If you aren't close to me or haven't lived with me, you should know that I play video games. A lot. However this is going to make it sound like I play only a narrow kind of game. This is not meant to boast about what all I play, so I will not make a list qualifying myself on the topic. The more you read this blog, the more you'll understand all of my interests. If you have any immediate questions, comment below or message me.
Also, this will contain gameplay and basic story structure spoilers for Bravely Default. Read at your own risk.
Everyone who plays video games remembers the first time they were sucked into a game and why. For me, it was Final Fantasy X, and its story. To make it as simple as you can make the plot of a twenty-first century Final Fantasy game, the main character Tidus washes ashore in Spira and ends up following summoner Yuna and her protectors on a pilgrimage to defeat Sin.
This journey and Spira itself does not make a lot of sense to Tidus at first, the game doling out information as slowly as it probably would have traveled in the game's anti-technology society. But the pace makes it satisfying. At every little turn, you learn something about the religious leaders of Yevon or the pilgrimages of past summoners, and then the game throws battles at you while you mull over the new knowledge; the next piece of insight only comes after enough time has passed to make the player crave more. By the time the true nature of the quest and the church who preaches its necessity is revealed, you are shocked. At the same time, you do not feel as if the game was holding out on you. In hindsight, you see the evidence that points to the game's conclusions but appreciate the script writer's ability not to make it predictable.
This brings me to the contract.
You cannot break a contract you have with your player. For example, when writing stories, you tacitly agree not to trick your readers. This does not mean that they always deserve a happy ending, but it does guarantee them a gratifying one. You cannot kill off the main character without real reasoning and an inescapable death. You cannot let everything that happened in the novel end up being only a dream or delusion. You cannot let the reader think they are reading a story based in reality only to introduce fantastical elements halfway through. Readers do not want to be duped, and neither do players.
After spending a hundred hours replaying FF-X when the PS3 HD port was released, I picked up a newer, handheld JRPG: Bravely Default. The game and I hit it off right away. The characters developed from tropes to full-fledged people, the humor was biting and unexpected, and the battle system had a new but easy-to-utilize twist. I enjoyed going from temple to temple, awakening the crystals and acquiring new jobs.
Anything remotely spoiler-y is below this point. Beware.
I knew from some online research that the game was eight chapters long, but as I reached the near end of Chapter 4 and nearly fifty hours of gameplay, I became concerned. The game sounded like it was about to conclude. I hesitantly went into what should have been an endgame sequence, only to abruptly have my progress reset. No, my game file was not erased, but all of the good I had done over so many hours had vanished. Every boss I had beaten, every NPC I had helped, every problem I had solved--gone.
Upon looking closer, the Internet cleared something up. Yes, the game is eight chapters long, but four of them are reiterations with little variation. That means that in the first four chapters, you awaken the crystals of wind, water, fire, and earth--one per chapter. Then in the next four chapters, you awaken them again--four per chapter. For those who aren't doing the math, you have to awaken the crystals twenty times if you want to reach the true end to the game.
At a hundred hours and not ever reaching the end of Chapter 7, I switched my 3DS off.
I felt tricked. For so many hours, I was promised a satisfying end through satisfying gameplay. This is not some kind of franchise installment meant only to get me geared up for the next game (Final Fantasy-XIII-2, I'm looking at you). Sequel or not in the making, it is meant to stand alone.
And honestly, I have no beef with repetitive gameplay. I grew up on platformers and point-and-clicks. I came into my own on RPGs and action games. I do not mind grinding. I do not mind long hours. Hell, I do not mind twenty "Game Overs" if I feel like I am getting something out of it. But here I was not, and here I was promised it.
The storytelling essentially stopped.
In the first four chapters, the plot's pacing coincided with the gameplay. In the last four chapters, barely any new information is given to the player, but he or she is asked to do ten times the work. For every fifteen hours of gameplay, only a handful of new facts are learned. That's like reading a thousand pages of a novel for only a hundred pages of story.
Before my still-open wounds from this game cause this to turn into a rant, I'll conclude it here. It is really saying something when I have been willing to pound through to the end of a bad game (Yes, still looking at you, FF-XIII-2) to find out the end of the story, but not the end Bravely Default. The reason? No matter how convoluted the story in some of the worst games I've played, they never stopped telling it. When a game is story-driven from the start, you cannot let it suddenly become solely mechanics-driven during its last half.
Bad or not, the first ten percent of a game you should help you see if it is worth playing through to the last ten percent. The player needs to feel reassured in reaching the end gameplay, not relieved.
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