Art, Addiction, Storytelling, and Video Games

selfhelp4trolls(75)

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As if to say “are you sure you want those dreams of yours” as the universe often does, it introduced something that could divert my attention and effort away from the life I’m trying to build. I can’t complain, it’s something I wanted for a long time but was waiting on, but the timing is just hilarious.

Finally on my own trying to build up a company that will allow me to self sponsor my visa in Japan…let’s throw an all-you-can-watch service AND access to a massive collection of games… a ton of media that you’ve been making a point to hold off on enjoying for years into the mix, that previously had a price tag to separate itself from you…

Having everything you want isn’t always what you want. It can overwhelm and leave you lost and unsure where to go from there. For me, getting lost in stories is one of the things I enjoy the most, but I’ve got to put a limit on it otherwise I lose sight of everything else.

Why create brilliant stories when you can get an IV drip of any kind of dopamine generating stories you want, directly into your veins.

When I first got Netflix last year it felt a bit like this but there were really only 3 or 4 series I really wanted to watch. I’ve recently subscribed to another streaming service with the intention of watching another 2 or 3 series and then cancelling it. Ok, that’s fine…

Now I have access to almost any game I want. A friend nearby with a massive collection of games no longer plays PS4 and so he said “take what you want, if I want it back, I’ll come find you”.

That means I have Netflix like access to a bunch of games I’ve wanted to play for years and a bunch of others I didn’t even know about… Many people subscribe to services like PlayStation Now where they can have this all the time, a service exactly like Netflix.

I’m starting to realize the level of on-demand entertainment most people are living in now and why it’s so hard to be anything other than a cog in a wheel. Study study play play play. Work work play play play. Work work work work sleep. Sleep sleep sleep sleep play.

There’s always been candy to please us but now that candy never ends, the amount of things out there to please us just doesn’t stop. Does it provide a full and deep, real sense of satisfaction? It can…and I know that better than anyone. It can…sometimes…momentarily…but it’s rarely the case that the happiness produced by stories, films and video games lasts longer than those moments we are most inspired by them.

I will indulge! Don’t get me wrong. Video games are part of what set me on my path. Final Fantasy 7 was one of those games that helped me realize that there were others with ideas as crazy as mine out there and also the power of storytelling. It feels like it is time to play Final Fantasy 7 Remake, the game (along with the NieR series and newest Assasins creed games) I’ve been slowly building up to playing since I started playing again last year.

I had been dabbling in cheap ps3 games because they are fun enough to stimulate my imagination and satisfy my sense of exploration but also because the games on PS3 aren’t nearly as addictive as those games I’m totally in love with. I spent months and years of my childhood immersed in games like Xenogears, Earthbound, Chrono Trigger, Goldeneye, Starfox 64, Donkey Kong Country and many more. I played lots of less impressive games just to chase that original high that I got from my favorites.

At times these games were a comfortable escape for me. They were much more than that at times though and so I don’t want to resist the urge to indulge in them completely, but school was hard for me and games made me forget some of the pain I felt inside.

Life isn’t always easy now, and so I want to enjoy these games without allowing them to become a sedative.

On demand though!? Holy shit.

I didn’t even realize on-demand games were a thing. I thought I still had to pay for every single game. I didn’t realize that many games are always avaiable with a simple subscription, and while I’m not subscribed to that, I have my own version of it now.

I’ll be able to balance this but I feel like I’ve been living in the Stone Age, all out of an attempt to be self-disciplined. If I can stay focused now, I can do anything!

So yes, I started Final Fantasy 7 remake and it’s absolutely beautiful.

(Two short paragraphs that won’t make sense unless you’ve played Final Fantasy, skip if you haven’t)

I’m surprised because FF12 couldn’t keep my attention and FF13 had the worst supporting characters in any FF game ever (Snow and Hope in particular…urgh). Everything about the remake is nice, the redesigned world and characters, the orchestral music, the voices (in Japanese at least), the changes to the plot which enrich the world.

My only complaint is that Barrett started off sounding like a psycho but he gets better after that. I love how they expanded the roles of Biggs Wedge and Jessie and how much of a flirt Jessie is.

I love watching how stories unfold and to see the same story told a different way. It can really be a lesson in what works and what doesn’t. What adds feeling and what takes it away? Will this be better told through dialogue or exposition? Does this need a flashback or an explanation? Is linear story telling more effective or not? What happens when we throw in a little extra romance or a sick relative?

For example, in the old version of this game, there are two potential love interests and neither really seem to fully play out. Now, there are three and it feels like overkill but since the characters are all developed so much more, I hardly mind. In the end the important thing is to have characters that you care about. I can forgive anything if I care about the characters. That can be accomplished in different ways for different mediums.

It’s also fascinating to see the difference between a film and a game and how the same story can feel very different depending on the means. And how a story feels for the first time vs. how it is revisiting it, or how it hits differently in different stages of life. Sometimes time and experience recontextualizes things.

I snatched up a few other games, mostly indie side scrollers which have beautiful and intriguing worlds because I don’t want to jump from a big story heavy rpg to another heavy game.

So I’ll be doing my best to enjoy the benefits of media at my fingertips without getting sucked into the infinite abyss.

I proved it to myself today when I rewrote the last chapter of my book. I played a little after class and then put the game aside to work on my story. Actually playing the game made me want to write more…”I want to do even better than this.”

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