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Steampunk Platypus Part IV


Character Killing

It's a rule of storytelling that killing off a likable character (all else being equal) deepens audience commitment to the story.

As we've discussed earlier, technological advances during the early and mid-nineties allowed video game designers to create narrative driven games.  Squaresoft led the way with its landmark Final Fantasy series.  However, at that time, video game designers creating products for Nintendo had to work within the parameters of the company's ethics code.  This code was meant to ensure that Nintendo products were child-friendly; children being the target audience for video games during this time period.  This meant that story elements like permanent character death that could be traumatizing to young children were frowned upon or disallowed.  Final Fantasy II went out of its way, as a matter of fact, to bring back characters from otherwise fatal situations (falling out of an airship and being turned to stone come to mind.  Rydia's resurrection was supposedly left out due to sheer lack of production time).  Final Fantasy III was groundbreaking, then, in allowing the player's decisions to result in the death of at least four characters; two playable and two NPCs (Mog and Shadow, and Cid and the wounded soldier).  Because mistakes could be made and cast members could die, Final Fantasy III's narrative became that much more interesting.  Player decisions had actual consequences, and thus overall player commitment to the story increased  making Final Fantasty III one of the most beloved RPGs of all time.
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