The first post I made on Child of Light was pretty positive. Sure there
were some minor grumbles round the middle. But I mostly said nice things and
good feelings were had by all. I prostrated myself before the screenshots on my
monitor, hailing such praise for the visuals that you’d think I’d started a new
religion. The compliments I gave the music were so enthusiastically
comprehensive that in certain countries the soundtrack and I are now legally
married. I’m pretty sure every member of the audience got a free dirt bike.
That was then, and this, assuming my rudimentary understanding of time and
written tense is correct, is now. Things will go a little differently this
time, but I hold up last post as a shield against accusations that I am that
most reviled of animals: the “hater”. Like a used nose ring in a bowl of
cheerios, the bad must be revealed so it can be avoided in the future. I’m not
trying to shoot the messenger or deride the culinary merits of cheerios, it’s
just the nature of criticism. You know what they say: If you love something,
sometimes you just have to kick it in the dick. That’s what they say, right?
Pretty sure it is. If it isn’t then I’m beginning to suspect my parents were
full of shit.
Fair-eh Tale
Back in my article on the story of Final Fantasy 6, I claimed
that characters starting out as stereotypes is a perfectly acceptable way to
spin a narrative. So long as they build upon that base with nuance and
character development, it can even be beneficial. Starting with broad-stroke
archetypes means the audience can immediately understand them and become
invested. This is important to note, because people often grade characters or
setting on how much they deviate from the norm. They say that a character is
“just another X”, and that is the beginning and the end of their critique. It
can’t possibly be interesting because it’s unoriginal, and somehow a counter of
clichés is the only objective way to judge emotional investment. The reason
it’s important I defend these things is because Child of Light has characters
that start as broad stereotypes, Child of Light has a setting/plot rife with
clichés, and, on a completely separate note, Child of Light has a story that
isn’t very good.
Despite having absolutely gorgeous art and music, the writing in Child of
Light is passable at best. Now obviously there are far worse video game stories
out there. But this isn’t a race to the bottom of the barrel, and it’s far more
frustrating to see a world-class athlete hemorrhage a sportsball inches from
the score chasm than your dumb neighbor Billy. I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have gone
with the sports metaphor. Here, lemme try again: It really gets my gander when
the zone goalie red cards his face into a defensive half time pile up before
properly allocating his strike gems into the communal free throw chalice. It
would bother me less if a non-famous person did that. Look, the point is failed
expectations hurt more than never having them in the first place.
Hm? What’s that? No this image doesn’t mean
anything relevant to what I was saying, what are you talking about?
One of Child of Light’s biggest problems is its lack of memorable
characters. Beyond the protagonist, who’s bland but has a tiny bit of
complexity, party members start out with a single phrase personality and remain
that to bitter end. Cowardly, sad, greedy, bad at rhymes, and those other ones
too bland to even summarize. There’s something to start with, sure, but the
author began the journey of a thousand miles with the first step and then
decided the rest were just for the look of the thing. Even as a collection of
walking stereotypes, they aren’t particularly vivid or well-written.
The only thing that’s more frustrating than these perfunctory heroes are
their villains. The antagonists of this game are neglected more than a sale on
Uplay. The game doesn’t make their presence felt in the narrative. They’re
barely even mentioned for the first two thirds of the game. Their plans are
poorly explained and logically flawed. They have no clear backstories and
motivations. They have no interesting quirks, likes, dislikes, or exaggerated
characteristics. Their personalities are naught but sneering, pointless evil.
Yet despite this, they aren’t any fun.
They lack subtlety but don’t ham things up. They lack planning skills but
things work out for them anyway. They lack motivation not out of insanity or
chaos, but because no one thought to give it to them. In short, the villains in
Child of Light suffer the worst fate of a main character, especially
antagonists: They’re boring. They
leave no impression, and with all the fantastic artistry behind them, that’s a
damn shame.
So we know that the writing in this game has some serious issues that make
it bland and unmemorable. Alternatively, to the nitpickers: You know that my personal opinion is that the writing
in this game has some serious issues that make it bland and unmemorable. The
follow-up question is: Why? What aspects of the writing grant it such a lukewarm
reaction? There’s a lot that goes into good writing, but I think I can pin down
three major reasons Child of Light falls short. And the first is one many have
already observed…
The Seuss Conundrum
In Child of Light, everyone speaks in rhymes. I’m not talking about a
narrator or a specific character who speaks in rhyme, though either would’ve
been more tolerable. Every line that every person speaks from the moment you
hit play has to rhyme. This works
about as well as you’d expect, being occasionally charming but frequently
forgettable or forced. I give the writer points for trying something different,
but the execution leaves a lot to be desired. The problem isn’t even so much
that the rhymes themselves are a stretch, though they often are. The real
issues are the limitations that speaking in rhyme naturally imposes on a story.
You can tell a lot about a character from the way they talk. This isn't
just in a language/accent sense. Are they concise or verbose? Casual or formal?
Relaxed or uptight? Does their tone vary depending on who they're talking to? How
we present information reflects who we are in a million different ways. When
you place the same speaking restrictions on dozens of different people, it
makes the already difficult task of quickly characterizing them harder. You can
make a bum and a queen sound different. You can even make them sound different
when they’re both reading Shakespeare. But if you only have a handful of lines
to do it, it’s going to be a hell of a lot easier without that prose
homogenizing their tone.
If you’re pining for rhyming, you may like this
sight.
But for character building, it isn’t
quite...correct.
If the game had used rhymes more sparingly, I feel it would’ve been better
off. In fact, some of the rare dialogue I actually liked came from a character who
screwed up their rhymes. In that case, rhyming was part of her character,
rather than something that feels like an obligation. This simply isn’t a good
environment for constant rhymes. The game has a lot of content to fit into a
small amount of text, a problem I’ll come back to later. With all that pressure
for efficient dialogue, waxing poetic all day does more harm than good.
Rushing to Nothing
Another problem with this story is the ending feels quite rushed. Without
direct spoilers: the vast majority of the game is just moving from point A to
point B. Then during what feels like some standard searching for a McGuffin,
you’re suddenly ambushed by the finale. The dungeon ends abruptly and you fight
the penultimate big bad, but before you get the McGuffin the main villain shows
up. A bunch of events converge, you and your party are teleported halfway
across the continent off-screen, then you fight the final boss, right then and
there, without so much as a heal since the second-in-command. I would be
extremely surprised if this was their original vision for the ending.
There are some clear ways this hurts the gameplay, but the writing is even
worse off. Half of your party members hastily try to cobble together some kind
of character arc in a few sentences. For example, the cowardly character had a
grumpy dad who didn’t like him. Said dad got a whole couple minutes of screen
time 10 hours ago. He shows up and says good job. Hopefully I don’t need to
explain why this is ever-so-slightly lacking in terms of a satisfying character
arc.
It does not speak well of this story that his
change from “wimpy” to “slightly-less-wimpy” is one of the strongest character
arcs it has.
Of course, half of your party doesn’t even get that much! They don’t even
participate in the ending, they’re just standing around mute. Granted, I didn’t
expect much for some of them. One of your party members is acquired a mere 2-3 hours
before the end of the game. Those hours are mostly gameplay, and…
MINOR SPOILER ALERT:
She has dead parents. As in, recently dead parents. You even break the news
to her yourself. Look we all know dead parents are writer-speak for “I don’t
have time to make you empathize with this character.” Disney writers have to be
talked down for weeks to leave a single on-screen parent alive. But they’re usually in a character’s backstory, not their
defining on-screen moment. And considering the only non-visual thing I remember
about this person is the degree to which her parents are dead (Yes Very), it
really is a defining moment.
So pop quiz, do you think 2 hours and about a dozen lines of dialogue (yes,
that’s all she gets) is enough to properly explore this? Well surprise
surprise: They don’t do justice to the emotional loss of her parents. They
don’t do justice to her emotional anything.
I couldn’t even tell you what type of personality she has, how am I supposed to
connect with something as drastic as dead parents? If I talked for 30 seconds
with a stranger on a train and he mentioned his parents were dead, sure it’d be
sad, but it wouldn’t leave a lasting impression. And he has the advantage of
being a real person who exists.
SPOILER ALERT END.
Spoilers aside, the point is that every character is underdeveloped and the
ending was a terrible place to cut corners. The areas beforehand were all
lavishly detailed in visuals and sound, and since most of the game is a linear
travelogue just about anywhere else would be a better place to cut. Of course,
my hunch is that they didn’t plan on cutting out the ending at all. They likely just did things in order and ran
out of time, not considering the importance of nailing the climax.
A reminder that I harbor no ill will (ever, really) towards the development
team. I’m only commenting on the product that resulted. Said product is lacking,
and poetic prose and a rushed ending are only part of the problem. The final
piece is a flaw far closer to the root of the problem. If I had one piece of
advice to give to the author of Child of Light, beyond “write more better”, it
would be this…
Limited Word Count
Economize your dialogue.
There’s a video series on game design I enjoy called Extra Credits. A few months
ago, they released a video on game narratives and word count.
It’s a good video, only a few minutes long and highly recommended, but for
those who don’t want to watch I can summarize. Basically: Between long
stretches of gameplay and instruction for that gameplay, video games have a
drastically lower word count per minute to use than any other medium. This
means that a good game narrative needs to be more efficient with its words than
anyone else. Usually? They aren’t. The precious few words available are wasted
on overwrought exposition or throwaway lines. And this brings us back to Child
of Light.
To lighten the mood, here are some more pictures
of Child of Light being really god damn pretty.
I can bring to mind almost nothing out of this game that wasn’t one of the
following:
1. Dialogue explaining what was going on or where to go
“Where am I? What do I do?
Who is that?”
“Why hello dear child!
You’re in the Ridiculously Haunted Forest, you need to continue west to the
cathedral to receive magical plot powers, and we’re a ferocious pack of hungry
wolves. RAUGH!”
2. Fluff
“Welcome to our village.
What a lovely day it is outside. Look, a pretty butterfly. I wonder what’s for
dinner. Why yes, I AM enjoying my existence as a purposeless NPC!”
What this game needs far more of is dialogue that builds the characters and
setting. What is everyday life like for the citizens of this fantasy world, and
how has it changed now that the big bad is doing what their title implies? And
no, I don’t mean this in a plot
sense. You can tell us that NPC #22 has been cursed by the villain and we need
to retrieve plot item #34 to rescue them, but that doesn’t make it personal. It doesn’t give us a
connection to the world or make it feel real. I can understand that this is a
fairy tale, not some dense 60-hour story wrought with complex mythology and
political intrigue. It presents drama just as poorly as it does backstory. I
never felt invested in the game emotionally.
It runs on very few words for an RPG, presumably to keep a fairy tale
atmosphere. But it spends next to none of those words fleshing out the world or
people who inhabit it.
What little character building can be found is in these brief one-off
conversations. When you get a new party member, every subsequent fight will
follow up with a brief conversation they have with an existing character. These
continue until they run out, and are the only things main characters say
outside initial encounters or exposition. Even these can get pretty clogged
with pointless filler. For example, here’s a paraphrase of one of these
exchanges:
New Party Member: “Hello
there, I am New Party Member. How are you, sad clown jester?”
Sad Clown Jester: “I am sad,
and also a clown jester. Sigh. Sad noises.”
New Party Member: “I see,
yes, glad we scoped out that situation. Tell me, sad clown jester, why are you
sad?”
Sad Clown Jester: “I dunno.
Just the way I am.”
For those of you hanging on the edge of your seats: No, we don’t ever find out why the sad clown
jester is sad.
Ultimately, there isn’t anything offensive about the story in Child of Light. An off-rhyme here and there might make you cringe, but it’s mostly just...forgettable. But that’s almost as tragic as it being terrible. When propped up against these gorgeous visuals and sound, the writing feels disappointingly shallow by comparison. I think had it just narrowed down its cast and focused its narrative, things would’ve gone better. We still could’ve gotten a simple fairy tale, but one that was well told and emotionally involving. But the world isn’t built on what could’ve been, it’s built on what is. And what Child of Light is? It’s a flat and simplistic story with all the depth of a pop-up book, far less detailed and engrossing than its appearance suggests.
No comments:
Post a Comment