2019 Resolution #2

I want to play more video games!

I tend to get obsessed with one game and play it for hundreds of hours. For most of 2017 and 2018, that game was Breath of the Wild, and it’s currently Final Fantasy XII: The Zodiac Age. Since there are only so many hours in the day and only so many days in the year, this means that I don’t play many new games, which is exacerbated by the fact that I really enjoy replaying older games.

This year I’d like to set time aside to play games I’m interested in but don’t play because I feel like I’ve already exceeded my quota of fun by staying up until two in the morning filling in rows of a character’s license grid (or collecting Koroks or, you know, whatever). I also have an irrational compulsion to finish games even if they stop being fun, which means I’m unlikely to pick up a new game unless it’s a #1 Top Tier Indie Classic That Requires No Time Commitment. I’d like to get past this and try new things!

I’m limited by the fact that I refuse to play games on Steam, but I still have a short list of games I’d like to try now that they’re starting to be released on the Nintendo Switch, like Superbrothers: Sword and Sworcery and Kentucky Route Zero. During the past year the University of Minnesota Press started putting out fantastic and inexpensive paperback monographs on games and gaming culture that have veered away from the pretentious “Videogames As One Word™: I Am A Straight White Man” genre that currently characterizes the majority of academic writing on games and have instead focused more on broader strands of literary and Media Studies criticism. Aubrey Anable’s Playing with Feelings is a good example of the sort of interesting work that’s coming out in the series, and reading books like this makes me want to sit down and play every single game under discussion. Saying that scholarship has made me want to play games is peak nerd, and I am ashamed of myself, but still.

Video games! Let’s play them in 2019!!

This Is a Balthier Appreciation Post

I used to ship Fran and Balthier (thanks in no small part to razimo on DeviantArt), but I’ve recently found that I appreciate the canonical ambiguity surrounding their relationship. There’s nothing to suggest that they aren’t in a romantic relationship, but I think it’s implied that they’re nothing more and nothing less than what they say they are – good friends and partners who work well together. I tend to think that well-written friendships are underrated, especially in adventure stories, and I don’t feel that an established friendship is any less compelling or dynamic than a romance.

(And I don’t mean this in a “Fang and Vanille are just friends” way, because that sort of thing is ignorant and mean.)

When it comes to Balthier and Fran specifically, though, I get the feeling the age gap might be a little too wide for anything more than a casual romance. One of the things I appreciate about Balthier’s characterization is that it’s nuanced enough to subtly clue the player in to how young he is. The Final Fantasy series is notorious for nonsensical cult-of-youth shenanigans like “Auron is impossibly old at 35” and “Gladio, who really does look 35, is actually 23,” but Balthier genuinely acts like he’s 22 and pretending to be older. He’s obviously brilliant and mature for his age, but there are small things that give him away, such as how he consistently loses his composure and snaps at people when he’s under stress. (My personal favorite instance of this is when he does a kabedon to Larsa in the Lhusu Mines, by the way.) If you compare Balthier to Fran and Basch, his immaturity is even more apparent. This doesn’t mean I dislike Balthier, because I like him a whole lot, but I don’t think Fran would enter into a romantic relationship with him until he’s more of an adult.

Also, I get strong “gay and lesbian solidarity” vibes from their relationship. I know this interpretation is a stretch, but it makes some of the more out-of-place lines of dialogue in the game, such as Balthier’s “No one knows men like Fran,” seem less weird and more like friendly banter.