless datalog entries.

Specifically, every key character acts in ways that are only understood through reviewing these data entries.

From my understanding it's a bit different from Dragon Age or Mass Effect in that the "Event" datalogs are intended as recaps, but end up supplementing descriptions of cutscenes with detail that, honestly, I found difficult to glean from the scenes themselves. It makes me appreciate what they were trying to do, but simultaneously exasperates me by exposing the difference between their intent and their execution. If they weren't able to convey some of this stuff in the scene itself, then they should have written the scene more competently.

My first impression of this article has been posted repeatedly;

You really outdo yourself when you share about the father-son-through-games-and-game-related-content relationships, keep this up and you're gonna have to start the sister website; Gamers with Kids (good luck calling them "gookers", though).

I try to do this with my wife, who only recently discovered she has a proverbial dormant gamer inside her, eager to indulge in different genres.

While most are misses, the few genres I've presented that she likes, make's me see a variation of what you have with your son: not "pure" innocence, but "gamer" innocence. She has no preconception of what games have dictated over the last 20+ years.

My latest victory was Tales from Monkey Island; she seemed to enjoy the humor and stuck with it. When we finally completed the 5th Episode, I installed the 20th Remade edition of Secret of Monkey Island. When she first heard the name "LeChuck" she turned and squealed excitedly like a child squeals on her first visit to the zoo and keeps telling you to "LOOK!"

I dunno. I didn't read the datalogs and eventually deciphered the at least the outlines of the plot. I mean, when the plot drags on over 30+ hours, eventually it will explain itself, you figure.

Also, Dragon Age arguably doesn't need this sort of background material because its foundation and setting are a barely vieled version of a fantasy setting so standard that you barely need more than 10 words to set it up in the mind of the average fantasy RPG player. But that's probably just me being a bit too snarky.

My wife and I have curled up on the couch together every night since I brought the game home and played an hour or two of FF XIII. The beauty of the experience for me is that the slow-burn of the tutorial allowed her to master the combat system, and so we freely swap the controller after every fight. She was even able to down the chapter 7 (8?) boss last night on her first try despite being terrified of wiping - it was awesome to watch.

FF XIII is a great game on it's own, but far better when enjoyed with a loved one.

SallyNasty wrote:

I am looking forward to sharing an experience like this with my daughter:)

Dude it's a blast. I've got Gamefly with the 2 games out at a time, and I basically rent one for me and for my daughter and I to play together. It was an embarrassingly touching moment when we got Chocobo's Dungeon on the wii. Watching your 5 year old play her first final fantasy game is like an awesome nerdly right of passage.

No matter how syrupy the music becomes, how annoyingly melodramatic a character monologues, how nonsensical the dialogue, he is rapt with attention, and I am driven to reveal to him the next layer of the story. And, through him, I see something of myself and my innocence lost. I see a nearly forgotten age when I could abandon myself to stories such as this without being lost on the stagnant film of my own cynicism.

For a non pithy comment, I'd like to say that one of the ways I use to cut through the layers of cynicism that come with growing up is fandom. To allow myself to be an unabashed fan of something is to bring myself back to the mindset that allows it to be awesome, despite it's flaws. Or sometimes because of those flaws. The flaws don't matter when you're a fan. I can just enjoy it.

I have to agree with Elysium here. It is a good game if you take away the skepticism, if one resets their mind about this and come in fresh, it's a rather good game. My mom and dad are watching me play this while I'm back at home during break, sure they may not be paying attention to combat but when a cut scene happens, they drop everything and watch.

For me I've never been able to finish a JRPG, I get to the final boss and I don't care anymore (this is what happened to me in FFXII, FFIV, and Chrono Trigger) I have no drive to complete the game. With FFXIII, I don't fear that happening. I want to see the ending, I am with these characters all the way to the end. We've spent about 60+ hours together, I want to see the end of this narrative. And what's even more surprising is, when the game is over I still might want to play. Not because I'm a trophy whore (I'm playing this on the PS3) but because I've grown to care about these characters and I want to completely level them up before I go into RE5 & Batman AA (gifts to myself for completing the quarter).

I think I should really start going into more games like this...have a few expectations, but be prepared to have the eyes of a child. No wonder why "never let go of your childish wonder" is so very apt for anything...of course this doesn't mean naivety but more not allowing skepticism to take over a lot of my thought process. This kinda gives me a new wind to go back and try FFXII now and see how they each tell their story...but that's another conversation for another time.

Excellent work, Elysium. I look forward to the days when I might be able to share such an experience.

PyromanFO wrote:

Sure life is kind of gay
But it doesn't seem that way
Through the eyes of a child

6-7-6 - Haiku fail!

Nice piece. Those are great moments.

Last night I was playing Torchlight when my 8-year old came in talking a mile-a-minute about something completely unrelated. I could clearly hear his brain trying to reconcile the awesomeness of what he was seeing on screen with the thoughts that seemed so pressing a second earlier. The conversation went something like this:

"Dad!! I was just upstairs and I was reading my Deltora Quest book and Leif and his companions got trapped in...a...mineshaft...and...ooooh what loot did you just get?"

Elysium wrote:

Imagine if you had to go into the Codex in Dragon Age to have any kind of idea what a Gray Warden or Darkspawn was. Like, if it simply was never even vaguely explained in the game, it was simply assumed that you already had a clear knowledge of who was a Gray Warden, what it meant to be one, and their job.

I have my share of problems with FFXIII, but I think I want to come to its defense a bit regarding this method of narrative delivery. What burying information in the datalog buys them is the ability to avoid nonsensical scenes of exposition about things which characters in the world (unless one of them happens to conveniently be a foreigner or an amnesiac) should already know about.

Everyone in Ferelden(?) already knows what the heck a darkspawn or a grey warden is. An explanation or description of them should never have to come up in dialog.

It's clumsily executed it FFXIII (not least of which because they still have some of those expository cutscenes), but at least I can see what they were trying to do there.

juv3nal wrote:

Everyone in Ferelden(?) already knows what the heck a darkspawn or a grey warden is. An explanation or description of them should never have to come up in dialog.

Which is probably why the Darkspawn/Grey Warden backstory is explained in an introductory cutscene before you even create your character.

I think we often fail to consider or accept that these games are aimed squarely (teehee) at kids in Japan. To an adult, the prototypical "Final Fantasy style" plot and dialogue can seem annoying and cliché, but for a child it's a whole wonderful universe just waiting to be explored. Of course, I think it's aimed more at tweens and teens, so your son falls a bit outside of those margins too.

I suppose you have the target demographic surrounded, and by your powers of being both too old and too young combined, it becomes fun for all.

A lot of the Grey Warden stuff is explained to your character through the Joining ritual. It makes sense that a new Warden would need that information. I know what garbage men do, but I'd still need training.

I haven't played FFXIII yet, but it sounds like they weren't as deft as Bioware was.

What I'd like to know is how Square Enix can put out a game like FFXIII with a long and convoluted storyline, and yet fail so utterly to make more than a token effort for Supreme Commander II - even after touting about their amazing story skills as a 'bonus' for signing up the Supcom franchise.

*gives dark looks at Squeenix*

gore wrote:

I think we often fail to consider or accept that these games are aimed squarely (teehee) at kids in Japan.

I think that's an excuse that only goes so far. Something with the ginormous development budget of a FF13 needs to appeal to a broad audience in order to be profitable. That means teens and adults as well as children, Westerners as well as the Japanese.

Now, I haven't played 13 yet, so I can't speak to whether it succeeds or fails at that broader appeal, but you can't explain away its shortcomings by saying "But it's for kids!"