Final Fantasy Tactics Advance Review / A Short Treatise On "Video Gaming Escapism"

"A lot of us are addicted to something that makes the pain go away"

No, I won't be talking about religion or even drugs. I will be talking about something else, I'm gonna talk about 'fiction', or to be more precise, I'm gonna talk about gaming.

Life can be very stressful, and the human mind can only take so much. At the end of the day, there are times when we wish we were another person, living a different life.

And a lot of games offer that kind of possibility. And I mean BIG TIME. And it became a problem too. Some people choose to play games all day long, rather than facing reality.

And that's where this game : Final Fantasy Tactics Advance (FFTA) comes in.

I started playing FFTA years ago, but haven't got time to finish it until 2012. I was in another town at the time, far from friends and family for a (arguably dead-end) project. And although I did made some friends there, I do wish I was back home with my family.

Before we begin, this is a mandatory "SPOILER ALERT" warning. I will write about the events in the games. If you are thinking of playing this game, please stop right here, and experience this game the way it's meant to be : to be played.

Let's begin.


The Characters

FFTA story revolves around 4 kids, with their own problems :

Marche : The protagonist of the game. You're playing as him (you can put your own name) in the series. He just recently moved into town (St. Ivalice) and having trouble making friends. Marche has a brother named Doned, who is bound to a wheelchair, and not very healthy.

Mewt : The antagonist for most of the game. In real life, he is bullied, his mother already died, and his dad is broke. In the fictional world, he's a prince, his mother is still alive (and a queen!), and his dad is awesome.

Doned : Marche's brother. In real life, he's bound to a wheelchair, but in the fictional world, he's able to walk. He has a love and hate relationship with Marche. One of the most saddening moments in the game is when they resolved their feelings for one another.


Ritz: She's a tough chick that mostly stays independent in the game, although you get to work together with her for several missions. Though she looks and acts normal, Ritz hide her physical flaws, to avoid being bullied.

The Story

The story began with the usual naming of your character. I leave the default name Marche, because from my experience, using your own name in Japanese RPGs can get too emotional.

After that, a short tutorial, using a snowball fight between 3 kids, against other kids (the bullies). When the kids are asked to choose their side for the snowball fight, the other kids bullied Mewt (mocking him as "weak"). Marche get teamed with Mewt because he's a new kid, and Ritz choose to stand up with Mewt.

The bullies also mocked Ritz, and from their mocking, we know that Ritz's hair is dyed red.

During the snowball fight, the bullies targeted Mewt, and the snowball fight was cut short when Mewt got hit by a snowball that contains a rock (leaving a mark on his forehead). After the snowball fight, Mewt ask Marche to accompany him to buy a book, which Marche declines (and that's how we were introduced to Doned) :

Mewt:  So, Marche.  What are you doing after this?

Marche:  Huh?  Why?

Mewt:  I was going to go buy this book... and I was wondering if you wanted to
       come along?

Marche:  Sorry, I can't.  My little brother's getting out of the hospital
         today.

Ritz:  Hospital?  Was he sick?

Marche:  No, it's something he was born with.  We have to take him to the
         hospital every now and then.

After that the kids walked home together and the saw a man getting berated by several men. It turn out that the man is Mewt's father, and we received some information that Mewt's mom has died, and his father became miserable afterwards.

After Marche leaves to enter his house, we were shown a brief dialogue between Ritz and Mewt, during which we heard about Marche's parents.

Ritz:  Mewt, how much do you know about Marche?  
Mewt:  Huh?
Ritz:  I guess your family has had its problems, too...  But I heard that 
       Marche doesn't have a dad...
Mewt:  ....

Note : Some other dialogues late in the game points out that Marche's dad is still alive, he's just no longer with them. Either this is a inconsistency in the game, or it's just because Ritz and Mewt didn't know better.

After that the scene shifted to Marche's house. Mewt had bought the book, and the four kids (Doned joins them), tries to read the book. Apparently the book contains some incantations that they recite, and after that they talk about the game final fantasy, and they say goodbye to one another.

And that finishes my introduction of the characters. As we all know, each of these 4 kids face problems that are "common" in real life. Problem that understandably affects their outlook on life, and how they wish to live different lives.

After that the game showed the same scenes from the intro, but the world changed!

In Marche and Doned's room, Doned starts to glow and disappears. Marche starts to float and warped somewhere else, where he wakes up into the strange world.

I could continue on and on about the mechanics of the game. But that's not what I'm gonna do. Let's just say the game was fun. But I will focus my writing on these kids progress.

In these new world (The land of Ivalice), Marche made a new friend (a moogle named MontBlanc), and they made a clan together. Their clan takes missions given in the pub (guild style), and during those missions, Marche slowly uncovers about this new world.

Apparently this new world is based on the final fantasy (game) world, mixed with Mewt's desires.

In this world, Mewt is a prince, His Mother is still alive (the queen Remedi) and his father (Cid) is the highest ranking judge there.

In this world, Ritz natural hair color is red. She doesn't have to dye it anymore. 

In this world, Doned could walk!

In this world, Marche is a clan leader, a very successful one, where he wins tournaments. His clan is strong and undefeated.

And none of Marche's friends wants to go back to "real" life.

Doned expresses his envy towards Marche

Mewt as a Prince.

Ritz also doesn't want to go back.

Even Marche doubts himself, although as the story dictates, he realizes that to continue living in this fictional world is unhealthy.

And by chance, Marche started trying to find ways to get back to the real world, and because of it, he clashed with his friends, especially Mewt.

This game did quite a good job at tackling these 4 kids issues. Each of them got their own resolve. Each of them have to come to terms with themselves, which I will randomly put here :

• This is the part where Mewt argues with Marche, and in this part we find out about Marche's envy to his brother Doned.

• This is the part where Marche faces Doned, and admits his envy to all the attention Doned gets.

Soon after that, Doned finally agrees on Marche's attempt to get back to the real world, although that means Doned will be back on a wheelchair. (I consider this part really sad)

• This is the part where Ritz reasons why she liked it better in the fantasy world, and how sad she is that everytime her mother have to dyed her hair, her mother cries.

Ritz:  Why the sudden concern, Shara?

Shara:  If what he says is true, his family is in the other world.  And so is
        yours, Ritz.  You don't want to see them or your friends again?

Ritz:  I do, but, here I've got something that I don't want to lose.  It's...
       my hair.  This normal, non-white, hair.

[Ritz feels her hair, as if making sure it's real.]

Shara:  Hair...?  Non-white...?  What do you mean?

Ritz:  In the other world, in reality, my hair is pure white.  I was born that
       way.  I had to dye it every morning...

Shara:  ....

Ritz:  Before I learned how, my mom would do it for me.  And that... I couldn't
       stand it.

Shara:  ?

Ritz:  She was always so sad... She looked like she would cry every time she
       took out the dye.

[Ritz kneels over.]

Shara:  Ritz...

Ritz:  I'd rather be called "whitey-locks" then see her face... What did she
       have to cry about?  Her hair was normal!

[Ritz stands up.]

Ritz:  I was the one that should have been crying, not her!  I can find family
       and friends here.  But I'd never be able to change things in that world.
       I'm sure that's how Mewt feels, too.

• This is the part where Ritz finally accepts that her time in the fictional world is no more. Of course the writers made a good resolution here. Her friends made sure that Ritz is no longer ashamed of her white hair.

Ritz:  What's OK?

Shara:  I mean, going back.  I thought you still weren't sure.

Ritz:  I'm not sure.  Maybe I never will be.  I certainly don't want to lose
       this hair...

Shara:  Is white hair really so bad?

Ritz:  Of course it is!

Shara:  But my hair's white.  Did you think worse of me because of it?

Ritz:  Shara, no... I think all vieras have beautiful hair.  But it's different
       for me.  I'm a human.

Shara:  Then you are well-loved by the spirits of the viera!  White hair is the
        most beautiful gift of the spirits.

Ritz:  White hair is... beautiful?

Shara:  No mere human could receive this gift, Ritz.  Only you.  You were
        chosen.  You are special.

Ritz:  Well, it's tough being special.

Shara:  You'll be fine, Ritz.  You're tough.  I should know.  And if you laugh,
        your mother will not be sad.  I think it was you being sad that made
        her sad.

Ritz:  Shara...

Shara:  I would like to see your true hair.  I would!  I think it must be as
        beautiful as new-fallen snow.

Ritz:  ... Thank you, Shara.  I think I can go home now.

- And this is the part where Mewt finally accepts that her mother is dead (damn, that sounds so harsh!). But yeah, things happened that beyond your control. And if you're just a kid like him, you gonna have a hard time.

Conclusion 

I'm really glad there was a game like this, that in the form of a game, can be inspiring to kids that deal with issues of their own. The game characters issues represent "common problem" that could happens to children (the loss of a loved one, bullied because of physical appearance, favoritism, etc).

I dare to imagine some kid who is on the verge of despair, bought (or given) this game. Unsuspecting at first, because he just thinks "hey, it's final fantasy". But after playing this game, he thinks "Hey, this is me. These kids have the same problem that I'm dealing with right now". And that kid probably get a new lease of hope.

For the closing of this article, this is Marche making a hard decision of getting back to the real world.

And I think he speaks for all of us. Sometimes we separate ourselves into two separate personalities, "the real me" and "the fictional me". But in the end, it's actually "just me"...

The End.


* Special thanks to GROMABgladius who provided the complete script that I used in the article above. You can find his/her work here.