By Lashaar
Old timers like me remember the days of Dragon Warrior. Sometimes,
much better than we remember the days of Parasite Eve or Xenogears. At
the age of 23, I have noticed something remarkable with me and my RPGs:
I literally grew up with them. I found that, as I matured, so did my
favorite gaming genre. I actually consider console RPGs to be about the
same age as I am.
When I was about 12, I remembered playing Dragon Warrior for the first
time and hated it. But later, I picked it up again on the advice of a
more RPG oriented friend and loved it. Back then, I was just a boy,
naive to the world, and hopelessly simple. So too, was Dragon Warrior.
Rescue the princess, save the world. It doesn't get much simpler than
that! It wasn't anything a boy of 12 can't understand.
But as I grew, so did my games. FF came when I was about 13, FF2 about
14, and during my latter years of high school, I played what some
consider the best FF ever. FF3.
FF2 came when my understanding of the world grew, and I was able to
handle more mature subjects. I remember the many sacrifices of the
characters (Cid, Palom, Parom, Yang, Edward) to be extraordinary. I was
old enough to know what it means to die. But FF3 came at just the right
time. It dealt with identity, righteousness, hope, and love, something
a lonely highschool boy like me desperatly needed insight into.
In a way, RPGs are my teachers. They show me, (and I do mean ME,
because I AM the main characters in the RPGs) the power of love. Final
Fantasies have always been about love, and the love within. They taught
me to be just and good. It sounds so cliche, and stupid, but it's
true. You have to be nice in early RPGs, and maybe that's why I turned
out following those same rules: serve justice, right the wrong, and
never lose hope. On a lighter note, RPGs must have taught me something
about tolerating repetition (3586664859 exp points and counting).
Now, in the era of Xenogears (the best plot of any RPG to date) and
FF7, RPGs are finally growing into an adult world. Somehow, I feel the
two of us being very close, holding each other's hand, as we both grow
and mature into seperate entities. Nowadays, I do not consider myself
the main character of an RPG anymore. I consider each and every game my
companion. Maybe it's time to say good bye to RPGs. It's been fun, and
a swell time, and I've learned alot from it but we must all move on.
Yeah right.
I'll be playing till the day I die.
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