Aquarius (Day 346)

I've been considering lately that I've been doing nothing but writing about video games. There's nothing inherently wrong with this because I like video games a lot and I can generally always think of a lot to say about them--but unfortunately my entries as of late have been little more than halfhearted progress updates. I've become a lot more interested in the systematic completion of games in my backlog than absorbing nuances of these games and coming up with actual insightful things to say. I've become somewhat obsessed with the idea of completing as many games as I can in as short a time period as possible. As a result, I don't feel nearly as engrossed in these games as I should and I don't absorb as much about them. I couldn't tell you much at all about Front Mission 3's storyline, for instance, despite having devoted a good 25 hours to the game.

I remember when I first started this blog, I was playing a lot of Baldur's Gate. I was unemployed at the time, so take that with a grain of salt--but I invested a lot of myself into that playthrough. I wanted to play the game to completion and remark on it in just about every meaningful way I could think of. I'm not sure I succeeded at that goal, but I really enjoyed playing it and I definitely allowed myself to become engrossed in the storyline. Granted, not every game will be as story-driven and in fact many of the games I've played recently have focused much more on the gameplay. I feel this is not much more than a feeble excuse on my part, though.

Vagrant Story had well-written dialogue and intriguing characters--as well as a hodgepodge of strange mechanics that made for a fun and unique (though frustrating) game. I did not find the meandering dungeons and cryptic puzzles to be particularly enthralling and for the most part I was mentally checked out for the majority of the storyline. I have no reason to suspect the storyline was poor, but I quite simply did not make it a priority to understand it. Why is this? Why have I begun to treat games in this way? Every game I play is done while doing something else, whether it be listening to music or watching Netflix. I frequently don't listen to a lot of the game's music and dialogue goes in one ear and out the other. I don't skip any of it, but it wouldn't be fair to say that I absorb it.

It's possible I'm overthinking this. Some games just don't deserve that level of scrutiny--but what is this exercise for, if not for analysis? I spend a lot of my free time playing video games and for the most part I only analyze the gameplay. I don't spend a lot of time discussing plot, characterization, or even music--not because these are elements of a game that I devalue, but because I haven't been paying enough attention to them. Vagrant Story has an excellent understated score by Hitoshi Sakimoto, a composer who I greatly admire, but I barely touched on it. On the other hand, I've listened to very little of Front Mission 3's soundtrack, so on it I can comment very little. As for the storyline, I couldn't even begin to tell you what's going on there. . .

Still, I'm not going to be enthralled by the storyline or aesthetics of every game. Front Mission 3 is a very gritty, unadorned game about nothing more ludicrous than giant walking robots. The gameplay is superb (although certainly not without its flaws)--but nothing about its storyline, characters, or general aesthetics jumps out at me as special or interesting. I'm sure a more dedicated fan of the series could explain in detail the complexities of the plot to me, but I doubt very seriously they could make it sound exciting for me.