A Beginning and an Ending. (september 2006)
Nearing the close of university things began piling up.
Upon graduating, I cleaned the page. Deleted all work from my hard drive, destroyed paintings, drawings and hid diaries away.
I was just to take photographs from now.
Photographs of the sky.
As it was the photographs were never just sky. There was always a blurred obstruction in the foreground, obscuring the view.
A pylon or tree. Telegraph pole or distant hill.
As the amount of photographs built up the sky became harder to look at.
There was just too much in the way.
I was also playing Resident Evil at this time.
Events during the first few hours of that game made me think a lot.
So much that i never progressed-in game terms-past them.
I didn't progress past them emotionally either.
I would begin to think about the wider world the mansion was situated in.
What was happening outside. if this an isolated event.
I couldn’t play much longer through thinking these things over.
In the room under the stairs along with a welcome typewriter and a petrol canister was a written note from a fleeing survivor.
This, along with the comforting ambient coda signifying safety, meant I didn't want to leave .
The words ‘to those of you who still have the will to live...’
It is where my save file ends Jill /07/ Mans. E.Stairs.
I think of her as safe there.
It is a comforting thought, like re-reading a book passage, though I don't think I can go back.
I also finished Final Fantasy VII recently. Having meant to since I borrowed it from a friend a couple of years after its release--the same copy I recently completed.
I wasn’t right for it then.
I played for fifteen minutes and did not understand.
I am quite glad of this. It would have taken from me the experience I had.
As I said, I was not right for it then.
I did not know why the battles had to be turn-based, I did not know why the backdrops looked so elegant and the character models looked so rough, I did not know a thing of the six preceding games, I did not know that they were entirely different stories in different universes but with subtle similarities and I did not understand why the game came on three discs.
A year or so ago I watched as my older brother travelled the game. Every night for a long while. Tho I wasn't witness to him finishing it the constant melody of -highwind takes to the skies- as the game was in its closing chapter, holds sort of a special significance.
The part with weapon at Junon particularly held my attention.
It reminds me of the section in Katsuhiro Otomo’s Memories, the whole city and all its residents existing purely to fire huge weapons at unknown enemies.
When we were younger games were played like this all the time.
He as the oldest used to finish the games as we watched.
I imagine it was the same sort of thing a hundred years ago.
The youngest would bait the hook and the eldest would catch the fish.
Now he would play and we would get to read through guides in Super Play.
Anyway, this felt a lot like that. Watching him now felt a lot like watching him then.
It was something that had been lost.
and although its gone again now, it was nice to have that play as a reminder.
Final Fantasy VII even then felt a little alien to me, even though I now knew of its significance. How important it was.
I had finished Link to the Past, Ocarina of Time, Shenmue and Tales of Symphonia--all important games to me--but i still didn't feel qualified to play it.
It was only after having played Dragon Quest VIII for nearly thirty hours I felt an urge, I felt ready.
So I played it. And I finished it. And it affected me.
That night I went to sleep listening to the soundtrack playing through my dreams. I thought for a long time about what the game had told me, what it was all about.
There were moments that I will remember.
Not just Aeris’ death but the battle directly afterwards against a Jenova form as her melancholy theme replaces the regular up-tempo battle music, reminding you just how important it is that you are playing and what you are fighting for.
Clouds subsequent Mako sickness, the fracturing of his psyche along with his loss of self-control echoed as we leave him wheel-chair bound and have to take control of relatively unfamiliar characters to continue the story.
It reminded me a lot of Haruki Murakamis ‘Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World’, they share a lot in common, sense of belonging, loss,the ideas of split consciousness and the true nature of self. All themes are common to both.
Along with the constant war of technology and the individuals place in society.
In parallel I also started that book a few years ago and finished it only recently.
I felt good remembering the world. And it was a world I would miss.
Now I am back playing Dragon Quest, 37 hours in.
I think it may take me a couple of months to see it to the end; I play only at night, a few hours before I go to bed.
It is one of only a few games as I look back that I have played for the pure benefit of being in that world.
The truth is I do not even really think of finishing it.
It is relaxing and dreamlike and makes me feel tired sometimes.
For an rpg it really is quite soothing. Mostly while playing them I feel quite tense; fearing I haven't levelled-up enough, but Dragon Quest is different.
Even though the most unassuming enemy can destroy your party seemingly at will.
It feels nice to go for a long walk through the forest.
Read a sign seemingly written by a contrary slime
warning that you mustn’t go any further,
and keep walking...
