Emptying the Tank on Final Fantasy Tactics A2
I haven't "finished" Final Fantasy Tactics A2, yet. I have, however, at the time of this writing, logged approximately 105 hours-- far more than I thought I would ever spend on this game. It's something I repeated to myself, from the first hour: this game is most certainly not worth my time. Regardless, with a lack of other games grabbing my attention in the past few months (and an inability to properly emulate on my DS the one game I truly wish I were playing for the first time, Earthbound), my two+ hours of commute a day have culminated in a shitload of time walking around on little grids casting little spells.
Still, I can't figure out how I spent so much time playing the game.
To understand the amount of time I spent playing this game, you must first understand the context in which I play it; five days a week, I roll out of bed at 8:30 in the morning. After a quick wash and brush of teeth, I stumble out into the sunlight and get on a bus. This is, ideally, at about 9:05 in the morning. I'm on this bus for ten minutes at absolute most, and I transfer into a subway system just east of downtown Montreal. The subway takes under fifteen minutes, and eventually drops me off at a subway station just west of downtown Montreal. There, at 9:30, I am supposed to meet a co-worker (who was once my boss but I have since moved out of his department) who will then drive me to work-- a thirty minute trek far into the high-tech-industrial slag belt of the "west island," as it is called, where everyone has eyes that look dull, as if the life inside them was stamped out by these giant warehouse-office monoliths surrounded by acres of useless Kentucky Bluegreen. It's just north of the airport, actually, which may explain why the building protocol appears to be "build as horizontally and cheaply as possible" and "put a lot of toxically green grass around so the airports know this isn't a landing strip." It's also worth mentioning that I end up waiting upwards of twenty minutes per day for this co-worker because he is always late (but never gets in trouble, setting a hilarious double standard for the small office, as he is a management guy). It ends up being over an our of soul-deadening commute. The way back's even worse, because dude won't drive me back to civilization, so I need to take some filthy suburban bus back to the outer edges of the subway system. It ends up being about 2.5 hours a day of commute.
Due to this, I end up spending a lot of time with my DS. Sometimes I read, sometimes I just listen to music, and very occasionally I even manage to nap, but most of that time is sucked up with DS games. Some worked better than others; while I was still taking a terrible, terrible bus to work (before I negeotiated the most reluctant car pool ever), I attempted to struggle through Trauma Center on a bumpy road with a well-scratched touch screen. In fact, most games where the touch screen is vital were almost impossible to play. And forget using the microphone on the subway; even if you were willing to make that much of an ass of yourself, there's no way the device would your shouts and scratches over the metal-on-metal screech that Montreal's "ligne vert" emits.
Eventually, I found that turn-based strategy games worked best; they could be controlled digitally, they didn't punish me for riding public transit (which would, as implied before, make me shake like a Parkinson's in-patient). There are two problems with this: I have a lot of time to play games on the bus, and I'm very picky about my turn-based games. So, with my level of pickiness, I didn't think I'd get into FFTA2: I heard it was slow, and I didn't like FFTA that much before it (I don't think I even beat it). However, I got into FFTA2, and... well, that was when it came out. I'm still playing it. But what's strange is that how different the experience is from any other game I've played this much.
Most games I play, I play for pleasure. I play them because I like to play good games, and they are good games. Games like Chrono Trigger were something I looked forward to playing, or Tetris, or Super Mario Brothers 3; this game is routine. I wake up, play it, work, play it, get home. It's a blurry line between work and non-work.
Why is it so similar to work, though? I mean, there are things there that certainly feel like non-work. My neurons send the right electric currents when I see the beautiful sprites. The logic that goes into movement and execution of attacks also inspires my brain-lobes to glow with happy electricity. There's certainly stuff to love. And, the things to hate aren't enough to make me stop playing; isn't that what makes a game good? It's sort of like a bad relationship; you know, when you stay with your significant other because the inertia involved. You're not sexually attracted to each other anymore, and you fight all the time, and there are other people who you'd probably jump given the opportunity... but you share bills, and live together, and moving sucks, and things were good once, and maybe they will be again, and maybe this is just a rut. It's not good. But it's good enough.
One of the other things that this game gest flak for is the pace. Indeed, there are entire hour-long bus rides where I accomplish exactly nothing due to the lethargic pace of this game. It's like getting a Miles Davis seven-inch single, and slowing down the rpms on your record player to 33 and a third. Each heroine-soaked note is twice-iced over and infused with molasses. Why did Square do this? Did nobody on their QA team mention that the games about as peppy as an opiate drip? Yet, it's one more thing that makes it comfortable-- after a long day of rushing around, sitting down and takeing three minutes just to scroll to a weapon you want to equip can be... relaxing. It's more of a numbing feeling than a happy feeling, but sometimes that's just what you need, isn't it?
If I were the type of person to assign numbers to games, I'd be stumped. What do you give a game that holds your attention for nearly 110 hours, but you never really enjoy? Surely, to someone, that's worth it, but to another, that's awful. There's no real number that says what I want to say: "it's a lazy, alcoholic, no-good girlfriend, but it's my lazy, alcoholic, no-good girlfriend."