Peanut Gallery

I guess I should jump in here some time as this is a joint project, though lately my brain has been filled abstract nonsense and other video games rather than Final Fantasy XIII.

So, who am I? I'm Cam's avid, RPG lovin' significant Other! Or person of significance in Cam's life. Note how I don't say "other half"? Yeah, I'm a whole person. A single unit. And this is my opinion.

A Respite

So, these last few posts have really been a bit of an autobiographical indulgence in how my sense of the RPG changed as I grew up. This story has basically been a series of meandering anecdotes about Chrono Trigger, where I wrote a great deal about a game that isn't FFXIII.

I threw the "autobiography" tag on because, really, I don't feel like I can talk about video games, especially RPGs, without examining how I come to games as a person. Video games are interactive, and RPGs especially require you as a player to put something of yourself into the game, to a varying degree, obviously. Even critics can't avoid themselves in their writing, and I'm not even trying to do criticism per se. I want to log play experience, to write about what playing FFXIII is like. That's probably pretentious.

Taste is autobiographical, so my sense of game is about me, so how I relate to FFXIII is all about me in the end. I'm not a biography blogger, but when I started this blog, I permitted myself the autobiography tag because I thought it was an important way to describe the experience of the project. Really, I'm not planning to come out with a thesis, I'm just hoping to beat the fucking game.

And that's really the hiccup now isn't it?

My (Last) First Time

If I had any sense of self reflexivity, I'd have known when I first started this autobiographical anecdote that it lacked a climax. While I think this finale disappoints on its own, it also disappoints even more so due to its concluding place in the narrative arc of these episodic blog posts.

Chrono Trigger circles and occasionally intersects with my personal history with video games, and functions as a fixed point to my shifting sense of taste. Indeed, Chrono Trigger has become one of my favourite games, not of its own accord but because it has had a pseudo-continual place in my life, if only as the game that continually confounded me but waited patiently for me to come to a place where I could finally appreciate it.

What Chrono Trigger is, is a fantastic game, that I am remarkably bad at. Even as we resume the story, things don't go as simply as they should.

My First Time (Part 3)

This title has become a little worn, this being for all intents and purpose the third first time I've posted about, but we are at least approaching the end.

So, to this point I've discussed, first, my purchase of Chrono Trigger and my failure to appreciate the RPG genre, or even understand how to adapt inside its rules, to adopt a strategy to defeat a difficult enemy; and second discussed the unfortunate occasion I sold my somewhat valuable Chrono Trigger cartridge from my childhood. Whatever may be may be, I guess. This post will deal with how I came to want to play Chrono Trigger again, and actually regret selling it for more than just the value of the cartridge.

My First Time (Part 2)

So, as I said in Part 1, I reached a certain point in Chrono Trigger where, as a child, I was too unfamiliar with RPGs (and apparently problem solving) to be able to progress. And as I've done many time since then, I gave up and decided it wasn't my fault at all. "Fucking RPGs. I'm going to go rent Final Fight 3."

Now, I have actually finished Chrono Trigger, but I never finished it on that particular cartridge, because, you see, it was stolen from me by some shyster.

Hmm, is that word racist? I better look that up.

My First Time (Part 1)

A story I've told many times now that I'm older/wiser/more bitter is my history with Chrono Trigger. It was likely the first JRPG I ever played, maybe even the first RPG I ever played, but, like most stories about your first time, it is a bittersweet story of mistakes and cluelessness.