Character Development and a Captivating Storyline OR Stunning Graphics?

Above: Final Fantasy IX (2000) by Squaresoft. Below: Final Fantasy XIII (2010) by SquareEnix.

One of the main influences of my art style comes from the Final Fantasy video games of the late 1990s and early 2000s. I remembered being mesmerized by the full orchestrated score by Nobuo Uematsu, I loved going on adventures and living vicariously through the characters and the storylines and subplots were layered and engaging.

I have fulfilled a decades long goal last week and purchased Final Fantasy I, II, IV, V, VI, VII, VII, VIII, and IX for the original Playstation. After one hour of game play, I realized how much I missed the Final Fantasy games from two decades ago. Granted, when I see the graphics from the Final Fantasy games I used to play when I was twelve, I wonder if my eyes just glazed over the rough edges or if I had a better imagination when I was younger and smoothed out the characters' designs. Regardless, I believe the lack of emphasis on high definition graphics allotted more time to focus on the plot.

I have tried to play through FFX and FFXIII, and each time I am in awe of the amazing graphics and I roll my eyes at the annoyingly revealing clothes of some of the characters (cough*Vanille*cough). Another thing that bothers me is the grotesque high definition images of monsters. My least favorite part of the more recent Final Fantasy games are the voice actors because I enjoyed making up voices in my head and the conversations were mostly in text bubbles, like in comics!

Is it even necessary for modern video games to strive for graphics that resemble the CGI/FMV cutscenes from the early games? Would a video game with an original story, well-rounded characters, and reduced image quality be more enjoyable to play than a game with a lame exposition, one-dimensional characters, and stellar graphics?


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