Considerations...

For some reason, I still can’t get my head wrapped around how I can’t stop playing Final Fantasy VIII. I’m slowly discovering little details about it that I didn’t know before. I never realized that there were items you could use to rename both Rinoa’s dog Angelo and the little Chicobo that Chocobo Kid gives you as a reward for catching your first Chocobo. After a lot of hard work, I managed to max out everybody’s level, down to the GFs and, in contrast to previous strategies I employed, I actually handed out GFs to my B-team characters (Quistis, Irvine and Selphie) to make them useful in the final battle. But that isn’t the only thing. Playing the game so much has actually made me discover that I can actually identify where a particular piece of the soundtrack was played, what the title of the piece is and, more often than not, even what was going on while the music played. Of course, playing the game has also opened me up once more to playing old console-style RPGs again. Now, my PS1 is busted and I can’t afford a PS2, so I’m stuck with playing PC versions. I think Valkyrie Profile or The Legend of Dragoon for the PC doesn’t exist and I’m no fan of Final Fantasy VII or Final Fantasy IX, so I did a little digging. And I found Capcom’s Breath of Fire IV, which I’m having a lot of fun with at the moment.

To be honest, I’ve always found the BoF series plots to be weaker than average (and every decent RPG gamer knows plot is key to any RPG) and BoF4 is no exception to that. However, I’m not in the mood for any plot with the level of insanse intricacy to the point of stupidity of FFVII’s or with awkwardly handled plot twists like FFVIII’s, so I don’t mind. Ryu isn’t exactly my idea of an ideal main character either (Squall is a bit closer but not quite) but Nina’s not bad as the female lead. She’s certainly easier to stomach than Yuna, Rikku, Paine or Garnet. She reminds me of Aerith for some reason. Ursula is a lot more interesting for me, however. There’s something oddly appealing about her and reminds me of the same appeal I saw in Rinoa of FFVIII and Lenneth of VP when I first played their respective games. I don’t spend countless hours on it, however. I know better than that. If I could get my hands on an English copy of Lunar: Silver Star Story Complete or Lunar 2: Eternal Blue Complete for the PC, I think it’ll be a safe bet you can lock me up and throw away the key for the duration. I appear to be giving myself more free time writing (or, more appropriately, trying to write) than playing, unlike FFVIII.

Now, to be honest, I’m not entirely sure what to write next. After the disaster that is Akatsuki, I know I don’t want to go into another story with people having powers of any sort, be it psychic or demonic or whatever in nature. However, the idea for a character I had in mind as a minor character for what was going to be my next piece lends itself too well to not only people having supernatural powers but also to having the existence of other things. I confess an inkling to go into Lovecraftian territory and delve into fiction that portrays beings man cannot know but doing it now? I’m not entirely sure I can convince myself to pull that off. Still, the prospect is too good to pass up completely. I keep telling myself that the time has come for me to get back to my writing roots (so to speak) but the prospect of crafting my own twisted version of the good-evil dichotomy and supposed conflict is too tempting to shelve. This poses a problem for me. Although I have to admit, I’ve always wanted to write something that’s a mix of Lovecraftian horror, shojo-ai and a plot akin to the style seen in games like Persona and Persona 2: Eternal Punishment. A truly talented writer can pull it off but there comes the question: am I one of those?

Of course, part of me, the part that’s an In Nomine and Spawn die-hard, wants to create a story that mixes elements from both worlds. I’ve always liked the way IN handled the good-evil conflict and how the concepts of Destiny and Fate were done. It makes sense to me that each of us has an ultimate evil that we can perform that will condemn us as well as an ultimate good that can redeem us. The fact that a good man can go to Hell just by not giving alms to one random beggar while a vicious torturer can be given access to Heaven for a single act of mercy appeals to me even as many would see it as unfair. The idea of Heaven and Hell being less clearly good and evil and more…morally neutral than religion portrays them also sits well with me. Although I dislike the concept of Words and how important human perception is to their power, as presented by IN, since it imposes a bit of an unusual limitation and makes humans too important. Still, the only alternatives I know of that I think make sense would be the Buffyverse version (like The First and Wolfram & Hart’s Senior Partners) and the Lovecraftian idea of tossing good and evil out the window since such things don’t matter in the grander scheme of things. However, such a project and the scope it would entail isn’t quite something I think I can handle just yet. Though the idea lends itself too well to me for me to ignore it for very long.

Well, I think I better go on for now. I’ve got to wrap my head around the concept and characters in my head. This may take a while…