Excessive

I've been sitting down and playing Star Ocean: The Last Hope, and I wanted to write about it, as I've felt almost on the brink of giving up games.

The Last Hope

Alright, so calling this game my Last Hope is a stretch, as I knew going into it that I probably wasn't going to think it was that great. This was based on about the ten minutes I played when first bought the game, Star Ocean: The Last Hope for the Xbox 360. It was a few years ago, I put the game in, was presented with the opening scene... terrible voice acting, terrible characters, I think I turned it off without even getting to the first save point.

Some History

It's been about a year since I played a game that wasn't on the PC. I think the last time I played a game was Final Fantasy X, which was March 2014 (so about a year ago). The process of finding a house, moving, getting set up, it really put me off of playing console games. I haven't really been able to settle on an exact reason as to why I didn't have any kind of urge to play, but playing Blizzard PC games has held me over until a few days ago.

Hearthstone, following by the release of a World of Warcraft expansion (WoD) had kept me busy. Shortly after, I got into the Heroes of the Storm beta, and that kept me entertained. Recently however, I've been getting more and more frustrated with the two games I've continued to play, Hearthstone and Heroes of the Storm (I've recently cancelled my WoW subscription due to lack of interest in current content). Hearthstone and Heroes of the Storm are both competitive games, something that historically I've avoided, at least when it comes to a one on one context. For example, back when I played StarCraft and StarCraft 2, I would never, ever play 1v1 ladder, because the pressure, and the feelings I got when losing, embarrasement or frustration, was so overwhelming that it overshadowed any kind of high I got from winning. I would play 2v2 with Ben only, as a combination of things made it quite a different experience. For one, our win ratio was something like 10:1, so when we did lose, it happened so infrequently that we could explain it away, or at least the responsibilty of losing can be spread over both of us, so there is less pressure and responsibility.

Hearthstone is a killer for this: with it's matchmaking system, you are essentially matched up with someone of equal skill at all times, and naturally your win rate will be about 50%. That means you lose half of the time you are playing the game. I like Hearthstone a lot, but the feelings I get when I lose (which happens half the god damn time) far outweigh the feelings I get when I finally win a game. It leads me to quitting the game in frustration, not having a very good experience.

Heroes of the Storm is a slightly different experience. It's got a similar matchmaking system, so you do lose about 50% of the time, however it's a team game, a 5 versus 5 game, so even though you lose half the time, the games are 25 minutes long, the experience of playing the game, even when losing, is always different and interesting, and when you do eventually lose, you have a lot of other things you can blame besides yourself, so you don't get the same crushing frustration and embarrassment when you fail as the only player. The frustration from this competitive game comes from something much more poisonous. It's the players.

The only way I can play Heroes of the Storm is if I mute all of my own team mates as soon as I get into the game. You see, if you don't do this, even if you are winning the game, your team will not hesitate to call you a "fuckin g idiot" or something similar; tell you to uninstall the game because you are so bad you shouldn't even have a computer, or tell you to kill yourself. These are your own team members, you can't even talk to the other team. This has really taken my enjoyment out of the game, and I barely want to play anymore.

So these are my experiences playing the two competitive games that I've been playing lately; my experiences playing the only two games I've been playing for quite a while. This lead me to really question what in the fuck I was doing. It made me ask a question that I don't think I've ever really asked myself, but made me stop and think.

Why Do I Play Games?

It's something I've done since I was five years old. I got a Nintendo with Super Mario Bros/Duck Hunt when I first moved to London when I was five years old. Since that very day, playing games has been a large part of my life. From those early days, to going to Ben's and trading games, renting games, experiencing new games, to young adulthood when I got my first job and used the majority of my pay to buy new games, new consoles, strategy guides, to my adult hood, where I was buying significantly more games than I could realisticly play or complete.

It's always just been an unquestionable thing, a part of me, but now that I've reached a point in life where free time is a resource that is dwindling and fleeting and hard to find, prioritizing things takes... priority. Given my schedule, I have roughly two hours of free time per weekday. Dinner until around 7pm, and generally television with the Wife at 9pm, so from 7pm to 9pm, I can do whatever I want. Lately I've been playing Heroes of the Storm and Hearthstone, but generally I end up feeling pissed off, frustrated and not having fun.

So why do I play games? It's not to get mad, or frustrated, or to feel bad at a game, and lately it's all I've felt.

I think I play games to feel good at games. Yeah, that may seem obvious, maybe it's more than that. I think I play games, to figure out the system, to conquer it and dominate. For example, when I was a kid, one of my favorite games was Dragon Warrior 4, and what I would do in that game, was figure out around what level your character needed to be to have a decent time in a dungeon, and then over-level to the point where I would dominate. I would spend whatever time neccessary to purchase all of the very best items available. Whatever time investment was required, I would do it, as it felt like an investment in fun. It may not have been the most fun during that specific process (ie. building up), but the result was so satisfying that it was always worth it.

Maybe it's a sense of completion, a sense of accomplishment as well. Like in Super Mario 64, a lot of the fun came from finding every single star, even though it's not required to get to the end of the game. In the Legend of Zelda, I'd always find all the heart pieces, not because I had to, but because it felt right to complete as much of the game as possible.

Both of those examples lead to the same thing, dominating over the system. Finding all of the stars or powerups makes you stronger or opens more of the game. I think that's why I play games. The satisfaction of time investment equals domination, it's a nice payoff. To further prove that this is why I enjoy games, games where they screw with that formula often fall flat to me, or even go so far as to be a turn off. Games with a time limit for example, remove that feature, and mess with the ability for me to find satisfation. Also, if a game limits your power at any given point, generally mess with the fun (specifically role playing games).

So I was sitting around, questioning if I even like games anymore. It made me think of this, to think of why I like games. I figured, maybe I should sit down on the couch, and play an RPG, something that used to be a source of unimaginable relaxation and satisfaction. That is how I reached the point of hooking up my 360, finding Star Ocean: The Last Hope, and sitting down to play a console game for the first time in this new house, and for the first time in a year.

Star Ocean

My history with Star Ocean is from playing (and completing) the 2004 Star Ocean: Till The End of Time for the PS2. I loved the game, I thought it was one of the best RPG's for the PS2. Purchasing Star Ocean: The Last Hope was a no brainer for me, because of that history. I picked it up on some boxing day when it was cheap, but never got around to playing it (besides a quick start at one point and being very turned off by the terrible anime style and horrid voice-work).

Star Ocean: The Last Hope

There is good and bad. I might as well start with the bad cause I mean, it's pretty bad. Overall, the game probably wouldn't be declared as "bad". The anime style is laughable, the voice work is worse than if they had just replaced everyones voice with a horse neighing, and the camera control in the game is so touchy and useless, that it's almost impossible to walk a path with any kind of precision.

If you can look passed all of you know, the visuals, and the audio, and the camera, the game does have a somewhat satisfying battle system, and it's sci-fi story is refreshing in a genre filled with high fantasy. Although the story has good intentions, it's ruined by the terrible writing, and terrible voice work, which literally makes me feel embarrased to hear it.

Overall, its a terrible game, but I'm finding comfort in only the battle system, and it's enough to keep me playing. I find it satisfying enough to win battles, get stronger, and win more battles, and I won't think too much beyond that.

I'm hoping that this game leads me back into console gaming, and I already feel like it's getting me interested in more games, as I'm already planning on what I may play next, I've started remaking my Excessive Gaming website, and I've been looking at the price of new consoles.

Relaxing is nice.

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