Final Fantasy Made Me a Bad Boyfriend
Videogames aren't always the best place to find relationship advice.
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Videogames aren't always the best place to find relationship advice.
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Final Fantasy Made Me a Bad Boyfriend
- Thread starter Stew Shearer
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Great article, and I recognise a lot of myself in it. Sadly, this isn't an issue thats prevelant in just games. Nowadays it seems that in most media grand gestures are encouraged and there's rarely a content and happy couple.
I will admit when I first saw the title, I flashed back to an incident when I was chatting to a girl just after FF XII came out and I was trying to explain why, 2 days after its release, her boyfriend was more interested in playing that then spending time with her.
I will admit when I first saw the title, I flashed back to an incident when I was chatting to a girl just after FF XII came out and I was trying to explain why, 2 days after its release, her boyfriend was more interested in playing that then spending time with her.
Excellent article.
In general I just find myself incapable of enjoying 'romance' in most media. Movies are the worst. Unless they are a couple who already had a pre-existing relationship (such as the leads in Carlito's Way) it always resonates as extremely fake with me. "Love at first sight" falls as flat to me as the notion of "all success is the product of hard work".
In general I just find myself incapable of enjoying 'romance' in most media. Movies are the worst. Unless they are a couple who already had a pre-existing relationship (such as the leads in Carlito's Way) it always resonates as extremely fake with me. "Love at first sight" falls as flat to me as the notion of "all success is the product of hard work".
Ah, I suddenly pine for those early days of romance...
My first touch with it came during Wing Commander 2 when Blair (My Character) makes out with Angel (His Commanding Officer). For those days when a few pixels and tinny sound effects could transport you to heaven...
Still, WC2 was an awesome game!
My first touch with it came during Wing Commander 2 when Blair (My Character) makes out with Angel (His Commanding Officer). For those days when a few pixels and tinny sound effects could transport you to heaven...
Still, WC2 was an awesome game!
What an awesome and gorgeous article.
Strangely enough Final Fantasy 8 had the opposite effect on me in that it showed me what I was doing wrong. I saw myself in Squall and then thought 'WOW what an ass.' I started to appreciate it when my friends tried to cheer me up and tried to flirt with guys and get out more.
I love it when guys make grand gestures (because I'm a romantic ;p) but at the end of the day It's all about being able to put up with each others bullshit, like Nathan Drake and Elena.
Strangely enough Final Fantasy 8 had the opposite effect on me in that it showed me what I was doing wrong. I saw myself in Squall and then thought 'WOW what an ass.' I started to appreciate it when my friends tried to cheer me up and tried to flirt with guys and get out more.
I love it when guys make grand gestures (because I'm a romantic ;p) but at the end of the day It's all about being able to put up with each others bullshit, like Nathan Drake and Elena.
To the author, playing FF doesn't make you a bad boyfriend, it makes you a bad person *drum rimshot*.
Heh heh, I kid, I kid. Anyways, I always did like love stories like the one presented in FF8 when I was growing up as well...mostly because, like you, I had many unrequited crushes that I just felt utterly unworthy of. Closest I ever got to telling one of my young love crushes my feelings was at a church youth group camp one summer...and the girl in question was already going out with someone...something that I was fully aware of.
As such since I seemed to be afraid of actual love stories I'd lose myself in the love stories that others had created...it was fun to think that one could act like a cold hearted hard-ass and still have the girl fawning over him.
Buuuuuuut then I grew up a bit, matured a bit, and started seeing Squall as the psychotic emo that he was. I mean that scene in Galbadia Garden (think that's what it was, it's the place where you pick up the Cerberus GF) when they're all in that waiting room and Squall just starts thinking to himself about a bunch of crap, working himself up more and more until he finally breaks the silence in the room by screaming: "YOU'RE NOT GONNA THINK OF ME IN THE PAST TENSE!!!" before running out the door and leaving everyone standing there like "......what...the fuck...was that?"
Heh heh, I kid, I kid. Anyways, I always did like love stories like the one presented in FF8 when I was growing up as well...mostly because, like you, I had many unrequited crushes that I just felt utterly unworthy of. Closest I ever got to telling one of my young love crushes my feelings was at a church youth group camp one summer...and the girl in question was already going out with someone...something that I was fully aware of.
As such since I seemed to be afraid of actual love stories I'd lose myself in the love stories that others had created...it was fun to think that one could act like a cold hearted hard-ass and still have the girl fawning over him.
Buuuuuuut then I grew up a bit, matured a bit, and started seeing Squall as the psychotic emo that he was. I mean that scene in Galbadia Garden (think that's what it was, it's the place where you pick up the Cerberus GF) when they're all in that waiting room and Squall just starts thinking to himself about a bunch of crap, working himself up more and more until he finally breaks the silence in the room by screaming: "YOU'RE NOT GONNA THINK OF ME IN THE PAST TENSE!!!" before running out the door and leaving everyone standing there like "......what...the fuck...was that?"
Squall is a really, really unlikable character. Why they based Lightning on him (and Cloud) for Final Fantasy 13 I'll never know. It's like basing a character on Jar Jar Binks.RJ 17 said:
As a romantic, I totally get where the author is coming from. The first time I went out with a girl, I kept making grand gestures (dropped $400 on a Lady Gaga concert of all things) trying to win her back when I could tell from the start she still loved her previous boyfriend because I actually believed that would work. With my current girlfriend, I've come to the same conclusion that it's all about the small stuff, with the occasional big thing when you get the time is right, and I'm all the better for it.
Great read
Great read
Why would you say that? WHY?KaosuHamoni said:
In all seriousness I had to watch that movie ten times in a month for a children's literacy course I was working on.
I hate that guy.
That was really great ... I need to stop waiting for the fireworks and birds singing on my shoulder.
Well, of course you shouldn't take relationship advice from a video game. Just like you shouldn't take relationship advice from a movie. Most movies suffer from the same things video games do. An unlikable man(or at least, unlikable to the woman) does absolutely nothing to gain the interest of a woman, then does some grand gesture to woo her, she falls head over heels, and they live happily ever after. It's hard to cram a believable relationship into a few hours of dialog. Books do it better, but still fall to the "Look How Much I Love You!!!" trope of grand gestures a lot of the time. In other words, taking relationship advice from your entertainment is bad.
I really want to disagree. But the first part is why I like those shitty books so much. It always ends perfectly or seems to do it anyway.
Also master of the puppets ? I fear for your soul
Those give everything away.
Also master of the puppets ? I fear for your soul
Nah you need to watch for an exclamation mark floating above the headThe Dutchess said:
Those give everything away.
I actually disagree with this article a bit (although I enjoyed reading it). While games like FF VIII don't accurately represent a relationship, they do represent how many of us feel when we are trying to get a girl during our teenage years. So I would say the article has cause and effect the wrong way round. FF VIII mirrored his emotional state at the time rather than forming it. Then he grew up and his views changed.
If FF VIII had been totally realistic you wouldn't resonate with it at the time. What is FF VIII's role? To provide you with a textbook as to how to live life, or to draw you into a fantasy world by resonating with your view of the world (or of how the world should be - you know where you can get the girl without actually having the courage to ask her out).
Anyway the article also totally missed the point. Squall didn't find love due to how he behaved, Squall had a GUNBLADE. That is a SWORD that is ALSO A GUN. *That* is how you get girls. Chicks don't really dig all that relationship stuff - cool weapons are where it's at.
If FF VIII had been totally realistic you wouldn't resonate with it at the time. What is FF VIII's role? To provide you with a textbook as to how to live life, or to draw you into a fantasy world by resonating with your view of the world (or of how the world should be - you know where you can get the girl without actually having the courage to ask her out).
Anyway the article also totally missed the point. Squall didn't find love due to how he behaved, Squall had a GUNBLADE. That is a SWORD that is ALSO A GUN. *That* is how you get girls. Chicks don't really dig all that relationship stuff - cool weapons are where it's at.
