I’ve made it very clear in past installments of this column that I have largely felt RPG games were out of reach and too complicated for me to get in to.  I’ve since realized that this isn’t true at all.  What I need to do is look at RPGs from a different perspective than a fighter or a shooter.  I’m finding if I view an RPG like a book the level of patience I have for figuring out the game mechanics completely shifts.  Watching someone else play through one of these games made this abundantly clear.  I’m much more patient with slow character development, complicated location changes or even ridiculous dialog in books.  In games I’m used to writing this stuff off as secondary and useless because ultimately all I’m going to do is shoot people in the head.  

The entire act of watching someone else play through a RPG is what clicked the comparison on for me.  With Leah piloting the game that I thought was too complicated just became a slightly ridiculous story that I was compelled to follow.  I was willing to understand the mechanics because I wanted to follow the story and the mechanics just come up so much that you can’t help but to learn them as you go.  So what does all of this mean in a broader sense? 

For me it means I’ve had a huge shift in the way I view games and activities that I previously saw as too complex or frustrating.  Now, I want to play a newer RPG by myself and experience figuring out the mechanics and following the story as the game driver.  I also find myself curious about Dungeons and Dragons, something that I previously thought was way over my head.  I’m still in love with shooters, fighting games and puzzle games but I see a place in my gaming time for RPGs and potentially table top game experiences as well.  I have to admit that this is in fact a little odd for me because I thought as I got older my specific gaming tastes would cause me to “specialize”.  My thought was that as my time dwindled I would be forced to choice a specific subset of games (in my case mostly shooters and fighters) and ignore most things outside of my specialty.  I suppose I thought my hobby would imitate my academic career….

It’s turning out that this isn’t the case for me.  As I get older I see reasons for having wider gaming interests.  The more diverse my interests the more people I get to talk to and interact with on a daily basis and the more folks I can drag into pieces of the hobby that I love so much.  The only enemy to this is time.  I don’t have the energy to stay up all night and I have a mountain of responsibilities outside of my job that I have to deal with.  I suspect that in order to balance my rapidly diversifying tastes with my restriction in time I’m going to need some sort of time management strategy.  I may need to once again invoke a schedule for my game time so I can actually get meaningful hours in on as consistent a basis as possible.  This could be a sustainable plan if I could just convince my husband that watching me play an RPG is more interesting than the terrible horror movies he likes to spend his time watching.

I will probably revisit this point in future posts because this new mindset is ever changing.  I am compelled to follow my newfound interests.  This means buying more games in the name of science and exploration!

This week’s vicarious gaming session was especially awesome for me.  I watched Leah play for about 3 hours and I spent way less time confused and asking questions then ever before!  We played until right after the Djose Temple which means we have ourselves a shiny new Aeon to use in battle.  It can best be described as an awesome Zebracorn.  Yes that’s right, Zebracorn, as in a unicorn with zebra markings.  I should really start keeping a dictionary of all the words I make up…..

After watching about 10 hours of Final Fantasy X I really do feel like I am starting to become competent in the mechanics of the game.  I get the sphere grid now and I understand how you progress through it as well as how you essentially level up and gain abilities in this game.  That makes me particularly warm and fuzzy inside because that was really scary the first few times Leah pulled it up.  It’s just so different from any other leveling and abilities interface I’ve encountered before.  We’ve already established I get scared and confused by things I don’t understand so you can see how I might be terrified of this sphere grid thing.

On top of finally grasping the idea of adding spells and abilities to a character I really am starting to understand the dynamics and which characters are good at what.  I find myself particularly enthralled by Lulu because well, she can kill things with fire.  How could I go wrong there.  I actually had a specific moment of revelation this week related to Lulu.  The relationship between an enemies abilities and what spells will cause maximum damage is totally like Pokemon (not that I play Pokemon or anything….).  Fire and ice go together as do water and thunder.  Yes I realize 10 hours is a particularly long time to figure things like this out but I never said I wasn’t slow.  

To recap this week:  I made up a word, I get the sphere grid, spells are no longer scary, Lulu is awesome.   Finally getting a grasp on all this really makes me feel accomplished.  It also makes me feel like I could reasonably pick up a newer RPG and with some patience be able to actually figure the game out.  Before that happens though I’ll have to acquire some patience.  If anyone out there has any extra lying around send it my way.

Once again we return to the realm of Final Fantasy X for another episode of Vicarious Gaming 101.  This episode we saved the Chocobos!  I don’t really know how exciting that piece of information is but for me it warranted an exclamation point.  Seeing as how I have played very small bits of Final Fantasy games in the past I really didn’t know what a Chocobo was.  I hear Leah muttering under her breath sometimes about how much she hates the beasts because of the stupid mini game associated with them in another game but that didn’t tell me what they were, just that Leah hates them.

To me these stupid Chocobo look like giant walking chickens that you can ride on.  I suppose I don’t understand the necessity to save them but it did allow me to watch an interesting boss fight.  This particular battle pitted Leah against a giant fiend that could push the party backwards and, if left unchecked, eventually off a cliff.  This mechanic was sort of interesting for me because I wasn’t expecting any sort of environment to play a part in a turn based battle system like FFX’s.  I was pleasantly surprised to see this included in the game and it makes me wonder if there is more of this type of interaction in this game or if it was just a one off type of thing.

Aside from the battling a Chocobo eating fiend I also learning quite a bit more about spells, status effects and special moves from Leah.  She is educating me about what dark attacks do, what it means for a character to be silenced and exactly how a Grand Summon is different from your everyday vanilla summon.  I honestly often feel overwhelmed by the amount of information required to operate a RPG.  I know I discussed this last time but it really does blow my mind.  I’m not sure that I could figure all this out on my own with either A) asking a crapload of questions 2) having someone walk me through the game or iii) having a strategy guide open at all times.  It makes me wonder how people getting into RPGs for the very first time figure all of this stuff out.  To Leah navigating the menus, managing her characters health and status, and upgrading people through the sphere grid all seem to come as second nature.  For me it is a scary world of HP, AP, MP and words I don’t understand.

Ultimately all of that got me thinking about what I really want to get out of this experience and it dawned on me last night, I want to be able to confidently play a RPG and at least understand what is going on during battles by the end of this.  I’m hoping if I pay attention to more than just the sound of Tidus’ annoying voice I’ll be able to pick up vocabulary and skills through this that would have taken me forever to figure out on my own.  Does anyone out there have any good stories about their first RPG experience that they would like to share as I go through this process?

We return to the story of a girl who doesn’t played JRPGs and her adventure in watching her friend play through one.  This is what happens when people stop being nice and start getting real….annoyed by Tidus.  Due to my plague-like disease, I was too gross to make with the podcasting this week.  As a substitute Leah and I returned to Final Fantasy X and added a few more hours to our quest.

Leah continues to be both a good friend and a patient human being by humoring me and guiding us through another 2.5 hours of Final Fanasty X.  This took us right to the end of the Blitzball tournament in Luca.  I will say that I am becoming invested and interested in some of the characters in this story.  Lulu and Wakka have me intrigued because there is clearly a past involved with the two and also because they are far less irritating than Yuna or Tidus.  I’m also a huge fan of Kimahri because he’s blue, badass, doesn’t speak, and picks on Tidus.  I mean really how could you go wrong there.  Before you ask, yes Tidus is annoying and I do keep hoping someone accidentally kills him just so I won’t have to hear him anymore.  Yuna might actually annoy me more though.  I mean she got captured by some Al Bhed.  Does this not strike anyone else as ridiculous?  I mean the bitch can summon a giant fire creature for god’s sake!

The highlight of this weeks FFX playing was definitely watching Leah play Blitzball.  She hates that minigame with an undying passion.  After watching her play the one game she was required to play I could see why.  It seems tedious and kind of pointless.  I never understood why these annoying mini games were included in JRPGs in the first place.  It clearly isn’t to increase the length of the game so why bother putting them in?  The only good answer is to entertain those who are watching other people play the game.  For me watching Leah’s disdain at having to deal with Blitzball was the most entertaining part of my 2.5 hours watching FFX this week.  

Beyond my increasing interest in the characters and the obvious amusement of watching Leah deal with Blitzball I also came to realize in this installment that there is a huge vocabulary of terms associated with JRPGs that is completely foreign to me.  Leah is patient and explains the differences between spells like Cure and Esuna and details things like Overdrive and the Sphere Grid but I have to say it’s all a bit overwhelming for me.  I think feeling overwhelmed might be the number 1 reason that I don’t currently play JRPGs.  There is just so much to manage between characters in battle, stats, abilities, spells, items, armor, etc.  This creates a huge barrier for me where I could play the first hour or so and then I would have to deal with all of this business and it scares me off.  In shooters or fighting games my options are much more limited and it’s all much more manageable.  I’m not sure if this means I’m simple minded, impatient, or just like violence.  If I had to guess I would say the third one but I could also be a combo of the first two.

So after all that rambling what have I learned this week? 

1) Leah hates Blitzball

2) Tidus and Yuna are almost as irritating as Blitzball

3) Kimahri is freaking awesome

4) JRPGs might make me feel a little dumb and slow

This is sure to get more interesting as time goes on so stay tuned to my vicarious gaming saga.

Japanese RPGs and I do not get along.  Our relationship is sort of like a couple who breaks up and then gets back together a week later.  I always intend to try and play a JRPG because I hear amazing things about the stories or the character development.  Inevitably what happens is I get an hour in and I either get frustrated with waiting for my turn to hit someone (I mean really, who waits until it is their turn for violence?) or I get overwhelmed with the vast amount of crap I have to manage at every turn.  I then run off crying and banish the game back into my shelf.  A few months later I decide I want to try again and the cycle repeats itself.  

This time I decided to do things differently.  I have at my disposal a friend who loves JRPGs in a completely unhealthy way, so my thought was to have her play the game while I watch. This gives me the satisfaction of the characters and story without the extraordinary pressure of actually having to play the game.  For a few moments I reveled in my brilliance, and then I had Leah start playing Final Fantasy X while I watched.

Our first session netted us about 3 hours of time in the game.  I was absolutely astonished with how long it took the game to even get to any sort of battle tutorial.  I mean, we were like a full hour in before tutorial time.  I was also surprised by just how violent Tidus makes me, but that may be another discussion for another blog.  Watching Leah play FFX for these three hours was the most enjoyable experience I’ve ever had with an RPG.  I felt no stress, and having played the game before, she is an expert at equipping gear and making leveling decisions in a way that didn’t feel sluggish or take away from my story experience.  Essentially, I get to chill and watch a pretty movie while she worries about which element needs to be used on which monster and which characters should be in battle at any given time.

We are going to continue our trek through FFX in this way and we’ll both be dropping blogs about feelings through this experience.  I for one support my new RPG overlord.