Patrick Redding of Far Cry 2 says it better than I could.

"What we need to understand is that, for example, if we want to break through the "fun" barrier -- this idea that somehow, dogmatically, we are obliged to make the player always feel like they're having stronger and stronger or more positive rewards for their actions -- I think we need to understand that that means we're talking about introducing mechanics that are not based on positive rewards. That's literally what that means.

And so, if I make a first-person shooter, and I want it to be less about fun and more about meaning, then that means I need to make sure there are mechanics in there, fundamental core mechanics of the game, that aren't just about that reward structure, about giving points to the player for hitting targets or giving some kind of boost to the player for obtaining a particular gun.

There need to be systems in place that offer not punishment but offer kind of ambiguous results that are still valid outcomes for the player, that he can still survive the experience and think about, that don't make him just immediately reload his last saved game"

-- Gamasutra Interview - 1/30/09

A caveat.

I said that I hated JRPGS. That's still mostly true.

But, strangely enough, I seem to have stumbled onto two of them that I kind of like.

Suikoden, Konami's old-school PSX military epic, while almost suffocatingly dry in its presentation - it has none of the bells and whistles you'd see in a Square RPG - has a surprisingly engrossing story and a battle system that I don't hate. I'm only a few hours in. We'll see how this goes.

More importantly... I managed to get my hands on Panzer Dragoon Saga, Sega's magnum opus for the Saturn. I am in love with this game. The story, art direction, battle system, exploration, music, everything. It's fantastic. Part of the allure is probably the fact that I love hidden gems like this, games that that, unfortunately, slipped under the radar for whatever reason like or System Shock or The Last Express. It's probably the same effect that makes people like bands more when they're unknown and 'indie'. Even so, the game is undeniably an incredible piece of work.

I'm sure I'll end up writing a full review that only two people will read at some point.

Review: Xenogears - and pretty much every other JRPG along with it.

I should get this out of the way right off the bat. I hate Japanese RPGS. I have started many and finished only two. Ever. (Final Fantasy VII and Xenogears)

Hate's a strong word, I know. But JRPGS just rub me the wrong way. They have so much potential for epic storytelling and a level of detail on par with a great novel - and they flush it away with cookie cutter narratives that mistake length for scope and complexity for depth. Their gameplay mechanics are firmly stuck in the late 80s - random battles and turn-based, arbitrary combat rules. Playing a JRPG in 2009 is the same as it was in 1999 and mostly the same as 1989, just with a fresh coat of paint... and better voice acting.

That's not to say they are without merit. That's too much of a generalization. There are brilliant and beautiful moments in JRPGs. Watching Aeris water flowers in the church in Midgar. Dancing with Rinoa at the ball. The memory sequences in Lost Odyssey. These send chills down my spine. The good kind. Why, then, must they be surrounded by so much crap? The measure of my enjoyment of a JRPG is not how much I like it, but rather how much I don't hate it.

Pictured: Character Development!

Which brings me to Xenogears, a game that tries to compensate for not being part of Square's flagship franchise by being more of everything than any Final Fantasy game. To many, it is the epitome of epic storytelling in the medium. To me, it is an almost total failure. But it is a fascinating and educational failure.

I have a rule. Any game that starts with the spunky young teenage protagonist's idyllic Thomas Kinkade painting of a village being attacked by bandits and/or burned to the ground by the evil empire... I stop. I just put it down. I mean, this isn't a hard and fast rule, but it has ended many an RPG for me early on. Perhaps I've missed some classic moments because of this rule. More likely it has saved me from countless ill-advised plot twists, from innumerable fetch quests to retrieve the four elemental crystals.

Xenogears narrowly made it past this rule because the spunky teenage protagonist's idylly Thomas Kinkade painting of a village is burned to the ground... by his own hands. It's an interesting twist that seems to consciously play on our expectations of the genre. I dug it. I was intrigued. And the game rewarded me by dragging on for 40 hours before getting to the point, and by the time it got there, realized that it was in a hurry and tripped over itself.

The amount of filler in the game is staggering. After a very Evangelion-esque intro cutscene and the intriguing twist on the typical RPG opening, the game proceeds to drag you from one place to another, doing things you don't know the significance of and don't care about. Within the first fifteen hours there are not one, but two gladiatorial tournaments that you must fight your way through, neither of which have any bearing on the story. There are several maze sequences, including one in a goddamn sewer. Every once in a while it drops a tantalizing hint of the gloriously overwrought sci-fi smorgasboard to come. Just enough to string you along through the bullshit. Just barely enough.

Finally, at around the 40-hour mark, the game gets good. The plot twists, while somewhat predictable, are well-done, and the science-ficiton is remarkably well-integrated into the plot. Then, at about the 43-hour mark, the game falls apart again. The team ran into budgetary problems and had no choice but to condense what was likely another 40 hours of plot and gameplay into about 5, which means that huge stretches of plot are covered in two screens of pure text. This is unforgivable when there are 5-hour periods where nothing of any importance happens earlier in the game. I trudged through the first 40 hours of the game waiting to get to the good stuff. I trudged through the last 10 hours of the game waiting for the game to just be over.

The game strikes me as a victim of being a vanity project for the top designers. They were so certain that their story was so brilliant and epic that it could not be trimmed to a reasonable length, much the same way that the authors of 11-book fantasy novel series (with each book being roughly 800 pages) refuse to acknowledge that most of their content is pointless and a waste of time. And so the designers of Xenogears trudged along, whipping up fighting and card mini-games, meticulously drawing out scenes of "character development" which have little cause and even less effect in the long run, and throwing in every name they could point to in the Old Testament, all of which is secondary to the main plot. Then they were forced to squeeze in the meat of the story in, subverting any power the plot might have held or any sense it might have made.

Pictured: A crucified ROBOT. I'm not kidding.

So is it all bad? No. As far as RPG battle systems go, I hated Xenogears' deathblow system less than most. Also, the game makes good use of an archaic and primitive graphics engine, utilizing well-drawn sprites and detailed textures. There is some fantastic and fascinating imagery in the game as well, though nothing that wasn't ripped off of Neon Genesis Evangelion. In fact, just go watch Evangelion. It has a better story, better action, and better random, pointless uses of Judeo-Christian names and imagery.

Strangely enough, I kind of miss it. But I guess that's the case with anything you spend 52 hours with.

BOTTOM LINE: Play this game if you have 50 hours to spare and nothing else to do. Or you're 14 and think that it's really deep to have a boss named 'Deus'. Or you're immune to the bloating, frustration, and stupidity inherent in JRPG design.

Things I'd like to see.

I want to see games move beyond space marines and teabagging. Beyond spiky-haired teenagers saving the world from imminent destruction. Beyond stock stories with a gimmick stapled on to separate itself from the pack.

I want to see games that innovate and aren't punished for it. Which means I want to see reviewers and gamers that look at games on their own terms, instead of incessantly comparing them to a Platonic 'Form' of Genre X.

I want to see the media outside of the gaming world stop looking down on the medium simply because it hasn't yet reached its potential.

I want to see the avenues for independent and experimental games expand to the point where it is reasonable to make a living off of small downloadable titles.

And though I can hardly speak for all, or even most, gamers here... I want to see the day when games can be engrossing and rewarding without having to constantly be 'fun'. I'm fully aware of how pretentious that sounds. But where would we be if every movie had to be a Schwarzenegger action-flick or every novel like Harry Potter? Don't get me wrong. I love both. If the game industry were the music industry, everyone would be churning out dance-club songs (and remixes thereof), without anyone making symphonies. Or hell, even rock operas.

Okay, maybe Metal Gear Solid's a rock opera.