Final Fantasy X - More Lulu, No Wakka

I recently finished Final Fantasy X HD Remaster; my first time playing the game in Japanese, first time with the International Version, and my third time finishing it in total.  As I made my way, I began to realize that Lulu really doesn't end up doing much relevant to the main story.  She certainly has a role to play, but I'm not convinced that it's integral to the plot in any meaningful way.

Simultaneous to this realization, I began to resent Wakka for the way he is a bit more relevant to the plot, but in ways that other characters could have done.  By the end, I had to conclude that if Wakka were dropped from the party, and if Lulu took over his role in the narrative, FFX might be a better game (and no, that doesn't mean Lulu should play blitzball.  There's more than enough blitzball in here as it is).

To explain why I think we should drop Wakka and give his role to Lulu, let's first look at some words that describe Wakka.

1. Blitzball player
2. Guardian
3. Chappu's brother
4. Religious
5. Racist

How do these points work together to create a unique and important character?  Tidus is a blitzball player, too, so point one is at the very least redundant.  Plus, the real importance of blitzball is to provide a clear example of how Tidus feels ignored by and inferior to his father.  When Wakka's blitzball playing intersects with the story at the big tournament, it's part of a self-contained drama in which he gives it his all in just one last match before giving it up to be a full-time guardian.

Points to Square for adding some weight to what is ultimately a mini-game, but I don't think Wakka needs to be a member of the party for any of this to work.  He could be the NPC coach of the NPC team who has to quit for any number of other reasons.  Maybe he's getting too old to go on coaching a team that loses every tournament, and wants to hand the team over to the younger generation.  That would at least echo one of the main themes of the game: letting the past go, breaking a destructive cycle, and moving forward.  As it is, I don't think the tournament does much more than give Wakka a fine send off from his team and introduce the mini-game.

Moving on in the list, given that everyone in the party other than Yuna is a guardian, I have to count point two as redundant, as well.  Worse, Yuna is even chastised by another summoner for having so many guardians.  So not only is Wakka unnecessary, but his presence strains the accepted protocol for a summoner's journey. 

From a player's perspective, seven characters is more than enough for a game that only allows three in battle at a time; six would suffice.  And his special ranged attack being strong against flying enemies could be given to someone else while, as a bonus, whomever got that trait would surely carry a weapon more reasonable than a blitzball.

Point three, at last, is actually unique to Wakka, and even has some significance in the story.  Wakka lost his brother Chappu to Sin and Tidus looks a lot like Chappu did, which is part of what causes Wakka to help Tidus when he first arrives in Spira.  Later, Wakka hatched a theory that Tidus' trip from Zanarkand to Spira via Sin might mean that Chappu might be alive, having likewise been transported somewhere and might be able to come back.

Story wise, this is all good stuff.  It gives someone an excuse to help Tidus (rather than put him to work as did the Al Bhed), and it underlines the incomplete understanding the people of Spira have regarding Sin and what he does.  Unfortunately for Wakka, Lulu also has her own unique and strong connection to Chappu, and could have just as easily been the person in Besaid to try to help Tidus.  In fact, this could have been a good way to get Lulu involved more directly with the events of the game.  As it is, she's often relegated to being the scold who has to remind Wakka that Chappu is gone and Tidus isn't going to somehow change that. 

Looking at point four, this is true of several people in the party to some extent, given that their quest is at its very core a religious pilgrimage, ending in a showdown between good and evil.  Wakka takes his piety to a bit of an extreme, though, often being the first and loudest person to insist on what is and is not part of Yu Yevon's teachings.

Once again, I don't understand why this role isn't given to Lulu.  She's the older-sister to Yuna, she's the black mage to Yuna's white, and she's been on a few failed pilgrimages already.  She's the perfect one to be constantly lecturing Yuna on all the ways the teachings are being ignored and how they'll end in disaster.  She's already scolding Wakka about Chappu, she could surely direct some of that to Yuna.

Finally, Wakka is a racist.  To break the pattern here: I'm not sure there's any reason to hand this aspect over to Lulu.  He hates the Al Bhed, but it's mainly for their flagrant disregard for the teachings, which loops back to his religious fanaticism.  There's a way to hate the sin without hating the sinner, as it were, to come at this topic with righteous indignation, but not the outright hatred of a people group.  This would still be something Lulu could struggle with, just like Wakka as he tries to reconcile the fact that Rikku seems like an ok person, even though she's an Al Bhed.

For me, that struggle is the most interesting part about Wakka.  He represents the voice of the conservative people of Spira.  Even though we have plenty of opportunities to talk to the actual conservative people of Spira, without someone like Wakka in the party, it might be too easy to write them off as ignorant fools without worrying too much about whether or not they change, or if it's even worth the effort for them to change.

Having someone like Wakka in the party also lets us bring that conservative voice directly to the people they respect, and we can see how someone we understand as a character reacts in those situations.  Without someone like Wakka, I don't know that the late stages of the game have the same impact.  Yes, Yuna and the rest are suitably baffled and upset, but I see Wakka as being hit the hardest, because of how earnestly, almost desperately committed he is.

And that would be a great character trait to give Lulu.  They all would be (again, except for the blitzball part).  She is such a cool character in other ways, it just strikes me as a conspicuous waste to not give her more to do related to the plot.  Especially when Wakka, a preposterous goof, gets so much more to do than her.  There's no need to eliminate Wakka entirely, just make him an NPC and let Lulu take over for him.

ガデュリン aka Gadyurin aka Gdleen

The SNES / Super Famicom library is full of great games, and more than a few great JRPGs.  When I discovered Gdleen, a JRPG I had never heard of, that had never been released outside of Japan, and also happened to be the very first JRPG for the Super Famicom, I jumped on it.  Even if it didn't turn out to be a secret classic, I had hoped that it would at least be an interesting time capsule of sorts.  Maybe it would try out some crazy ideas that never caught on, or even prove to be the game that invented something that did catch on.  And if none of that turned out to be true, perhaps it would at the very least tell a unique story of some kind.

Focusing first on the story (an adaptation of a series of light novels), I do think Gdleen is a small success.  It opens with Ryu, a space traveler who crash lands on a spacecraft-looking artificial planet called Gdleen.  Ryu's main goal is to get back to Earth, but he is quickly wrapped up in a quest to unravel the ancient origins of Gdleen, its creators, and perhaps even his own connection with them.

Despite the numerous sci-fi elements to the story, they mostly function as a wrapper around what is actually a fantasy setting.  The inhabitants of Gdleen are all monsters and fairies and magic-using humanoids, different from the space-faring Ryu who begins the game with a laser gun and a helmet that translates for him.  The people he meets aren't primitives -- they have a vague understanding of his technology and about the place where they live -- but their history has been mixed with mythology to the point that they believe Gdleen to have been made by gods, and that their tribal feuds can be traced to the gods as well.

Fana reads from the book of history while nude, in accordance with otaku preferences

Promising stuff, in my opinion, but given that this is a ‘90s JRPG, the majority of Gdleen's story is communicated via dialog with NPCs in small chunks, separated by a fair amount of walking and more than a few random battles.  Again, this is completely normal for JRPGs of this era, but I’m afraid Gdleen falls apart when it comes to creating an engaging game world that can support its narrative one.

The battle system is the prime offender here.  It was apparently designed to be more complex than useful, offering three different ways to flee a battle, a set of options to convince enemies to join your party, and a large number of spells to choose from.  Unfortunately, the enemies that join you leave as soon as the battle is over, most of the spells are essentially useless, and I’m not sure I ever really needed to perfect my fleeing strategy.  In other words, these aren’t much more than gimmicks as implemented in this game.  Normal attacks work as well as anything else most of the time, and the useful spells are sufficiently useful.

But even ignoring the gimmicky fluff, the battles remain a problem because they end up taking far longer than is necessary, due to the amount of time needed to dispatch enemies.  It is not uncommon for a turn to pass in which both sides have either dodged, missed, or blocked all attacks, accomplishing nothing.  To offset this somewhat, critical hits, while rare, do an inordinate amount of damage: usually enough to kill any enemy or ally in one blow.  There are also continuous attacks, in which a combatant lands one hit, and then continues to hit again and again, often until the target is dead. 

Under this system, the flow of battle generally consists of a bunch of people and monsters missing each other or chipping away at their health, while occasionally being killed instantly.  I found a typical battle would last 3-5 minutes, while it couldn’t have taken even half of that time if hits connected more often.  As it is, every battle becomes simultaneously mundane and terrifying, as not much happens moment to moment, but you might suddenly lose a party member without warning, or be wiped out entirely.

Gdleen presents a terror planet of Tyrannosaurs with kinda long arms and boring battles

And because these battles are so long and tedious, I found the actual navigating of the world to be frustrating as well.  Progress in this game is made along a fairly straightforward path from one place to the next, with the expectation that the player will always be moving forward towards the next goal.  Because there is only ever one thing to do next, it struck me as silly to need to wander around a little path trying to find a door to enter, or an unremarkable bit of ground to walk over to trigger an event.  All this while being interrupted frequently by those overly long battles.

In these regards, I don't think Gdleen fares very well against its peers.  It has the distinction of being first on the SFC, but I don't see how it could compete against the better JRPGs on the Famicom or elsewhere.  I do like the story it tells, but I’m not sure this is the best way to experience it.  In addition to the light novels this game is based on, there's an OVA that does similar work, and without the frustrations I’ve described.  As a time capsule, I suppose it’s a fine example of what was going on in the periphery of JRPGs at the time, being a sort of half step between Phantasy Star and Star Ocean, with an attempt to mix in a weakened version Megami Tensei’s monster recruiting.  Even so, when the JRPG canon is compiled, I think this one can be left out.