Daniel Western
Mr. Fatheree
2nd period
May 20, 2014
The Art of Gameing Literature has always been considered the original medium of entertainment. It allowed the reader to enter another world and to see the veal world from the writer’s point of view. Eventually new forms of storytelling sprang forth like cinema. This evolution of storytelling allowed an artist to express their ideas without uttering a single word. So this brings up the question, “What is the next evolution of storytelling?” There is a large amount of evidence that shows that the next evolution in artistic storytelling is video games. A perfect example of gaming’s unique form of storytelling is a forgotten franchise known as the Ultima series. This long running saga stretches back to the Dos era of computer programming. Though the story of the original game was as, “Me good. He evil,” the plot began to evolve with the fourth entree to the series. The base goal of the first game is to act as a prophet for the player’s own religion with its own ideals, beliefs and deity… the player. The idea at first seems simple, but as the series progressed the player begins to realize that his/her actions might not have been the best. With the rise of religious radicals, the near extinction of people against the religion, and strong racial segregation, the player begins to realize that the choices of religious leaders have stronger affects on people then he/she thinks. This message is delivered better than any movie or book can come close to doing. The game does this so well because it shows how the player affects the people around him/her, this is much more effective than watching someone else do the same thing. There are other examples of how fantastic video gem’s storytelling can be. Another example of gaming’s great story telling is the Final Fantasy series. Though this franchise is a shadow of its former self, the Final Fantasy series was known for its memorable characters and ground breaking storytelling. The best example of the series’ great characters is in the fourth game in the series. In this game players meet a character called Tellah. The character is already well written, but what makes his death(spoiler alert) so memorable is the player’s connection with him. Tellah’s character is written to be the cool headed wise old man, but when his daughter is killed by the main antagonist Tellah is consumed by hatred. Blinded by his rage Tellah trains and learns the most powerful spell in the game, but the twist is that the user must give his life to cast it. Eventually Tellah confronts the villain and uses new found spell, and of course loses his life. Though Tellah uses his strongest attack it does little to no damage to the antagonist, and Tellah gives his life in vain. The reason this death is so powerful is because Tellah is the strongest and most useful character in the game. In any other movie or book this would be a very simple death, but the reason this death is so strong is because of the player’s connection with Tellah. Like I said Tellah is the strongest character in the game, and the designers make this very obvious. Tellah knows almost all the spells in the game, he has great abilities, and is always at least ten levels higher than the rest of the player’s party. Though this at first seems like its only use is to make the game easier Tellah’s strength is actually a beautiful and subtle piece storytelling. Because Tellah is so strong the player begins to depend on him, making it feel like when Tellah is with the player has nothing to fear, but when Tellah (the strongest character) uses his strongest attack on the villain, and only results in his own death, because of this ,the player feels fear. Tellah’s death was not just the death of a character, it represented the death of the player’s hope, and though movies and books can make more memorable deaths this death is the only death that has ever scared me. Back in the day of early Nintendo a game series known as The Legend of Zelda was born. This series still goes on today as one of, if not the most, popular game series ever made. In the mid 1990s a game in the series was released for the Nintendo 64 known as Majora’s Mask. Though when the game was released it had very poor sales, it has recently been growing a large fan base, and many fans of the series (including myself) say it is the best game in the series. The reason the game sold poorly is because it was made for adults, but sold to kids. You could tell this because the game had many dark and depressing artistic messages and themes. The most apparent of these themes is the idea of inevitability. The main story of the game is that the player takes control of the hero forma the last game, Link, and somehow finds him/her self in a completely different world that he/she doesn’t recognize. In this new world the player meets the main antagonist, known only as The Skull Kid, who uses a spell to literally have the moon plummet down to Earth until it destroys everything and kills everyone. The player has three days until the moon crashes down and destroys everything. In these three days the player can use a magical flute, called the Ocarina of Time, to slow down, speed up, and rewind time to help stop the moon from killing everyone. The player has the option to take what are called side quests. Side quests are basically tasks that branch off from the main story and instead give the player something else to focus on, these side quests are wear Majora’s Mask truly shines. In these side quests the player explores the new world he/she will meet a large cast of colorful characters that have to cope with the impending doom. A perfect example of how beautiful these side quests are is the Lover’s side quest. In this side quest the player meets a couple of lovers that are cursed by The Skull Kids magic. Helping these lovers takes the entire three day cycle and a large amount of effort. Of course after completing the side quest the player has to rewind time, but when the player restarts the three day cycle all the work that he/she did is undone. At first people saw this as a flaw in the games design, because the player would work for hours, only to realize that all their work goes unjustified, but if the player takes a closer look he/she could realize that this adds to the theme of inevitability. This perfectly shows that no matter how hard the player works or how hard he/she fight we can’t beat the inevitable. In the year of 1987 a game series called Shin Megami Tensai was created. The series was developed in Japan, but failed to be localized in the west because of controversial themes. The game series takes many liberties that many would find offensive, for example almost all of the enemies in this game series come from religious stories and superstitions. What really shows the series’ artistic beauty is the story. The story of every game in the series is that there super natural creatures called demons that have invaded the Earth. The demons fall under two categories. The first category is group of angelic beings ruled by the Christian God. These demons fight for peace and order and will even sacrifice people’s free will to preserve peace. The other group of demons is composed of demonic monsters ruled by Lucifer (also known as Satan). These demons are fight for freedom and believe in survival of the fittest; that the weak should die and the strong live on. As the story progresses the player will be forced to recreate the world in the image of one of these two demon groups. If the player were to look at this set up blindly it would appear to simply be two factions at war, but in reality these two groups represent Communist Russia, and Capitalist America. The group of angelic demons perfectly represents the oppressive, but equal ideas of John Lenin’s Communist Russia, and the demonic demons perfectly represent the wild freedom of Capitalist America. Most people who first play the game probably say to themselves, “the angelic group of demons must the good guys,” but if they are the good guys, then why do they represent the “evil,” Communist Russia? Other players might say, “The good guys have to be the demons that represent America,” but why is “the great,” Capitalist America portrayed by monsters and Satan? That is what makes this game’s message so unique. Instead having a clear good or bad decision for the player to make, the game blurs the lines of good and evil and forces the player to question their beliefs. Though gaming is not a perfect medium it has had more than its fare share of artistically beautiful games. The question is not if gaming can be artistic (because it can), the question is “How many out of the four games that I just named would most people have played or even recognize?”