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5. Fragile Dreams: Farewell Ruins of the Moon (2010)
In a word: Heartbreaking
Much like the next entry on this list, I didn’t actually play Fragile Dreams when it first came out. Sure, it was supposedly a great “experience”, but when the gameplay was apparently a bit shoddy, I wasn’t really sure whether it was worth paying for– at least not at full price, anyway. But when I spotted it last year for only £13/$20, I thought, “Why not?” And it was the best impulse buy I’d ever made– because, yes, while the gameplay was every bit as shoddy as I’d heard, the story… The story was utterly beautiful. Set in a post-apocalyptic world, the game opens with our young protagonist Seto beginning a journey east to try and find other survivors. The old man he lives with has just died, and what follows is a delicate and heartfelt portrayal of a young boy trying to come to terms with his own loneliness and his need for human affection.
My favourite part of Fragile Dreams‘ story, however, is its central motif of The Glass Cage experiment– the cause of humanity’s almost total annihilation. It was meant to awaken everyone’s innate “empathy faculty” so we could all understand each other without resorting to words, but obviously it didn’t go quite according to plan. It’s the way this tension between words and feelings is realised over the course of the game, though, that really sticks in my mind, as everyone Seto meets sheds a new light on the folly of only using emotions to communicate. There’s P.F, a computer who’s been programmed to automatically respond to and sense her user’s emotional state, but absolutely loves talking; there’s Crow, an amnesiac boy who fashions an identity (and a language) for himself out of characters he finds in a book; and there’s Sai, a ghost who’s both intrigued and a little patronising about Seto’s desire for human companionship. Despite living in a world where speech should be irrelevant, everyone still uses words to express themselves, no matter how unclear or imperfect they are, and the story’s delicate exploration of how we can or should express ourselves is both touching and incredibly poignant.
Katharine, im gonna miss your another castle columns, as you may know, im a big fan of your columns and the story elements of a game are very important to me. I couldnt agree more with you on your top 3 choices. Meteoid prime has a superb system to deliver the story via scans, and they are precise, believable and well written. Xenoblade (oh my freaking god) its the most upbeat, energetic and refreshing rpg i have ever played and the story is great, great pacing, lot of twists and reveals, characters and emotions to the limit, like you said the final explanation when they show how the world was created is a little meh, but the rest… Just pure joy. And Ocarina… Well, for me its the perfect story, straight forward, easy to comprehend but enjoyable, good vs evil, adventure, friendship, journey, love. It has it all. For me its the quintaessential videogame story and its the gold standard for the industry and more specific for action/ adventure or rpg games.(well its my alltime favorite game).
I hope this is not the end of your columns i certainly want to read more.
Thanks for your kind words, Lukas! And I’m really glad you agree with my top three choices as well! :) Unfortunately, Another Castle will be going on hiatus for the time being, but you never know – it may come back some day in the future :).
Thanks so much for reading them, though, and for all your comments too – they make writing these columns that much more rewarding! :)
Katharine, after finishing your article I had to log in and make my first post. I’ll start off by saying this: I considered myself a jaded gamer. As someone who’s spent the majority of their life conquering countless baddies from Hyrule to Tamriel, Persia to Pandora and everywhere in between, I’ve experienced it all. The all-nighters spent behind a glowing screen plowing through the new RPG that took YEARS to come out, long weekends full of Mountain Dew and Halo/Killing Floor/BF/whatever FPS you can think of, years spent in an unmentionable MMO, hours and hours of Smash Bros., waggling, catching-them-all and yes even dancing. But somewhere during my wonderful adventures I lost sight of what makes me so enchanted by video games; the magic that draws us all to them. I found myself saying, “Save yourself Princess…” and “Why SHOULD I clear that pitfall?” My old 2600 would be ashamed.
After finding myself at the end of your number-one pick, finishing up my read of that fantastic piece of videogame journalism, my heart was pounding. That magic spark suddenly re-ignited and I remembered why it was that I loved video games so much. You captured perfectly the reasons why Ocarina of Time is our number one, why it’s the game of games that officially made me a fan for life of this wonderful entertainment medium. I cried when I finished that game. I spent hours and hours in Hyrule hunting down that Hylan Loach, finding all of the Golden Skulltulas, uncovering every single hidden grotto and scouring the landscape for Poes. Never had I played a game like it and I haven’t since. It’s what made me fall in love with video games. Your piece captured EXACTLY why. It was like you took the words right out of my heart and spilled onto my screen what it was I couldn’t remember.
From the deepest part of my heart thank you. You’ve done a great service for me today. Katharine Byrne is exactly the type of journalist we need more of on the interwebs. It’s been a very long time since I’ve read a good piece of gaming journalism that had any heart or spirit woven into. This was a serious refresher and I can tell you are a true vidya fan and have a wonderful ability to clearly express why that is. Keep it up!
Thank you again for the boost, you made my day :’)
Thanks so much for the kind words, Exare! Your comment truly means the world to me. If there’s one reason why I write about games, it’s what you’ve so elegantly put into words yourself. In turn, your comment has done me a great service today, too, so thank you for taking the time to share your thoughts, and I hope you continue to enjoy our work here at Nintendojo :)
As I always do!
Time to go closet diving for the ’64. Hope my joystick’s not all limp and noodly.