I don’t want to be the chosen one. I don’t want to get the girl. I don’t want to make kingdoms rise and fall on my whim. I don’t want to dictate who lives and dies. Most of all, I don’t want to save the world.
I want small moments instead; they mean more to me. Getting stood up at dinner. Figuring out how to deal with a student who’s the victim of bullying. Deciding whether or not you're going to use the swingset or toss a ball with your son. Perhaps, even, dealing with the death of a parent. Hey, that’s a real game! Well, actually, all of these are. But, we’ll get to this specific game — Winter Voices — a bit later, after I explain my rationale a bit.
Basically, I don’t want games that are all about wish fulfillment, escapism, and power fantasies (as writer Leigh Alexander and a few others have put it). Frankly, I’m tired of it. I want something new, something that challenges the entitlement we experience as players — the power that comes with god-like control. Perhaps then, choice and morality would actually have meaning, instead of being just another thing you have authority over. Perhaps then, relationships with other characters would feel more genuine — NPCs wouldn't be simple pawns that we manipulate as we see fit. Perhaps then, I’d be put in my place — and this could be a valuable experience.
I think back on that now as I’m playing through Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Survivor. Day three rolls around and an immortal demon called Beldr arrives and is slated to kill us all at a predetermined time and place. Of course, we happen to find the one item that will slay the supposedly immortal being (this is not really a spoiler, considering the game takes place over seven days, and so it would follow that you do not die on the third day). My party rejoiced, only to find out about the three or four other beings like Beldr, each crazier and more powerful (than an immortal being?), and we have to take them out if we want to survive.
No problem…right?
Not that I resent the game for throwing such a premise at me — most games position themselves around the idea of going against impossible odds — but, there’s this underlying uneasiness about it all. Three days in and we’re slaying mythological, all-powerful immortal beings? It’s the same feeling I get when games try to mitigate all the super cool awesome powers they give you by throwing a million enemies in your path (Fable 3, Dragon Age 2, I’m looking at you). Am I supposed to feel empowered by all this? Because most of the time, I feel emptiness instead.
After all, I’m just playing the badass of the group of badasses that do badass things — again. How is this sort of power supposed to feel thrilling when it's the norm? Yes, within the context of the game, it might make sense: In The Witcher, say, it’s your job to kill mythological creatures. And, ultimately, the game has to show that you’ve progressed and gained power somehow, right? But what does power mean to us, as players, when it’s a given in almost every title we play?
It’s with this mindset that I read about criticisms of DA2′s lack of “epic scope” (saving the world, being a part of the elite grey wardens, etc.) with a tinge of annoyance. Really? That’s a fault now? Why? It’s one thing to criticize the aimlessness of the game — I can see that, although I don't agree. Being a daughter of an immigrant family in the U.S., I know that going to a faraway, unknown land with the purpose of “making it” is every bit as amorphous as presented in the game, even though, yes, DA2 stops being about that fairly quickly. Shame! Like the folks over at Rock, Paper, Shotgun, I would have liked to play that game.
Games shouldn’t all have to be about saving the day, or saving the world. I don’t understand why that is a marker of validation, why that is a necessity for players to feel that a game is worth their time. Games can be about smaller, more intimate things. You don’t have to wrap something like achievement in a grand scope; you don’t have to make players literal gods to engage them. One of the most interesting games in the last few years has to be Winter Voices — the premise is to get over your father’s death. That’s it. You’re not stopping some crazy impending doom. You’re not the descendant of a mythological god. You’re not killing death itself. You’re just…choosing how to best deal with the passing of a loved one.
Sounds like some fancy art game, right? Actually, Winter Voices has the underpinnings of a typical tactical RPG — XP, battles, and all. Your "class" is the type of person that you are and reflects how you deal with obstacles such as grief — do you make light of it? Do memories haunt you; eat you alive? There’s a class for those, respectively. Your skills — humor, will power, memory, perspicacity, charisma, and intuition — determine what kind of 'build' you follow. While these act as traditional HP/SP/etc. frameworks, they also have a higher metaphorical significance — again, you’re defining what type of person you are. You've even got a skill tree: "emptiness" halves your HP and buffs absorption; "imaginary friend" is a summon; "consolation" allows you to gain energy.
Now, I’m a typically a huge perfectionist when it comes to character builds. That’s actually the reason I can’t play Fallout: New Vegas anymore, even though the new DLC is pretty damn good — my character is so terrifyingly strong that it’s no longer any fun. Winter Voices, however, snapped me out of that habit. For one thing, there’s no optimal way to go about playing the game. Hell, you can be counter-productive and still get the point — that is, explore ways in which one may deal with grief. Do I want to go all emotional and harness my emptiness and cynicism? That’s possible. Do I want to hold my head up high and not let anything get to me? I can do that, too. That's roleplaying.
The game goes further than that, though. Battles themselves are manifestations of memories, which makes more sense than the million random bandits that attack you in Tales of Vesperia, for example. You might be taking a walk somewhere in Winter Voices and something small will trigger a powerful memory. Suddenly you find yourself trying to hold on, to persevere despite an onslaught of metaphorical pain. That wording is key, too — holding on or persevering, I mean — because often you simply have to escape or survive, not necessarily defeat anything. To add another metaphorical layer to the mix, a higher memory stat translates into increasingly difficult battles. This seems particularly apt: The more intelligent and self-aware your character is, the more painful memories might become. You're particularly harsh on yourself; you over analyze things; you rationalize everything. Memories can eat you alive.
It’s certainly not the best game. I won’t say that. But it’s interesting, and you don’t have to save the world to enjoy it. Besides, you can always do that in just about every other game….
Patricia Hernandez is the 'editor' of Nightmare Mode, the game blog where she tends to house her crazy ramblimgs.