Back to Summer Camp

It was the summer of 02, and my sister and I played one thing and one thing only: Animal Crossing. For hours the two of us would hide away in the basement, away from the sun shine and warmth of the summer, content to toil away and run errands in our small town. We would return VHS tapes to frogs, deliver shirts for eagles, and collect bugs for cats; this digital hamlet was our summer camp, and we loved every minute of it. Now here I am, ten years later, and I have stepped off that familiar train again, returning to my summer camp.

Why am I starting a new game of Animal Crossing? To be honest, I am not 100% sure myself. Maybe it’s because the DS Animal Crossing never hooked me, and I never got another fill of those zany animal neighbours. Is this why I feel the need to return to the small town full of blocky little animals? Or maybe this is me trying to relive something that is gone, somehow try and hold on to the past and avoid the future. Maybe I am trying to recapture that magic I saw and felt when I first sat down with Animal Crossing, or maybe I am looking for a change of pace from everything else; I spend hours with Team Fortress 2 pounding people into the dirt, and the quite relaxed pace of Animal Crossing is a welcome relief. Whatever the reasons may be, and I have a feeling it is a healthy mix of everything I have just said, the smooth piano opening of Animal Crossing is a welcome tune to usher my return to summer camp.

A Midsummer's Fantasy

In the middle of Final Fantasy’s still ongoing obsession with zippers, buckles, and gravity defying hair), all thanks to one Tetsuya Nomura, we had one odd ball come out of this neon saturated series: the retro inspired, and best game in the series (yeah, I said it!), Final Fantasy IX.

There are two things that I cannot help but noticed as I slowly plug away at FFIX. First off, the game oozes the same feeling I get (pure joy) when reading Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream; it is a whimsical tale full of loveable and well written characters. It is as if the game was a play, and I was just another member in the audience. Zidane, Vivi, Dagger, Steiner, and the rest of the cast are all great in their own way and they all have their own wonderfully distinct personalities. Hell, half of the fun of the game is watching the cast interact with each other, and the Active Time Events (little vignettes of the characters that happen while you’re in town, or when the party is separated) help to flesh them out and give the world a real feeling of life not usually seen in a PS1 game.

Secondly, I cannot shake the feeling that I am playing out the imagination of a child, and that the characters are their toys. My mind screams this when the party is talking to a Hippopotamus woman, or a duck man, or any of the other random NPCs that no one seems to take notice of; it reminds me of when I was a little kid playing out my own stories with whatever action figures and other toys (mostly dinosaurs, Ninja Turtles, and Legos) I could find. Sure that may not be much evidence to go on for my toy theory, but this is just how I feel as I journey along with Zidane and the rest of the cast.

I am on disc 3 of 4 right now, and I am kind of hoping that Final Fantasy IX may be the first Final Fantasy I ever finish (I know, for shame). I miss the days of multi-disc games, and the feel of grandness that was associated with those games. It always felt like, to me at least, that I was about to sit down and read an epic novel and experience a grand and sweeping story. My love for the multi-disc game is what might temp me into buying Blue Dragon for the 360, but we will see. It’s not like I don’t have enough games to get through or anything.