Emotional Attachment to Virtual Adventure Seeking Avatars

**Strife's notes: This blog post contains spoilers for the 2008 game "Tales of Vesperia for the Xbox360. If you have any interest in the near future about playing this game and reading what seems to be a conclusion to a story arc or a plot twist, then skip this blog. I'll have another one posted up this weekend. This is more so a rant filled thrilling end to my all nighter of the game. ~Strife**

*Presses Start*

I am a story driven guy.

No matter what the game is, if a game has a pretty decent story, I'll play through until the end. If it has a great story, I'll play it religiously and won't play anything else until said game is finished.

Tales Of Vesperia is one of those games.

Let me go ahead and put out there that I love RPGs. Just as much as I love fighting games. A good RPG is hard to find and a great RPG is even harder. I love getting so involved with the characters and the experience. In a way, if a RPG is good, I get emotionally attached. Sometimes, it's not always a good thing.

Tales Of Vesperia is a JRPG that was released in August of 2008, and I'm just now experiencing the game for the first time. The music for the game is amazing, the graphics still stand up to today's standards and most importantly, The story (and events) aren't that bad. However, 14 hours in, I've run into a part that clashes with my emotional immersion. I've run into a part where Yuki (The Hero) is a man of questionable character. He breaks out of jail. He causes mischief. He beats up on the knights that are sent to capture them but never takes their lives. He saves people and generally knows right from wrong. Sounds like a guy to get behind, right? His snarky sarcastic take charge attitude really got me interested in him. So, like a good RPG, I'm involved with this character, right?



**SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS**


A good chunk into the story, you find out about a conspiracy that the head of a powerful council (Ragou)is doing to take over the lands and teamed up with people of less then stellar character to help pull this off. Now, of course, a boss battle takes place to fight the muscle of the two and defeat him. Ragou is captured and let go that night, due to some slick talking and pulling of his status. Here's where's things get tricky. Late that night, Ragou is on the bridge, talking and plotting his next move, and in a flash, Yuki appears and unsheathes his weapon. Ragou, unarmed and knowing no sorts of magic, pleads for his life. Yuki steps closer and when Ragou runs, he's struck down and killed. In cold blood.

I flash back to reality. Wait. That's totally NOT in that guy's agenda. He knows right and wrong, but killing someone who was unarmed? I know he was a dictator. In fact, there was an entire scene dedicated to what he's done. Stabbing in the back? I thought that was a total villain move. In total honesty, it was really close to me just turning the game off and walking away. I was so attached to Yuki that when something happened that seemed like it was out of character, it almost broke the game for me. It was that important.



**END SPOILERS**



In one of my favorite RPGs (one that we ironically did a podcast on), when the pretty big twist (If you've ever played it, you know which one I'm talking about) happens, I really did feel a sense of despair. At the end of it, I really did feel like we went on a time traveling adventure. None of the characters felt strange or did anything out of place. In one of the most popular RPGS of all time, a certain event was named the most shocking event in video game history. I knew grown teenage boys who cried when it happened. Heartbreaking indeed. In Dragon Age 2, There's a certain situation where if you make a decision based off your carelessness and lack of worry, someone departs the game in a pretty upsetting fashion. I really felt like I screw up royally and missed my noticeably missing character. I love being immersed in my games and almost to the point where I almost get mad when something happens that works for the game's sake but totally destroys anything that I imagined the character doing.

It's still sitting here paused. Granted, I could be totally off base. I could be making a big deal out of seemingly nothing. I'm unassumingly not that far in the game yet. However, that scene alone made such a deep impact on me that I have no choice but to continue and press start and hope that the character that I've been imagining playing out is the same virtual one on my screen.

Continue?

TCPS 6: Dragon Age 2 and RPG's

It's another podcast! This time Tony and I talk about Dragon Age 2 with as little spoilers as possible, and some of our favorite RPG's. Now I'm going to go back to watching Tangled and playing Assassin's Creed Brotherhood.

Ferelden Blues: A look back at Dragon Age and the Journey to Dragon Age 2

*Presses Start*

Let me start off by saying that I love RPGs. I love them all, and a ton of them rank up there as one of my favorite game experiences of all time. It's just not the normal Final Fantasy, Either. 3 of my top RPGs of all time aren't even Final Fantasies at all (Chrono Trigger, Star Ocean: The Second Story and Persona 4). That's not to say that I dislike them. There's very few that I can say I really just don't like, and even then, that's not to say that they're terrible games, that's just saying that there was something in that game that I couldn't get into (I'm looking at you, Final Fantasy XII) and caused me to be slightly disappointed. That's also a huge gamble in RPGs today. You have to be emotionally invested in your character and in your team. If not, you're risking having your pride and joy in the bargain bin. A little company called BioWare understood and complied with amazing force.

Back in 2009, BioWare released a game that sucked up over 100 hours worth of game play from me. Dragon Age origins told the story of a man who fought the darkspawn. The back story and the character was entirely up to you. This was one of the first games that I played that let you build up your character from scratch (Save for Fallout) and unleash havoc on the world that BioWare created. For me, I was living the high life until my castle was ambushed and killed my family, leaving me to become a Grey Warden and eventually save the world from the Blight. YES. The way that they told the tale for this game was amazingly well done and enough for me to drop everything that I was doing to finish this game. A year later, While my Dragon Age lust was still hot, they announced Dragon Age II, coming the following year. Now, usually I'm alright with sequels as long as the first one is done correctly (See Bulletstorm review) But what I'm not a fan of is announcing a sequel of a game that is still relatively new. I can understand striking while the iron is hot, but that may have been a bit TOO quick. Bioware was quick to piss people off, and the next announcement wasn't going to be any better.

Bioware announced that they were going to make DA2 more "streamlined", "faster" and "less tactical". For a fan of the first game and how tactical it was, I was kinda upset. I didn't want streamlined. DA:O was for the hardcore gamers who wanted to take control of everything, and that's where I wanted it to stay. Then they announced that the character that you took control of in the second one couldn't be ported to the second one. Why? Because they were giving you a person to start off with, instead of making him your own. That's right. Wanted to be a elf blood mage? Out of the question. You had to be a human. That was the most upsetting thing that I've read. I was a human to start off, but I loved the Elf's back story that was created. If I wanted to replay the game and start off completely new, I couldn't do it. As if all that wasn't a big back stab to the fans, BioWare also made a completely new battle system. You wanted to press X and let your character duke it out while you kicked back? Not anymore. Everything was now in real time, taking away the tactical portion of the game.

Pissed off isn't a way to put it. Fans were fucking LIVID.

It seemed like BioWare had turn their back on their fans. I have to admit, I wasn't 100% sure that BioWare still had it anymore. They cut out what seemed to be major portions of their game for a faster and quicker experience for everyone. Like the selfish fanboy I was, I didn't want the game for everyone. I wanted it for me. Of course, as time goes by, I settled down. I decided that the very best I could do was give it a shot and hope for the best. The trailer looked cool, so at very least I could scoop it up and say "Hey BioWare, I have faith that you'll do me proud". Did they disappoint?

Part 1 of Dragon Age 2 coming really really soon. Until then,

Continue?