Gross

Talking about JRPGs can be weird because people like to over-complicate what the genre's "deal" is. Because there was a time, particularly after the death of adventure games, where JRPGs rose up to almost solely occupy a space as "the games that tell stories" there's a kind of romanticism that comes up when some people talk about the genre. That's understandable but it perhaps overplays the depth of the stories that are told in JRPGs and really in video games generally. Most games stories are pulp and hardly revolutionary. It's okay to admit this. Good, even, to understand that you could have gone to the movies at many points this year and probably watched something with a bit more meat to the bone than whatever video game you were playing at home. That's just the truth and it doesn't make games less beautiful. Still, a lot of people in games (players or developers) struggle when confronting this truth. disclaimer: some motherfuckers don't seem to understand that when you say something like "many games are not telling advanced stories" that's a pretty mild thing to say. and it's also not a value judgement on whether or not games are worth our time. they are. but games are not exceptionally different or more special a medium than any other, I think. yes, many games are beautiful and tell amazing story. but also a lot of games are quick to consume trash. the difference rests in the audience, their anxieties and the craving that many people have for games to somehow be the *most* special or *most* beautiful medium when I don't think art works that way. and I think if we are going to be honest with ourselves and account for our cultural moment, we need to be honest about games. if that bothers you, I don't know what to say and I don't know if I care to take any more time in my writing to assuage your bruised ego. We all agree that games are art but when some of us confront the fact that very often there's often better art found on our bookshelves, it can lead to a paralyzing fear. it's fine though! and life just gets easier once you acknowledge this is often the case and embrace that games cannot simply be a medium that exists by themselves and only judged by their own rules. they exist next to all other works and it's totally okay for us to talk about them in relation to other art but throughout the 2000s, video games have grappled with this fear, experimenting with all kinds of ways to invite praise and seeking a certain kind of respectability. this usually means intimating films many years after they've done something. AAA games in particular often chase after other mediums instead of trying to sharpen *games* themselves. they try very hard to be less like a game. Children of Men pioneers long camera shots and twelve years later, God of War boats about never taking the camera of Kratos. So it goes on and on in ways I'm not gonna really catalogue. indeed, the Sony prestige model is the perfect touchstone for the kind of anxiety I'm talking about. the ongoing quest for "playable cinema" that fails to understand that how oxymoronic of a term that is. and yet we seek it insatiably. This is the snag with Expedition 33 which colors so much of the conversation about the game. For all the craftsmanship and all the ways I see, in the artists who made it, kindred spirits... I cannot help but also see a game gripped by this yearning.

You might think that unfair of me to say but remember that I'm not really talking about Expedition 33 the video game. so if you wanna talk to me about how the story changed you life, I think that's great! I can totally see how that could happen with this cast of characters in a way that maybe it didn't for another RPG. this is a well made piece of work and if it affected you, swept you off your feet, or whatever you are not wrong to have felt that way. though I might caution you to avoid saying something like "there's never been a story like this!" what I am really talking about is Expedition 33 the Rhetorical Object and what i see first and foremost is a game of certain luxuriousness and richness. people have grasped that quality and made it a kind of rallying cry. see? see? even with less budget we can still make One Of These and have it feel suitably AAA. It can hit That Threshold. we can be Like Them. That last part is where I stumble. Yes, this is an "indie" game insofar as it wasn't backed by a major publisher but its sensibilities, the kind of production it is trying to emulate and embody is distinctly that of a high budget, mass market AAA product. and much of the conversation about the game has not really been about the story itself (which is often compelling but also has a back third and conclusions that I think I actually not particularly good) but how a "small indie team" managed to create what was nominally a AAA game. because that's what Expedition 33 is.

i don't think the artists sat down and said "okay, how can we make this look respectable?" but I think it clearly has thoughts about what leads to mass appeal and they just happen to align with the kinds of tenets and discussions I've heard in conference rooms. if you don't think people talk about games in terms of awards, sorry but yes they sometimes do! and remember: games can "do" many thing things at once and art very often does things that the artists and creators may not intend! and players or other public figures (marketing men, YouTube culture warrior types) can absolutely turn games into symbols that the creators did not intend for them to be. games are often two things: a text and a conversation. that's just how this works. so even if the developers of E33 didn't intend for any of this, that doesn't stop it from happening. sorry that just how art works. it does stuff! because Expedition 33 is a game of suitably lush stylisms... though not too lush that we can't also have a bit of photoreal alpha-graphics here and there... whose story is backed up by the performances of many skilled actors, a few of them Hollywood figures, all underscored by a highly *produced* orchestral score. many people (not all of course but in a sane work I wouldn't need to make that disclaimer because of course not all! maybe not you even!) were drawn to this game not because it was an RPG but because it looked so much not like what their mental image of an RPG was. this was "respectable." "I could tell folks about it and they could look up a picture and I wouldn't feel embarrassed." is a kind of sentence that pops up around the game sometimes. because if gamers are one thing, they are often extremely embarrassed by the games they play.

I have been playing Trails of Cold Steel in my spare time during this holiday season and in general I don't think this game, which is far from the best Trails game even, is doing anything much worse or better than Expedition 33. at least not in a sense that makes it inherently less worthy of my time. it's probably gonna piss people off but I think often they are doing similar things. employing similarly journeyman writing approaches. they operate on a same kind of broadness even if they are telling different stories. and in this, I actually commend Expedition 33. for all the anxiety I see in the game's production design, the tone and feel does match other RPGs. but that's the snag isn't it? when you boil it down, Expedition 33 is just another RPG. (something I say with love!) it's not really any more respectable a story than any other in the genre. it's equally broad as anything else within the space and contained in that broadness I think there's a very real kind of humanity to be found but you can find that same humanity here in Cold Steel or Lost Odyssey or many other places. I found great reserves of it within Octopath Traveler 0 recently! RPGs kick ass. it's just a good format and in embracing the genre, Expedition 33 can be inspiring. hell, I think a 7/10 RPG will put any prestige games to shame. the form is just that potent which is to say that Expedition 33 is... a video game! lean in close and you will find it is a similar shape to most other games of this type. compelling, sure! revolutionary? industry changing? I'm not sure. but Trails of Cold Steel looks and feels "of the genre" and engages more blatantly in some tropes whereas Expedition 33 does not always. and even when that games does The RPG Stuff it looks like the Big Boys, carries itself like the Big Boys. and so I cannot help but read, to some extent, the conversation around that game and the resulting awards adulation through anything other than a respectability politics lens. a lot of people turn their noses on JRPGs! I outlined a recently example of this in my Horses blog mentioning how Ian Bogost, a kind of model games academic, often colors his criticisms of video game story telling with Orientalism. Japanese RPGs and their stories, when he mentions them, are inherently less worthy of being considered "serious games." and I think many people feel this way. there's a kind of embarrassment with RPGs (particularly Japanese works) for their broadness and brighter aesthetics, for their tropes and forms. so many... though not all... people coming to Expedition 33, I think, are folks who felt chagrined by RPGs but by virtue of the game's AAA qualities. it felt safe to them. take that with all the implications you can. what made it felt safe? well, it was like a movie. it was more obvious western even though it was working in the same emotional space as the rest of the genre, etc etc..

If you look a certain way, embody certain aesthetic markers of "quality".. people fundamentally treat you differently. this is true not just in life but with art. Last night, as Larian revealed their new Divinity game's trailer (which... hell yeah brother let's go!) I watched a scene of highly detailed gore. Flesh teared, snapped, burned. Lusciously, gorgeously and on the main stage there was a moment where folks at the Game Awards simply watched animated torture. meanwhile, visual novel makers or art game developers have their games banned from storefronts. what gives? I guess they just don't look quite so good anyway y'know? This is the same thing that catches me with Expedition 33. looking a certain way, meeting a certain kind of quality, made it an easy choice for awards but it is also a game that Keighley could not ignore sucking into the machinery of his prestige celebration. it was easy to! the game made it easy by seeking those AAA markers and signifiers. it's undeniably a good game but it also looked the part. and because it looked the part, it's not just an RPG anymore but *the* RPG that's redeeming a genre which is not particularly in need a redemption.

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On Earth, there are a wide variety of unspoken truths that humans, no matter how hard they may try, cannot overcome. We cannot touch fire without being burned. We fall when we enter the air. We cannot travel through time. Of course, we can make approximations. We can develop lighters and harness fire’s elusive heat, build planes and helicopters to soar above the Earth, create art that harkens back to a bygone era. But ultimately, if you pit a human being against Mother Nature, the human isn’t winning. 

Video games, however, allow us to bend or even snap these rules in two entirely. Mario throws fire from his hand as if it were a baseball. Madeline dashes throughout the air in whichever way we wish. Tracer can dip back to moments prior, cleansing all traces of the present she’s leaving behind. The characters within the games we play are beholden to a different set of rules, typically alien from our own, defined by code and data. It’s why games are such an effective method of escapism. Our playable avatars do not struggle with the unstoppable forces we come up against, our problems are trifles to them, and the inevitabilities of their lives are not the same as ours. 

Within Ocarina of Time, though, you play as a character who is, generally speaking, nailed to the same ground as us. Despite living in a world of living rocks, fish people, and fairies, he is utterly human in his vulnerabilities. The rapids of Hyrule’s rivers sweep him away. His lungs are small, forcing his underwater excursions to remain brief. The heat of a volcano beats down upon him, until he is forced to either leave or succumb to its pressure. Despite all his strengths, Link is weak. He cannot defeat the ground he steps upon, or the wind that beats down upon him, or the time that withers his body. In the idealistic world of Hyrule, these are still obstacles to be overcome.

And it is due in large part to this humanity that Link serves as such a strong surrogate for the player. We can see our burdens placed upon him, and watch as he fails to fully bear them. We know this struggle, and we empathize. After all, our inherent flaws are a unifying force; none are born without them, and none grow to surpass them. Link’s similar inability to overcome nature is almost comforting as a result, a reassurance that not all heroes are superhuman. Though his silence is an asset, it is when Link cries out in pain that we see ourselves most in him, and see our world in his. This deep, thorny attachment to Hyrule that Link finds himself developing parallels humanity’s own relationship with our Earth, a constant cycle of trial and error in a hopeless effort to conquer an impenetrable land. This ouroboros of earthly callousness is implicitly understood and well-documented throughout human history, and Link’s submission to the elements around him is steeped in this history, bringing us deeper into his world by acting in lockstep with our own.

***

Of course, Ocarina of Time is a family-friendly game, made in the infancy of 3D technology. In no way could it convey the societal upheaval presented by the earthquakes of Japan, or the fires of Pompeii. But, in the game’s persistent presentation of nature as an insurmountable obstacle, one that only bends and never breaks, the ethos of subservience to a higher natural power is embedded within it. Like all art, Ocarina of Time is a mirror of the world that produced it, and this world is cruel. All one can do is support their own microcosm of it, and protect what lies ahead of them. In line with this, Link exists not as the focal point of Hyrule, but as a small piece of it, beholden to its whims just as everybody else is.

And just as we have been forced to adapt, so too were the citizens of Hyrule. They’ve devised ways to play with the rules of nature, tug at life’s invisible strings. Throughout the game, you can purchase or find tunics. A red tunic protects Link from overbearing heat, allowing him to exist within volcanoes and other high-heat areas without a time limit. A blue one lets him breathe underwater indefinitely. Elsewhere, a pair of Hover Boots can be found, allowing for a brief release from the shackles of gravity. And of course, the game’s central axis, the Ocarina of Time, is another attempt to break free from natural cages. It lets Link warp around the kingdom, summon objects from nowhere, alter the weather, and most importantly, play with time itself. He can change the time of day, but more notably, he himself can skip through time with the Ocarina and the Master Sword. Link gets the unprecedented opportunity to skip past, and return to, his childhood. It’s by far the largest rule-bending in the game, the closest Link gets to cheating nature.

But you’ll notice I never said ‘breaking,’ and this ties back to that initial confusion and sorrow I felt when Link, after saving Hyrule, returned to his childhood. I couldn’t discern a reason for Ocarina of Time to undo all the growing he did, to rip away the time he spent becoming accustomed to the adult body he’d inhabited. Of course, though, this was my misunderstanding. Link hadn’t done any growing. All he had done was contort time to fit his goals, and once those goals were achieved, nature had to take its course. He had to live his childhood. And this says something grander about the nature of these exceptions to the rules of Hyrule. The tunics, the boots, and the ocarina are all powerful tools, but they have caveats. They’re conditional. Temporary. There is no procedure that can heal the wounds that Hyrule doles out, only bandages to cover them up. Even in the final dungeon, Link needs a red tunic to withstand the heat. The hover boots only give him the smallest of windows to be liberated from gravity within until he’s saying hello to Wile E. Coyote on the way down. Link never defeats his obstacles. He merely sidesteps them. And the effects of the Ocarina and the Master Sword, the powerful, mature form Link is given to slay Ganondorf with? Well, they’re on a timer. One less rigid than the tunics, or the boots, but an omnipresent one nonetheless. It’s an hourglass set by the player, with infinite available sand, but only one true conclusion. You can choose to live forever in Ocarina of Time, but the longer you stay there, the more Hyrule suffers under Ganondorf’s iron fist. To play with time as one is given the ability to is unnatural. One could even argue cruel. Not only does it prolong the devastation of a once-idyllic kingdom, but it robs Link of the experience Ocarina of Time embodies so well: Growing up. To dodge nature for so long is unsustainable, and the game knows it.

***

Throughout my exploration of Hyrule, and my coming to terms with Link’s decision, I came to a realization. Despite all that had changed within the kingdom, and all the damage that littered its cities and villages, there was a consistent undercurrent that lay beneath it, carrying its inhabitants through the dark ages that the game chronicles. A persistent culture and artistic language that, through all its hardship, makes Hyrule a place of hope. Whether unconscious or realized, Hyrule is bound to life by its citizens, and the reverence they place upon their home and its history.

For example, the longstanding culture of the Sheikah, one blending traditional defense with more spiritual customs, is one that has protected the royal lineage for decades. When the kingdom is left empty and barren, all that stands between Ganondorf and ultimate power is Sheikah art, their music and the Ocarina standing as a powerful reminder of peace and what stands to be gained by combating Ganondorf. Their legends and creations help spur not only Link, but Zelda, to action, inspiring action within paralyzing moments of fear. In fact, the ultimate impetus for Link’s journey is a story, art passed down verbally until reaching the ears of one who needed it most. As much as Zelda could tell Link that Ganondorf is bad news, when laid against the backdrop of ancient legend and history, that moment means more. Ganondorf is not only bad news, but he is bad news of long-imparted legend, and this is where Ocarina of Time’s dichotomy between environmental domination and individual subservience becomes so important, where the lines become blurred. 

I bring all this up not to dive into the lore of Hyrule, interesting as I’m sure it is. No, I bring it up because the game’s most fundamental motif, its exploration of music as a driving and essential force within Link’s adventure, speaks to that relationship between humanity and Earth, the divide we can’t seem to shift. By the end of Hyrule’s life, there will be little left, but what will remain is song, poetry, and art. This is Ocarina of Time’s gambit. It shows us this natural trauma, forces us to grapple with our shaky foundations, in order to demonstrate the one way human ideas can live on, long past the death of their progenitors: Creation. Ocarina of Time is filled with creations, both small and large, objects and ideas that lend Hyrule a sense of permanence that is otherwise so thoroughly called into question by Ganondorf’s devastation. After seven long years of turmoil, Skull Kids still perform their music. Goron City's walls are still plastered with paintings. Epona still recognizes the songs of her youth. The Ocarina’s tunes live on, if not in Link’s memory, then in the world he played them into. Despite all the hardship of a life in seemingly constant competition with a harsh world, there is a cold comfort in knowing that somehow, you may live on, the memories and culture you steeped yourself within leaving a mark on the world in your own art, just as the art of Hyrule will persist long after Link has gone. It is the one victory that Hyrulians, and we as humans, have over the passage of the days. 

What left me truly charmed by this revelation, this understanding that Ocarina of Time’s Hyrule is one not of dominant conquest but of subtler creation, was that life had once again imitated art as it is often wont to. It’s been over 25 years since Ocarina of Time was released. Many more Zelda games have been released since then, and many more have built upon its ideas. But despite this, the rivers of time have not washed Ocarina of Time away, nor have they even eroded it. It stands just as strongly today as it did back in 1998, and throughout my time with it, I could hardly believe that it was as old as it was, with hardly an edge dulled. It gives me a strange sense of comfort, of peace. I could go my whole life without touching Ocarina of Time, and its legacy would go unharmed. Within the game exists this microcosm of the minds that birthed it, the fear of the unknown, the unquenchable thirst for adventure, the appreciation for worlds long gone with little but their creations to be remembered by. It’s playable history. 

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