A Bit Off-Track

Another Ramble (or: Subdivided for your convenience)

So I decided to walk home from work yesterday.  It's not a big deal: it's about 3 miles or so, sidewalks all (ok, well, most) of the way, decent neighborhoods and it was still light out.  It was nice to be out and about with just my thoughts for a while anyway.  I do wish I had sunglasses, but hey, at least I had a hat.

Did I mention I wear hats now?  I dunno who reads this anymore, but it's become a "thing" so it's probably important to mention at some point.  One of my friends out was really surprised one day when I didn't have one on, so I'm guessing it's kinda become part of my look now.

Ah well, story for another time.

Musings

So as it often does when my feet go wondering, my mind decided to take a similar trip.  The thought process started as I was thinking about animals crossing pavement.  It's always been an interesting phenomenon to me, to see a squirrel, so confident in the grass or on a tree, to become confounded as soon as its feet touch a road.  A squirrel new to the concrete jungle will lose all sense of distance and need, and sometimes in a moment of sheer confusion will even completely lose direction.  Meanwhile, squirrels that make their home (or find their food) within the bounds of human-dominate areas will have no problems, moving across it without a problem and often preferring it to the more earthy areas for quick getaways.

It's not a surprising revelation or anything, it's just fascinating.  There are a lot of creatures who can hunt and track through movements felt on their pads of their feet.  There are even more whose survival instincts are tied to it directly.  The ground transmits vibrations from most any disturbance, and plants make it transmit even better.

Pavement has its limitations on such senses.  It's much the same as putting a cup up to your ear; everything becomes muffled, but you can "hear" things from much farther away, in some cases almost miles.  Metal is even worse, as the muffled effect doesn't exist; everything transfers, so anything that would get transferred through the metal is felt or heard anywhere along the piece.  Wood, however, is a nice middle ground, as is tile and similar items; you still tend to feel everything, but the distance of transfer is far less, giving you a sense of your surrounding much like dirt but with a bit more detail.  It's why raccoon, for instance, have a hard time crossing the road but will bolt through a house with no problem.

Some Background

Feeling movement through my own feet has been something I've done for a long time, a skill I picked up ages ago when I was trying to compensate for my poor sight and honed when playing soccer, studying martial arts and during meditations.  It's actually a bit frustrating in buildings; movement transfers so well it's hard to stop being aware every time someone comes anywhere close.  In fact, I've developed this horrible bird-like reaction where I swing my head to glance at almost every person I feel or hear come by if I don't immediately see them (which is all the time thanks to my lovely limited peripheral vision).

I've learned a lot of things through this "new" sense.  First of all, it is my general belief that our tactile sense are HIGHLY underrated, at least consciously.  It was once pointed out to me that, despite our dependence on our other senses, there is only one sense that truly defines our reality: touch.  If we hear or see something in front of us, but we cannot touch it, we tend to assume it isn't real.  If we haven't touched an object we know about, it seems separate from us, almost like we lose a sense of understanding.  If we're not allowed to touch it, it seems above us or more important than us.  There is so much inherent to our sense of touch that we don't even realize all the ways it affects our lives just on a subconscious level.

One of the things I learned through martial arts is how someone holds their weight and shifts.  I can tell how aggressive someone is becoming, and sometimes even how they're going to address the aggression, through the ground they're standing on.  A sudden shift of weight to the front leg indicates a charge, most likely using fists.  Sudden weight on their rear leg often indicates a feint; a lighter weight can mean they're going to kick.  Slowly, it became than that: it started to register as something akin to body language.  A heavier tremor in the ground indicated anger or determination; a constant pulse or push suggested fear or trepidation; a solid presence, confidence.

Leading in

So as I was thinking about the squirrel and its senses (and I practiced my own once, trying to recognize cars and bikes coming down the road without looking or listening), my mind wondered to a few conversations I had held recently.  One had been about a perception of auras, something I've understood but bought into only slightly. I've never doubted that the people who said they see auras do, in fact, remember seeing them, and I've never doubted their accuracy.  I've just always viewed it as an intuitive empathy.  Most people who read auras seem to get the same "read-outs" as someone who is genuinely empathetic or can read people.

The other discussion that popped in my head was one I had about synesthesia.  The relationships we were referring to was about sound and sight, of course, as we were discussing music at the time.  I explained that, in a lot of ways, mine was reverse of the typical musician who could see the music; I tend to relate people and objects to sounds I associate with them, and I will often recognize someone's voice before their face.

It was a strange pairing at first to be sure.  However, as my thoughts started to come together, it seemed to be pretty obvious why both of these things popped in my head around the same time I was considering how one could receive more than just movement through the ground, but can also tell aggression, fear and confidence.

A New Curiosity

It was a slow thought, so I'm not going to say that it "suddenly dawned on me."  There were a lot of implications to consider, and honestly it didn't seem very likely at first.  The more I thought about it through, it was strangely starting to make more and more sense.

Aura perception, in a lot of ways, makes sense as an synesthetic response to an intuitive empath.  In general, a lot of people don't have a cognitive process to explain intuition in any sort of way the mind will respond to in a comprehensive way.  An aura would be a way for the mind to make sense of the input its getting without overwhelming the conscious mind with a myriad of sensory data.

There are a lot of different ways this could manifest too.  Synesthesia itself can come and go involving both cognitive and sensory processes.  Various inputs could "manifest" as these auras: things felt through your feet, changes in air felt through the hairs on your hand, the sound of their joints creaking as they flex muscles and even the process of figuring out body language could all be taken in by the subconscious, molded intuitively and manifested as an aura around a person.  In a way, "aura perception" of other people could be a completely scientific process.

Strange Logical Movements

I began to wonder if there were other "supernatural" items that could be further explained through synesthesia.  It made sense; as one considered the possibilities around people who are able to "see" things that others didn't, the idea that the brain is actually interpreting a different or generally unused sensory input as something one sees makes sense.

As I delved deeper and deeper into this train of thought however, it felt more and more "unreal".  In seemed like, on the surface, a ton of different things (from future telling to ghost reading to prophesying) could be related, on the surface, to synesthesia.  It started to become an excuse more than anything else; with how easily it seemed to fit into everything, it became hard to believe it fit into anything.

And then... I ran into some sleeping ducks.

I should mention: in general, I hate ducks.  They're ornery, loud, aggressive and generally a nuisance who will actually get mad at someone for not feeding them once they've gotten used to a certain "standard of living."  They're kinda human that way...

But these ducks were asleep.  Their bills were tucked back, and they were perfectly arranged on the sunny part of a tiny knoll.  For that moment, they were terribly cute.

I was able to get pretty close to them on the sidewalk without waking them, but then someone else came down on a nearby one, walking heavily and startled them.  They all woke up and, after a quick honk from the leader, leaped into the nearby pond, continuing to make threatening noises for a good five minutes afterwards.  This, of course, brought me full circle on the train of thought, as neither of us made much noise but he definitely walked heavier than I did.

In the end though, all it really made me do was think about how ridiculously in-depth I was being about the whole process.  Being able to make sense of what these ducks felt through the ground wasn't something they think about; it's something they react to, like any other sense that might tell them when someone is going to attack them.  Trying to make much sense of anything that helps one adapt to an environment or survive isn't as important as learning how to do so.

In the end, I decided to set the thoughts aside, to re-examine at another time.  It still seemed logical for the original point, but I didn't have any ideas on how to figure anything like this out for certain, even if I wanted to.  Still, having a new curiosity to delve into periodically is always fun.

And lucky you, getting stuck reading about it.  Well, at least now I know where I can go to read about the weird stuff I think about around town.

On a side note (but still Final Fantasy related)

Ok, so, now that I've got my more "professional" thoughts out of the way, there was this CRAZY idea that popped in my head for Cid in a future game that I thought was awesome.  In this crazy idea, Cid (not the main character, but one that is in the party) is actually not an engineer as his normal iterations, but is instead a Blue Magic user and monster tamer.  He is a single father, but his daughter left him a long time ago to become an engineer, unable to deal with the ridiculous menagerie her father had and instead turning to machines.

Of course, in the course of the game, you bring the two together, they reconcile and his daughter joins the group.  As a result, the two discover some interesting theories: by combining certain tamed large, flying monsters (possibly mounts earlier, possibly not) and some advanced technology, it's possible to create Airships.  The first one is a low-flying guy who can't cross the nearby mountains and/or won't go over the ocean, but eventually you get to tame bigger monsters and create airships that can fly over mountains and the ocean (but maybe can only land in cities or something).  Eventually you get one that can carry the smaller one so you can explore the "big map," then drop down to the "smaller map" view on that first guy you got.

In addition, you can "level" the ship (specifically the smaller one, and moreso that it levels with you) so that it can get cooler abilities; new places to land, canons, things like that.  Air battles occur much like airship battles in the other games, except that the ship itself is actually your "guest" character (see point 1 above) and can do some attacks on its own.  In addition, Cid and his daughter can have special attacks that use the ship's abilities; Cid channels his blue magic to "command" the ship to do a special attack with his abilities, while his daughter's Magitech canons and such are replaced by the ship's canons, similar in theme but launched through the ship for a "bigger effect."  The other characters would, of course, be doing more abilities a la Final Fantasy XIII where they leap over to the creature and attack it directly.

Ok, random aside done.  Oh, if only I got to make the big bucks and put forward ideas like these...

Open Letter to SquareEnix

I admit that I'm a geek, and more than a bit of a nerd, when it comes to video games.  I started when I was very young, having two older brothers who had access to some ancient games that I can barely remember and systems with ominous names like "Odyssey" and "Adam."  But my very first game--my game, one that was for me--was the original Final Fantasy.  I had the Nintendo Power game guide and everything.  I played that game for hours on end, and on more than one occasion I had to be told to put it down.

It's one of the crispest memories of my childhood.  It took me forever to beat it, but I did love that game.  It got me into so many other games like it, but more so than that it got me into storytelling through games.  Final Fantasy was basically like a giant novel that you got to be the characters going through it.  Sure, your path or destiny was set before you, but overcoming the trials wasn't about how cool the hero was that got through it, but the hard work and strategy you put into getting past it.

When I picked up the next game--Final Fantasy II to me at the time, but IV to those that "knew better"--I was a bit confused; I was expecting the next iteration of the Warriors of Light, but instead I get a new world, and a dark, brooding character to control that I never really understood.  When I finally got FFIII, it made sense: these weren't really "sequels" as much as they were new stories in new places, an almost "alternate universe" with things are almost the same but also radically different.  Needless to say, I became a huge fan of the franchise.

Now, I tend to be that kind of guy who buys into these kinds of things; I've got all the Stargate DVDs  shows and movies, collected pretty much every form of Scott Pilgrim, read all of the Mass Effect books and comics, have shelves upon shelves of my favorite Manga... In this particular case, I still own all of the released Final Fantasy games on at least one platform (although admittedly not always the original one).  I'm not ashamed; these games mean a lot to me, and going back to play them is like rereading your favorite book.  Even years later, as new ones get released, I still play each one fervently; I'm a stalwart defender of XIII, as I loved the story and combat system (XIII-2 was AMAZING, by the way, outside of the main character's weird starting outfit), and I'm waiting anxiously for the final installment.

So to only have one game on the current gen systems, systems that have been out for years longer than any other generations of gaming platforms, is depressing to me.  Worse is the idea of the company not making good money off of the last few ones; XIV and its recurring emphasis still seems to be a mistake to me, but other than that the games were good.  I personally didn't really enjoy XII, but I've met quite a few defenders of the title and the gameplay itself wasn't bad.

So I write this letter in hopes, one day, someone in SquareEnix will look at it and go, "Huh."  Really, that's all I want.  This isn't some crazy list of demands.  It's just a list of ideas that I think could go a long way towards revitalizing the series.

1)  Throw back the battle system a bit.  Three characters really need to be controllable, even if it's queued.  I do love the action system from 13, but I think by slowing down the action a bit you can go a long way.  In addition, the "queuing" issue could be fixed simply by making certain specific actions repeated instead of selecting them all individually; base spells are cast X amount of times (based on your action level), next level is X-1, X-2, etc.  This would allow for faster choices without pounding the same button over and over.

Another way to make this workable is to add "Guest" slots.  Besides your 1-3 party members, featured characters, whether they're summoned monster helpers, NPC guests or special equipment additions could make this interesting.  They would not be controlled by the player, but their presence can be.  Perhaps even the option to have multiple guests and choose (or have it random) which one shows up.  Gives it a collectible feel, and helps control the action a bit more by having a character who will automatically act.

The emphasis on actionable content lately is fun, I must admit.  However, I'm the first to claim that I often miss the old turn-based style of games.  Well, Active Time Battles to be precise; I fully admit a full turn-based system would just be weird these days.  Still, the ideal situation would be once again between these two extremes.  

Here's my for-instance brainstorming: a turn-based system similar to IX with a twist.  Do queued moves where characters take turns, but include interrupts and combo commands.  Example the first: Character 1 starts casting Fire; character two's ATB is full, as is its Tactical gauge (or whatever), so he hits Fire as well with the Combo button instead of the Select button; the original spell is interrupted, and the two cast Fira together.  (Ideally, Combos would be something other than just the next step, so maybe Meteo or Firaja or something, but my point is still made)  Another situation: Main character's ultimate is charged, and begins their animation.  The boss monster, its Tactical gauge full, uses its Interrupt: the animation freezes and the boss's foot crashes through a shattered-glass animation as the action is interrupted and the main character's ultimate move gauge is halved.

2) Characters need to be more unique than just their design.  The last few games has gotten into this idea that characters are interchangeable when it comes to who's fighting with you.  You pick your roles, and you pretty much just go through the motions regardless of who you're playing with.  Their stories are all intertwined, too, so there's not chance to really get to know the characters individually; you form your attachment to the main character, and that's pretty much it.

Final Fantasy VI did this right.  Sure, everyone in that game could learn magic, but every character had a uniqueness, a skill that only they could use.  And not only that, but it was one that grew with you, something that made them unique but also special throughout the course of the game.  You felt a special attachment with the characters you enjoyed using, you have personal investment in them, and when, in the end, you have a choice to pursue something important to that character, you do because the character is important to you as well.

The way that someone looks when they do the attack command isn't enough.  To use Final Fantasy IX as an example, no one really got into Steiner because his moves weren't unique and didn't grow with him; his best abilities were borrowed from Vivi, who was a fan favorite.  Zidane was even often overlooked because most of his abilities were just regular attacks and variants on it; only those who really got into the Overdrive system really enjoyed him, because he turned into a unique character with strategy at that point.

Interchangeable characters will end up becoming just that: interchangeable.  Fans want to get behind their favorites.  In Final Fantasy XII, a lot of people don't even remember most of the character names because, honestly, they were all the same.  The only difference was in how you leveled the characters.  As a result, you didn't really bond with any of them in the game, which majorly takes away from one's ability to really connect or enjoy a character themselves (There's also story issues that caused this in XII, but that's a different issue altogether).  Unique moves, even if they're small in number, will allow this sort of bonding to occur once again.  It's a lot of why Final Fantasy X still sticks in a lot of people games, despite what many people call the games "weaknesses" in plot and play (things I don't agree with, but hey, everyone's got their opinions).

3) Bring the iconic items back to the forefront.  Fans of the franchise expect certain things from Final Fantasy.  To name a few: crystals, chocobos, Cid, colors of magic, airships, summons, and Biggs and Wedge.  Now, the emphasis on Summons and crystals has been pretty steady since IX.  But Cid really needs to be back in the game.  Airships need to be more than a way to re-explore at the end of the game.  Chocobos need to be more than just that way to avoid fights; heck, it's be great if they DIDN'T avoid fights.  Plot devices and ways to traverse come to mind; treasure hunting and riding games would be phenomenal.  Breeding is out, but the rest is open; IX's chocobos were amazing and allowed for growth without the weird breeding system.  A trading system would also be a lot of fun, or even a "red slip" option to try and race/gamble to earn new ones would be a lot of fun.

Cid needs to be refreshed a bit and brought back to his roots.  The last few games have seen him take this switch in what has normally been a mainstay of his personality: An obsession with a hobby.  More often than not, this has been with airships; however, his last few iterations have more been about personal goals or things of that nature.  In addition, he really needs to be back as part of the party.  It's been too long since Cid was more than just some guy who put the heroes on the right path; he needs to be front and center once more, a re-imagining to put him back in people's minds alongside the ones from IV and VII.

I really, really miss blue magic.  I can't explain it well enough.  The concept of color-coded magic is really fun, but there is nothing more memorable from the Final Fantasy series than all of the time spent trying to survive the attacks of monsters in an effort to steal the power for myself.  It doesn't have to be big; in fact, that can be one of the unique characters, and there may only be, say, a dozen blue-magic abilities in the game.  One way or another, though, it should be there.  It's been the discussion piece of so many games before, the "badge of the collector," and it should be once again if you want people to really desire to dig in to the game (without some awkward, pointlessly repetative rare-spawn-based "hunt club" game).

4) Closed worlds instead of open corridors.  This particular problem is specific to two games, X and XIII, although I would argue that XII had a similar issue.  There has a been an emphasis on paths on the last few games which has been awkward for series.  The Final Fantasy games have always been those of worlds, specifically of one that expands more and more as the game goes on.  The game play has always been linear; you still need to accomplish A before the way to B opens, then accomplish C before you can go to D, etc.  But this has always been limited by your methods of travel or by plot; since the onset of Final Fantasy X, this is instead limited by the fact that you literally have to go through A to get to B, then through that to get to C.  

Everything seems to be limited to paths you travel in the recent games.  For the  XII argument, although the "paths" were set in worlds that LOOKED more open and you seemed to have the option to travel some of them when you "shouldn't be" yet, you were still just walking these limited corridors, and going off track was just to grab a treasure chest or two.  Final Fantasy needs a return to fields; it's something that it's capable of doing.  The beginning of the second half of Final Fantasy XIII proves this when you really start the side quests, as does many of the maps from XIII-2.  The open field areas were amazing, and I spent more time in those two maps with the large open areas than any other area.  The reason why: they were FUN, and trying to find all the interesting things there was a blast.

Let me say this plainly: Going down a side corridor in a tunnel to grab a chest is not exploring.  Trying to keep track of what spawned in what region within a large map is a blast.  Finding out a way to get past an impassable barrier and, by extension bringing in a second field (and in a lot of ways, a whole other world) is even more fun.  And getting the ship to travel back and forth, and slowly figuring out how to get to new fields by upgrading my ship or chocobo or whatever... It's not really possible to explain the feeling of not only getting to explore, but the sense of accomplishment that comes from earning the ability to explore more.  Getting access to new areas just because you passed through the tunnel on the way is important, don't get me wrong, but that shouldn't be the entirety of the game.

The problem isn't the linear gameplay.  No matter what people say, we LOVE linear gameplay.  Advancing plot is fun.  Storytelling in a game is fun.  And don't get me wrong: a lot of people love open world games too, but that's not why we come to Final Fantasy.  We're here for story, and if you want a strong, well-told story, an open-world type of gameplay isn't really an option.  The world needs to open as we advance, and we come to expect that from not only this series, but the genre we've come to love called JRPG.

There is a large difference, however, between linear gameplay and a linear world.  Just like no world should exist in a vacuum, no world should ever exist in a line.  Final Fantasy X was, literally, a straight line from beginning to end, seen right from the airship, with "dots" of interest out to the side.  For the first half of the game, XIII was the same way, although the line wasn't quite as straight.  And XII allowed a bit more space in the lines, but in a lot of ways, it was still just a series of interconnected corridors; not nearly as bad as the other two, but still frustrating.

5) That's pretty much it.  Seriously, there's a lot of things you can do with these ideas and still make it work.  However, I would greatly worry that, without these things, another game is going to have that difficulty of picking back up the franchise, something that seems to be desperately needed right now.  Visions are awesome, and I really do love the games that have come out, but they're fun to me.  The problem with a recurring franchise is trying to make sure that you appeal to those that love the franchise; the bonus is that if you do so, you can be sure to rake in the dough.

Artistic vision and creativity are important, but so are the efforts (and in some cases, concessions) made  to your potential players.  Some of the best exercises in creativity can be explored by having to do so within stringent guidelines, and there are times when its necessary (To keep it in the family, Kingdom Hearts is probably one of the best examples of this) in order to make something both interesting and successful.  And that's what I really want back from this franchise, for it to be both interesting and successful again.