Creating Your Own Story and KOTOR

I know we've talked in length about how every time you play a video game, you're creating a new story. That not only is each play through unique, but your actions tell the primary story, while the plot the game provides is like the backbone or path to follow. I was reading about this idea again this weekend and it reminded me of my experience the first, and only time, I played KOTOR (for those of you not in the know, "Knights of the Old Republic.")

KOTOR is a Star Wars game that's set well before any of the movies. It also has a fairly complicated leveling system, multitudes of side quests and overall, the choice between good and evil. There are many aspects throughout the game that promotes multiple gaming adventures. You can create a new and different character every time, you don't even have to be a jedi if you don't want to. Why you wouldn't is beyond me, but the option is there. There are nine side characters that you can choose from to fight beside you throughout the game, but not all of them are on the main path of the story, you have to go looking for them. In fact, there was one, I don't remember her name, but she was a dark jedi and my test was to bring her back to the light side. Ultimately I failed and had to kill her. If I would have succeeded, she would have joined me, but instead, she left a silhouettes and a big question mark in the box her character profile should have been in. All of this brings me to my main point, Bastila.

She hates you at first but is assigned to be your guide by the jedi council. Later the two of you fall in love. Toward the end of the game, she is led to the dark side and you have to fight her. Now, after you defeat her, there's a bunch of options of things you can say which leads to more options and so on. The easy thing to do, is to just kill her, but if you choose the right responses, you can eventually lure her back to the side of the good. Now, try as I might, I couldn't convincer her to come back to me. I pleaded with her again and again but I couldn't find the right responses. I accepted the love story given to me so much, that I wasn't about to let it end. I needed my character to be reunited with his love and her soul to be soothed. Her reactions to my responses weren't mean, they were just bitter and filled with despair. She had given up on life and saw no other course for herself and now beaten, thought that she deserved death. It was heart breaking. I had two choices. I could start again from my last save point, which was hours ago and through some very, very difficult encounters and fight Bastila again (I was ambushed by the original fight, I had no idea it would happen) or I could kill her. I tried so hard to win her back. I fought for the love of the characters and the goodness in them, but for some reason, I could not find the right words to say, so I was forced to kill her. There was no victory celebration after that series of events.

I thought that I could take my depression and turn it into rage against the main villain Darth Malek, reason being that he made her into a dark jedi and tricked her. He's the real one that destroyed her, but ultimately that brought no respite. Even after I killed him and saved the galaxy, I felt nothing. It was a Pyhrric victory. Everyone was celebrating and I even got the "good" ending, but it wasn't worth it because to me I had lost.

I know this sounds like I'm over dramatizing things, but I was seriously crushed at the end of this game because to me, this was the story I experienced. I even told this to my friends down the hall who thought it odd I couldn't save Bastila, they apparently had no trouble, and joked that I just couldn't save dark jedi. I tried replaying the game multiple times through incredibly different paths, but it's not worth it. I never get very far. I had my original story and nothing comes close to it. Even if I were to make a new character and do it all over again and save her, what would be the point? She's not a just a nonthinking NPC. She was an avatar for something else. My initial interactions with her gently shaped her character and told the A.I. which storyline path to "place" her on and my mind filled in the rest.

I've never had another experience like this. There are plenty of games that have stuck with me and I love their stories, but KOTOR is different. Somehow, it was more than a game to me. It transcended and got to me in a way that I think would make the developers proud.

Video Game Music

Remember a few weeks ago when we had the discussion in class about video game music? We talked about listening to it out of context. Well, I shared that because of my love of Final Fantasy VII, I have the three disc soundtrack on my iPod, but don't listen to it that often. I was going through my music the other day and I discovered that I have another album on there, I don't remember where I got it or how it got there, but it's classical versions of many of the Final Fantasy VII songs. Listening to them not only filled me with nostalgia, but also with the desire for the Advent Children (the movie sequel) soundtrack because it possess many of these same songs but they're redone (yet again) to sound "harder" i.e. guitars and rock band. So I don't remember my initial stance on the people who listen to video game music without needing the game, but I'm officially one of them now (if not before) because I absolutely love these songs. I've spent the last few days listening to their various versions.

This makes me philosophical because these songs are ably to evoke a pretty good emotional response from me. Every time I hear "Aeris' Theme," I still get choked up. I get sad over the loss of this fictional character (for those of you who don't know, she dies about a third of the way through the game, but it's so unexpected and well done, it's one of the greatest moments in video game history). And when I hear "One Winged Angel," my heart beats a little bit faster and my breathing increases, as if expecting a fight (this is the song at the end of the game, when the main bad guy, Sephiroth, is unleashed and about to destroy the world). So with the general sense of nostalgia aside, I started thinking about why these songs get to me so much. Is it because those moments were done so well that they really have a way of making the gamer care? Or is it that, because I love this game so much, I've built it up in my head so much, that I've given them power?

I think it's probably a combination of both. I think the game developers did a great job with story and characterization, so that when these moments do come up in the game, they really stay with the gamer because you're really connected with the characters and have so much invested in them. Maybe that's commentary on the effectiveness of the original songs. With that said, I think that remembering my initial experiences has caused me to build up these emotions in my head. I've actually sort of removed myself from the real experience and I dwell on this one I've constructed. In a way, I've made myself care about what happens so that when I hear these songs, I'm almost not reacting to them anymore, it's more like they're the switch that starts the memory in my head. It's a little abstract and I'm not sure I've worded it in a way that makes complete sense, but I think you get the general picture.

The same thing can be said for all music I think. We link it with certain memories and emotions so that when heard again, it's supposed to trigger these things in us. It's the reality bending nature of music, but that's another post. I never expected a classical version of old midi file fight music make me so philosophical.