Gameplay and Story Segregation in Final Fantasy?

Guernsey

Final Fantasy Nut
Joined
Apr 3, 2008
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Gil
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I am sure you had similar jokes and memes from the Final Fantasy games and the dissonance between what is happening in the story and what the game itself shows us. Here are some examples that I can name of the top of my head being: Why doesn't Cloud revive Aeris with a Phoenix Down? Why are certain bosses so weak despite presenting themselves as powerful in cutscenes? Or even why are the characters so powerful in gameplay and can get one shotted by a villain in cutscenes? It is by no means limited to those things but it is something that I noticed over the years and it seems as though that was a disconnect between what we are being show and what is possible from within the game. I know it should be that big of a deal but what do you think about the ludonarrrative dissonance of the Final Fantasy games?
 
That moment when you have just reached a location and triggered a story event, and then your party walk out of your body and then turn around to face you and have a conversation... At the end of the conversation they then turn around again and walk into you, being effortlessly sucked through the pores of your skin (or somewhere) until the plot demands them to resurface.

Moments like these and the moments that you describe can be horrifying to uninitiated FF or RPG players, or to people who are familiar with the genre but have taken the time aside to dissect what is happening in front of them instead of glancing over it.

I wouldn't say that these strange consequences of the video game vs story / world building struggle are unique to Final Fantasy as a number of games have their own peculiar and rather charming gameplay quirks. During rare moments the Final Fantasy franchise has even poked fun of itself because of this. In FFV when Galuf dies the party frantically throw phoenix downs and attempt to cast curative spells in a failed attempt to revive the character (having said that this scene was sad rather than comical, but you could tell that they were addressing the dissonance there).


I don't mind it as I try to separate these things from the story, but it would be rather interesting to see if a game was able to remove these gameplay elements and to have the game play out as if it was a real world, yet still still be playable and fun. If characters really died in combat, if there was no leveling system, if slicing / shooting / casting fire made actual physical injuries to an enemy / party member, etc. I wonder if that would end up being as cool as it might sound, or if we'd soon miss the gameplay elements which, while taking us out of the narrative, helped streamline the experience.
 
FFXIV exhibits one instance of self-awareness in regards to this. An ally is mortally wounded in battle against a main antagonist and if your character is currently a healer, you will be told to the effect of "you're a healer, aren't you? Stop gawking and come help!". Oddly if your character isn't a healer, you're told to hold the wounded character down as if she's a big flapping fish trying to get back into the water.

I generally don't mind the dissonance, though that's not to say I've never been taken out of the scenario by the sheer absurdity of what I'm seeing in a cutscene versus what I can glean about the character during combat. Let's take the example of Final Fantasy XIII, by now still a game I enjoy ragging on. Snow is essentially like a tank in combat. If you need someone to regularly play the Sentinel role, chances are the honour will mainly go to this dumb, beefy guy. In other cutscenes, Snow is shown to be practically invincible, with barely anything able to incapacitate him. He can fall the height of skyscrapers and survive extreme crash landings with nary a scratch. But one punch from Fang is all you need to knock this bull out. I daresay it would be more humorous if the Cavalry have to resort to extreme measures just to initially capture the guy. Like an entire armada of airship cannons to the face.
 
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