Sunday, June 26, 2011

(Over) attachment to video games

With the rise of the JRPG, the whole premise is that you become attached to the storyline in such a way that you have your own motivations to finish the game. You wouldn't give a shit to what happened in VII if the characters were flaky, story monotonous, concepts lackluster...you get my drift.

Eating up game after game; Persona, Final Fantasies, Kingdom Hearts, Xenosaga, etc., I feel like I pour out a bit of my soul into each game. Dramatic, I know. Considering RPGs are played solo, it's this personal, secluded, almost intimate experience. The experience I had with FFX is probably different than what other people feel about it. They may feel more, less, but in some vein it is *different*. I think part of it is just me being overemotional, but there's just that feeling when you're on Youtube and you play a soundtrack from a game you spent 50 hours with. Something like nostalgia, almost?

The stories in JRPGs are most usually sad, dramatic, very complex and can delve deeper as you become more and more attached to it. A series of emotions that you feel for one game get sparked once triggered - by a song, artwork, something. I'm in for a fucking roller coaster ride if I play OST songs from different games, it's like sensory overload and my brain's just like FUCK. Different emotions colliding into each other and often on the sad side. Blah.

Examples;

Persona 3 - Living With Determination -Iwatodai Station-, you really have to understand the whole gravity of the plot at this point. It's VERY emotional.
Kingdom Hearts - Dearly Beloved, Jesus tap dancing Christ. So somber, lighthearted game that gives you the feeling of fucking soaring across the universe is matched up perfectly with a dainty piano.
Crisis Core - A Moment of Courtesy, the fucking string arrangement is mad CRAZY. I have a lot of qualms about this series though, I'll expand on it later. This song really fucks me up because it's basically a song version of "this is how it all begins".