What Do You Mean You Want Me to Level Up Yet Another Party?

Expounding on the Introductions of Video Games

Ripping the cellophane off of a brand new game is one of the best feelings in the world, but what happens afterword is the truly defining experience. The first few hours of gameplay are some of the most essential moments of any game, and what happens in them sets the tone for the game as a whole. Player One and I have learned this first hand in the past few weeks, since we've started three new RPGs and several adventure games since the term began. Therefore, I thought it prudent to chronicle my most recent impressions of what works in the opening moments of a game and what doesn't.

Like literature, some games begin in medias res, or in the thick of the action. The questions that are raised from the situation they are thrust into encourages the player to work through the tedious process of learning the controls so they can get to the main story. Uncharted 2 offers perhaps one of the greatest openings of this kind, with the opening scene focusing around protagonist Nathan Drake as he hangs bloody and beaten from a train car that is hanging precariously off a cliff. I mean, besides the obvious voyeuristic thrill of scaling a train car with your bare hands (which was pretty amazing, and rendered gorgeously), one of the key reasons why I stuck with the game was the simple question of 'Why?' Why was Drake bloody and beaten? How did he get himself into yet another one of these situations? Where exactly was Elena, and would she be making an appearance in this game? (The last one was definitely what worried me the most (much to the amusement of my brother, who bravely bore the brunt of my questions without giving a single thing away (even when I began to roll on the floor in agony at the sheer anticipation of seeing my favorite character (Player One can probably vividly imagine this one.))))

Another great way to start a game is to get the action started in the first few minutes of gameplay. Nothing makes you feel more like a badass than when you successfully gun down that first ganado in Resident Evil 4 (and then fling yourself out of the window to avoid the reinforcements, just because walking out the front door is decidedly lame.) Now, if this game had chosen to take the (markedly) horrible path of Kingdom Hearts 2, I am almost positive that I would have put it down immediately. Just imagine if you the player had to go through a tedious four hours of training before even seeing the first zombie (or zombie-like entity, for those purists)? What sort of horror game would that be? The gamer would be so familiar with the controls that they would feel like an old hand when confronted with the measly ganado, and not even blink as they promptly shot out his legs and roundhouse kicked him into the fireplace. A lot of suspense in the game comes from the gamer realizing in those first few terrifying moments of the encounter that they have no idea how to deal with the threat before them. Even with the onscreen prompts, I know I was decidedly panicked as I faced down my foe the first time that I played Resident Evil 4.

RPGs must take a different path than action/adventure games. The complicated set-up of menus, leveling up, special moves, and party building means that the gamer must suffer through hours of monotonous introduction before they can even begin the main portion of the game. Sometimes this investment is definitely worth the time and effort (and braincells lost, as the case may be (I'm looking at you, Kingdom Hearts 2)), but most of the time it's not. Let's face it, most RPGs suck. It's up to you to determine in the first few hours whether this game is worth your time, and the introduction is the ideal buffer zone. Granted, some games have horrible introductions, but the core gameplay is excellent once you get past the tedious assimilation of your party, complicated button explanations which break the forth wall (take a shot!), and gritting your teeth after you realize that you have to level up yet another group of characters so you don't get your ass handed to you when you fight sewer rats. (I mean seriously, sewer rats? Vaan, when did you ever think training against sewer rats was a good idea, and why do you suck so much at fighting them? They're rats!)

Tales of the Abyss is one of those aforementioned games. Getting through the introduction generally takes the player about twelve hours, and during this time you must brave a whiny protagonist, an awful AI for your main healer, one of those annoying child characters (yes, another one. Is it a requirement for RPGs to force you to have someone under the age of twelve in your party?), a ridiculously annoying protagonist (did I mention that one already? It definitely bears repeating), and a severe lack of characters to choose from to form your main party (in fact, you don't even get all of the characters until about eight to ten hours in.) However, if you grit your teeth and suffer through these arduous hardships, the game is absolutely spectacular. As soon as the main character cuts his hair and he decides to stop being a whiny, arrogant, infuriating brat, he becomes one of the most endearing characters in the game, and the player is hard pressed to come up with a good reason to stop playing, since the main storyline is excellent (which I can't discuss in length, since I might spoil Player One, who is just playing through this game for the first time.)

While the beginning of Tales of the Abyss was tedious, Kingdom Hearts 2 had an absolutely insufferable four hours of gameplay before the main story started. Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed playing Kingdom Hearts 2 immensely, I just had severe issues believing that anything could warrant sitting through the travesty that was the introductory segment of the game. Now, I know that it's important for the plot, and Roxas is an essential character, and that themes from the beginning permeate through the rest of the game, but really Square Enix? Really? Was it absolutely necessary for me to spend an hour of my life doing useless minigames to get enough money to get on the train to go to another section of town to do yet another useless series of quests, all for the sake of seeing a cutscene that has absolutely no value to the game? I think the most cerebral stimulation I got from the game in those first few hours was looking up at my ceiling and pondering my gaming choices. If I hadn't been ensured by my brother multiple times that Kingdom Hearts 2 was an excellent game, I would have given it up in those first few hours without a second thought.

Quite frankly, the difference between a good introduction and a bad one is quite startling, and this phenomenon is explained quite succinctly in this video:

So what do you think? Are bad introductions worth slogging through if you know the game is good? Or should you just put down the uninteresting game that you just started to instead play something that you know is good? What if the introduction to the game is good, but the rest of the game is awful? Let me know what you think!