Video Game Analysis

 

What makes an ideal video game? There are essentially 3 factors that make an ideal video game. These three factors are Characters, Story, and Plot. Each factor must play and equally strong role throughout the game to keep the gamer involed and make him/her want to continue playing. If one of these factors begin to pull more weight than another that is when you have disappointments, and that is the last thing a video game publisher wants is disappointed customers. For example many people highly anticipated the sequal to Chrono Trigger that was Chrono Cross, but after playing the game for a while I found myself caring less and less about the characters in the game which led to an overall disappointing experience. Final Fantasy 7 was in a word "perfect". All three of these factors were kept in focus when designing the game.

The first factor is Charcters. A game can be made or broken by its characters. This is especially true when you talk about the main character. The main characrer should be someone the user can relate to or understand. If this is accomplished you have already gotten the user to feel some sort of emotion for that character and one of the three factors have been achieved immediately. Supporting cast are just as important though because no game is complete without supporting characters. These characters are not as impactful on the user as the main character but, if they are overlooked by the publisher can cause disappointment in the users experience. The villain, antagonist, is also just as important as the main character. If there is no connection/conflict between the main character and the villain then he is not really a villain. A villain must be exactly that a villain. For example in Final Fantasy 7 the villain is Sephiroth, he ruthless and will slay anyone who stands between him and his believes of reviving Jenova.

The second key factor in creating an ideal video game is Story. A good game has a story told within it, a great game has a story that is effected by choices the user makes during the game. This is why Final Fantasy 7 is a classic. Not only did it have an amazing cast of characters but it had an amazing storyline as well. People who played the game recieved different view points of the story depending on choices they made during the game when prompted to make a selection. This allows for more control over of the game than the actual game controlling you. All great stories have a protagonist and an antagonist who face off many times but have an ultimate battle at the end spawning a victor. Great Stories also have great supporting cast who are sometimes harmed by the antagonist to provoke the protagonist to act. This type of action is used in Final Fantasy 7 but I will not give any spoilers away.

The third and final key factor in creating an ideal video game is plot. A plot sets the gamer up to expect something then totally changes what was expected to the unexpected. Final Fantasy 7 had a great deal of plot twist in it. I personally loved these plot twist, it made me want to continue playing the game to find out what would happen next. Plot can be described as the link between action events to move the story forward. A story is incomplete without a plot, so you can say these 2 factors go hand in hand. These three factors combine to make an ideal video game but, have to be equally balanaced throughout the game or the game will be a disappointment to fans.