I realize that I spent a rather large amount of virtual space bemoaning the decline of the Japanese RPG and highlighting all the ways the genre is not a game at all, but, as I implied in that article, I worry over the state of the genre because it has meant so much to me over the course of my gaming life. In that vein, I’m going to present the first in a series of retrospectives of what I perceive to be classic games that have influenced the gaming industry in some way.

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: there is a shadowy organization with questionable motivations that is slowly sapping the world of its natural resources. This organization is heedlessly constructing power reactors and refineries to take advantage of these resources in the face of growing evidence that the environment is suffering irreparable damage. This sounds like it could be basis of a new Al Gore documentary or the plot of any of the numerous movies coming out to feed off the climate change panic. It is, in fact, the outline of a video game made ten years ago: Final Fantasy VII.

Since it is a video game–a simple entertainment–the organization is not raping the world of its finite oil supplies but tapping into the “Lifestream” to create energy for the populace. And there’s a little matter of harnessing this Lifestream to create ultimate weapons for world domination. Let me make this clear: Lifestream is not a transparent analog for oil. First of all, it manifests as a glowing green fluid. It isn’t black. Second of all, it’s made out of the souls of the dead and not decomposed biomatter. . . Right. Even though this game came to the U.S. in 1997, its motivations are very contemporary. Perhaps that is one reason the story has aged so well.

The game opens with a small “revolutionary” group blowing up a reactor in the oppressively dark city of Midgar. Because the player is in control of the members of this group and because we all know corporations are evil, this is activism and not terrorism. As far as most of the city is concerned, however, this group is a terrorist cell. This is serious subject matter for a game to take on in a world in the middle of the Dot Com bubble. The main character is a former soldier (and member of an elite group called SOLDIER, obnoxiously enough) of the evil corporation whose initial approach to the movement is mercenary. Cloud is an unsympathetic character with a pragmatic attitude as the game begins. This is a game that takes itself very seriously. That is why Final Fantasy VII was revolutionary.

I am not claiming that it was the plot that changed video game development and gamers’ attitudes toward RPGs; it was the entire presentation of the game from the top down. As a technical achievement alone, FFVII changed the way video games were presented. Naturally, the use of pre-rendered, full-motion videos was the first aspect of the game lauded by critics. It was as tough Square was trying to blur the line between video game and movie. The opening movie of the game does not simply set the scene for the opening action, although it certainly has that effect. The slow pan around the technological city of Midgar is interrupted by frames of a train racing through a tunnel. As the camera continues to the circle the city and zoom closer to the action, there are an increasing number of frames showing the racing train. Quite quickly the camera is thrust directly into the action as it reaches the train’s location in the city and the game begins en media res. This opening has become so canonic, so representative of the power of traditional cinematography in video games, that Sony used the scene to demonstrate the power of the new PS3.

The graphics that follow that scene are sadly dated. While the background environments suggest a 3D environment, their presentation now appears murky and blurry. The characters in the overworld and towns are blocky and without expression… or hands, for that matter. They look like Lego men walking around in a Renoir painting. At the same time, the battle graphics are still impressive. Certainly, they are nowhere near as refined as the graphics in games from the XBox 360, but the technical abilities of Sony’s first generation are remarkable after so much time (in video game years).

There are a number of genuine flaws in the game. The translation is confusing and unclear at times, and it really would have been helpful with such a convoluted story for the verbal presentation to have been more clear. The story, even after playing through the game four or five times (don’t ask), is so labyrinthine at times that flow charts might help. Oh, and the first appearance of a black guy in a Final Fantasy game features a portrayal that is fraught with stereotypes. Barret, while a far more likable character than the story’s protagonist, seems like he’s always about to start demanding fried chicken and watermelon. He also swears the most out of any of the characters.

As a game requiring manual input from the player to proceed… FFVII is no great challenge. I cannot recall if there are any required battles that I could not beat the first time through, but I suspect that the greatest obstacle in the game is the random encounter rate. While there are plenty of minigames that distract from the constant press of random encounters (a genre convention hated by many), it can be extremely frustrating to leave a menu screen and press up for less than half of a second and hit a random encounter.

Those quibbles are minor in the face of the milestones the game achieved. As I mentioned earlier, the opening scene of game employs cinematic elements, but the greatest innovation that all of the technological advances of the Playstation allowed was that of mood. For the first seven or eight hours of the game, the player is confined to Midgar, a city with no sun. The presentation would be reminiscent of the movie Dark City except that it preceeded that movie by a few years. The player never sees how the uppercrust of the city lives because Cloud and company are marginal characters in the slum of a “great” city. The environments are dark and dirty. There are few natural colors in the palette of Midgar. The brightest environment in these opening hours is actually the interior of the neighborhood brothel. There are some humorous moments in these first few hours, particularly during the sidequest in which the characters scramble around the redlight district trying to barter for women’s clothing to disguise Cloud as a woman. Over all, the mood is dark and oppressive as reflected in the colors the designers use. The great pay off after those opening hours is this feeling of relief the player feels as he leaves the city. It’s as though he releases a breath that he didn’t realize he was holding in. And that’s just the beginning of the game.

The graphics are not the only thing that contribute to the mood. In fact, one could easily argue that the music of Nobuo Uematsu carries the bulk of the game’s emotions on its shoulders. There is nary a wrong step in the music. Let me say that I know very, very, very little about music. I can say that the music was tense when it needed to be tense, dissonant when it needed to be dissonant, and lighthearted where it needed to be lighthearted. It carefully supplements the environmental design of the game. When the characters cannot speak for themselves–there is, after all, no voice acting in this game–the music speaks for them.

I could go on for a very long time about this video game. I could try to pick apart the scenes that make the game worth all of the acclaim it has received, but it would take many more hours and many more pages. Some critics claim that this game is overrated. Some fans even hate this game because it is so often cited by gamers as their favorite Final Fantasy. These fans claim that all old-school Final Fantasy fans prefer FFIV or FFVI. Guess what, I’m one of those fans. Or I was. Until I came back to this game again and realized what it did for the genre. My favorite edition of the series will always be Final Fantasy VI, but FFVII deserves acknowledgement for how it changed the genre. When Kefka poisons the city of Duma early in FFVI, it’s hard to feel, viscerally, the loss. When Shinra destroys an entire sector of their capital city… well, the player feels that loss. It really is a great game, and it took me ten years to realize that.

Few genres are as steeped in nihilism as cyberpunk. Often set in near-future worlds, the books, films, and games of the cyberpunk genre often examine the intersection between high technology and the fringe of society. Characters aren’t simply confronted with the oppression of society; they also must battle against the feelings of alienation in an environment that is increasingly dominated by technology. In some cases, this technological domination extends as far as the bodies of the characters. As a genre, cyberpunk does not want for conflict.

Introduction:

First coined by the author Bruce Bethke as a short story title in 1983, cyberpunk is a strain of science fiction in which cybernetics and information technology are blended with dystopian elements. Whether the dystopia arises out of a nuclear holocaust, a biological event, or the advent of revolutionary piece of technology, the society shown in cyberpunk media is often characterized by distinct social strata with a particular emphasis on the lowest elements of society. According to Lawrence Person’s article Notes Toward a Postcyberpunk Manifesto:

Classic cyberpunk characters were marginalized, alienated loners who lived on the edge of society in generally dystopic futures where daily life was impacted by rapid technological change, an ubiquitous datasphere of computerized information, and invasive modification of the human body.

Although many authors have written books that are classified as cyberpunk, the two most prominent are William Gibson and Neal Stephenson. As is widely known, Gibson originated the word “cyberspace” in his novel Neuromancer. Influential as the novel was, the most widely-read work of cyberpunk may actually be Stephenson’s Snow Crash. Even prior to the introduction of the term, authors like Harlan Ellison, Philip K. Dick, and Stanislaw Lem could be described as creating works in the cyberpunk genre.

In cinema, the grit of the cyberpunk culture is often highlighted with elements of noir. Films like Blade Runner, Dark City, and The Matrix employ cinematic chiaroscuro to emphasize the segmentation of society between the light (the favored) and the dark (the lost). As with any genre that is featured in many films, cyberpunk has its fair share of representatives in the gaming universe.

Just for the sake of the weary reader who has tired of my gushing over the universe of Shadowrun, I’ll simply note that it fits squarely in the cyberpunk genre (albeit with fantastical elements) and point out that there have been three games based in that world, one on the SNES, one of the Genesis, and a depressing SKU on the Xbox 360.

Deus Ex (2000):

One of those rare first person shooters with RPG elements, especially back in 2000, Deus Ex followed the adventure of JC Denton in the 2050s. As a member of an elite anti-terrorist organization, Denton becomes enmeshed in a multi-layered conspiracy as the Illuminati, Majestic 12, and triads all vie for power in the chaotic world. In this globe-hopping game, Denton tracks down leads in New York, Hong Kong, Paris, and other international locations.

Throughout the game, the player is confronted with many different paths to a specific goal. Stealth may be the most effective method of approaching a particular scene, but it is just as possible for a player with more points in combat skills to take on the enemies as a one man army. The direct control over the abilities of an avatar seen through the first-person perspective gives the player a heightened sense of immersion in the environment.

When this game out, my roommate and I spent many, many hours playing this game. We took turns with one person watching over the other’s shoulder as we played. We played on my computer in my dorm room, and when class compelled me to go to sleep, I often woke up with my roommate still playing.

It maintains a Metacritic rating of 90, and it was re-released in a Game of the Year addition to take advantage of the many awards heaped upon it.

It only sold 91K in 2001, but based on the strength of the IP, a sequel was made, and a third installation in the series was recently announced.

Syndicate (1993):

Originally released on the Amiga and PC, this tactical shooter featured a squad of cyborgs who take control of territories and tax the populace like the mafia might. As the player takes control of more territories, he is able to upgrade the weapons of his team of cyborgs. The player builds this influence to further the goals of his corporate or religious masters. As with many cyberpunk games, the governments have become overshadowed by corporations.

This classic game was expanded into a series with an expansion as well as a sequel. Peter Molyneux stated:

Aside from the licensing complications, some sort of next-gen online version of Syndicate would certainly be popular with gamers.

It certainly inspires feelings of nostalgia in a lot of gamers.

System Shock (1994):

In some ways, this is the game that sparked the cyberpunk genre in games. It was set in 2072 and featured a hacker as the main character and a malevolent artificial intelligence as the main antagonist. The fact that the game occurs on a space station is rather beside the point. A first-person shooter with true 3-D environment, the game is very much the model for Deus Ex with the main character installing hardware through his neural implant to add new abilities. This is of course something that BioShock used to great effect, and Ken Levine has commented that

the spirit of System Shock is player-powered gameplay: the spirit of letting the player drive the game, not the game designer.

The atmosphere of the game is tense and riveting, even after all these years. Its influence can be seen in games like BioShock and even Portal (Hello, GLaDOS). It is the model upon which many subsequent first-person shooters built upon.

Though it only sold 170,000 copies, the game eventually received a sequel based on all the critical acclaim it received.

Final Fantasy VII (1997):

I’ll bet you thought I could make it through a feature without a reference to Final Fantasy. You were wrong.

There is no government to speak of in FFVII; the Shinra Corporation is the closest to a universal power that exist. Our protagonist, Cloud, may wield a sword, but he’s accompanied by two gun-wielding companions, Barrett and Vincent. As I mentioned in my FFVII retrospective, the entire city of Midgar is extremely reminiscent of the setting of Dark City. The game even begins in the Slums, and an argument can be made that the adventure doesn’t truly begin until a segment upper portion of Midgar collapses on top of the slums beneath. The division between the haves and have-notes, the dark and the light, could not be more clearly drawn.

9.72 million in sales. That’s pretty much all you have to say. It transformed Japanese RPGs from a niche genre in the U.S. into a force to reckoned with.

Hellgate: London (2007):

I know what you’re thinking: really? Hellgate: London? But there are demons! And Hell!

Set in the near future (2038), there is a blend of technology and mystical powers very much in the style of Shadowrun with both a single player mode and online multiplayer. To borrow the description from Hellgate‘s website:

A post-apocalyptic London has been overrun by hordes of terrifying demons, leaving the city desolate and scorched by hellfire. Those who were unlucky enough to survive now gather in the only sanctuary left, the Underground, banding together in order to gain a foothold against the minions of darkness and ultimately save the bloodline of humanity.

It is no surprise that these sole survivors come from three of society’s most elite factions, each of whom are masters of a robust number of skills and weapons essential to demon-thrashing.

The Templar, a secret society preserving the rites of the original Knights Templar, mix futuristic technology with ancient artifacts to create powerful weapons and armor perfect for short-ranged and melee attacks.

The Cabalists are students of the dark arts and edges of science which often leaves them standing right on the line between good and evil. Their mystifying spells make them suited for mid-range combat.

The Hunters are mysterious, highly trained ex-military operatives who lay waste to their foes with hyper-advanced weapons that blend theoretical science and the latest in technology – and their bullets can come from almost any distance.

While it might not be a corporation, world domination by demons neatly creates that dystopian dynamic of the haves and have-nots. The setting of the game in the Underground emphasizes the power of the high versus the low and the power of darkness over a population. If one wanted to extend the metaphor a bit, the automatically generated dungeons places the player squarely in the position of being ill-informed and kept in the dark.

While it has a Metacritic rating of 71, the game has been criticized for early problems with glitches and inconsistent multiplayer.

No sales figures have been released for Hellgate: London, which typically does not bode well for a game.

Conclusion:

Aside from Final Fantasy VII, this genre is dominated by low-selling, critically acclaimed games. Thankfully, despite the sales figures, the gaming community recognizes the power of this genre and games continue to be developed for it. Movies like Blade Runner aren’t always box office successes, but they often go on to become cult classics. Any genre that allows the creator to explore sociological disparities should stay around for as long as possible.

Back when I was a wee tyke, no more than seven, there weren’t a lot of cooperative game options available to gamers. To give some sort of perspective, my childhood was back in the days of NES, so while I did play the occasional game of Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego? on my father’s black and white work PC, most of my gaming was confined to the titles with the Nintendo seal of approval. Naturally, in addition to the limits set on video game play time by my parents, there was a premium on television time. With my sister only occasionally content with watching my pixelated meanderings and tiny, darting fingers that pinched vulnerable skin, it was often a lot easier to get my video game fix if I chose a game we could play together.

And the only game we had in our library that had truly cooperative gameplay was Bubble Bobble.

In contrast with the “taking turns” multiplayer of Super Mario Bros., Bubble Bobble gave my sister and me the opportunity to play together with a common goal. Of course, we were never really sure about the nature of that goal. Certainly, there were levels, so there was a clear progression. We knew our integers as well as the kids next door, so we knew that 39 was higher and, thus, better than 38. It’s just that there didn’t seem to be a lot of logic to the game itself.

The objective, near as we could understand it, was to maneuver our two colorful little dragons–Bub and Bob, apparently–around the static collection of platforms that composed a level and blow bubbles to capture various enemies. Those enemies were creatures of unidentifiable origins, borne of the contents of a toy shop channeled through the mind of Dali and given life. To our young eyes, they were delightfully colorful and somewhat sinister, particularly when we failed to pop a bubble in time, and the little monster became enraged and red and stalked our poor little dragons like demons from our nightmares.

If we failed to capture and pop all of those monsters after a certain amount of time, then the alarming words “Hurry up!” flashed across the screen and all of the little creatures became angry, and they were only soothed by one of our deaths–at least most of the time. As I said, the logic was never clear. Accompanying this sinister message was a change in the tempo of the usual, soothing Bubble Bobble theme (bum bum bum ba-dum bum bum ba-dum bum bum. . .) to a frantic, accelerated beat. It was a tune that wormed its way into the chest of the player, young or old, and inspired panic. It was almost impossible to cope with a level once it had reached this point of no return. And then the invincible “Skels” emerged, enemies that looked like the skeletons of our own little Bub and Bob. If my sister or I managed to salvage the situation, it always seemed miraculous. And then we were instantly conveyed to the next level with scarcely any time to enjoy our triumph.

We naturally assumed that as soon as we reached the final level and beat the final boss, no matter how many lives we lost, that we would have beaten the game. Except that it was never the “true” ending.

My sister and I played through Bubble Bobble about twenty times. I played through with each of my parents ten times a piece. We never received the “true” ending.

What makes Bubble Bobble truly great as an arcade game, or an arcade game on a home console, is its seeming simplicity combined with its almost absurd difficulty. In addition to the basics I mentioned above, a player needs to collect letters that appear in certain levels based on unknown conditions to receive the code for the “true” ending. And then there were the other tricks a player learned. The dragons could only jump so high, so if a player wanted to get up a stage with limited platforms, he had to us bubble jumping, essentially blowing bubbles and bouncing off them. Later in the game, the monsters get angry and break out of the bubbles so soon after being confined that the player has to master a “bubble kiss” in which he bubbles and then almost immediately hits the bubble to destroy the enemy.

There are few games from the NES that I will still pick up and play with my friends because, for the most part, I’ve mastered all of them. I know how to beat them. I know the shortcuts. I know the secret codes. I know all of the moves because they are well documented. Bubble Bobble is an arcade masterpiece because it is so complicated and difficult that it is worth returning to. I will never be a master of the game, and I will always fear the sound of that accelerated theme music, and I will always appreciate that look of nostalgia that overcomes my face when I start to hear someone hum the theme song.

If you haven’t played it, you should. Don’t bother with any of the ports to the most recent consoles. Find an arcade with the game or dig up your old NES, blow out that cartridge tray, and power on.