The Endless Endgame Paradox

I've always loved having a bond with my games: every experience meaning much more than just playing. Games have always meant exploring a new world, and I always ended up diving down with anything I'd try. It wasn't about the time I spent on it, though: it always was about the feeling that those experiences left on me, how they inspired me to grow, create and think.

Pokémon Blue has been a world to share with my childhood friends, as if we were sharing a fantastical world of our own.

This thing has always been true, but it did change in time: what made me stick shifted more and more towards repeatable content... to the point I ended up feeling trapped. In this retrospective, I want to think about the whys.

Our First Games Were Never About The Endgame

It was the time when Pokémon Yellow came out: me and two close friends - one of those is Luke, also editor among these pages! - went on summer vacation together. I just got the latest title, while my friends brought Pokémon Red (Luke) and Blue (I don't have a nickname for my childhood rival, so we're just going to call him Timmy).

Pokémon Yellow was colorful and more refined in design, so I really wanted to play it!

I really, really wanted to play the new shiny game, but my two friends insisted so much about me going back to Blue, to play a similar game than them. I remember that this conversation was on a ferry to Elba Island, which is where we were going. Can't really be sure if my memory is mixing up things, but I'll keep it as that, as it's a good memory nonetheless.

Seeing how they cared about me choosing something we could share, I finally agreed: we'd be playing the same game, for the sake of elegance and symmetry over colorful, shiny, new. One of my brightest decisions, and something I'd never bet on, nowadays.

So then, the adventure started, and we all picked our starters: Charmander for me, Squirtle for Luke, and Bulbasaur for Timmy. Since we started, the feeling of being close friends resonated. It wasn't about us staying on the game every moment - although I was the one wanting to go back to the house from the beach to keep playing the game - but mostly the idea we were sharing a world, that belong to all of us. We may end up talking about it, and I remember myself playing as if I was a Vaporeon in the soft sand of "La Biodola" beach specifically. Why some things stick into your memory as if they're yesterday I will never know, but I'm 100% sure it was that beach. On top of that, I remember we found a plastic boat in the house, and we renamed it "M/N Anna", which is the Italian name for S.S. Anne.

Stories came out from our shared experiences: one that burns to this day is my Charizard losing to Timmy's Venusaur with Body Slam - it probably was because of paralysis lucky rolls, but still, he was the one finding awesome strategies to secure wins, and it's kinda still like this to this day. He now has an awesome career, and still retains his competitive spirit.

It was never about the competitive part of the game after beating it, that got me in and made me feel like I was sharing an experience with friends.

The interesting part I want to talk about here is, though: I have no memory of the Pokémon League - and anything that came after. And it's not like I didn't finish the game: I'm sure I did, considering I imported my team made of legendaries, Vaporeon, Charizard and Alakazam to Pokémon Stadium, to play many more games; it just was about the endgame not being the thing that actually involved me the most. It was never about the competitive part of the game after beating it, that got me in and made me feel like I was sharing an experience with friends.

From there, it's been single player games together for a long time. Highlights are Yoshi's Story: we were playing that with Luke at my place when his sister was born; Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance, where every death was a tragedy, and we always instantly reset, full of guilt; Final Fantasy X, that made the final push to convince me writing a fantasy story of my own was a need of mine (I still love Auron as a character to this day, and always will).

I recently found out people consider this game easy. Our deaths were so scary, with the Shy Guy castle and all, that I still feel as if it was one of the hardest games I've ever played. I definitely should replay it.

I Never Got to Endgame in MMORPG - and Never Cared Either

When I got involved with Final Fantasy XIV, progressing through the main story of the game is kind of a meme in the community, as it does unlock so many things it's really the only thing to do. It's nice that Square Enix has really good expertise in telling stories, and it does better at that compared to many other MMORPG stories: it's slow, yes, but mature enough to be a really good single player game experience nonetheless.

And still, even if I slowly progressed through endgame, getting there never meant much to me: I loved meeting with other players, talking about our character and sometimes even us as persons, getting to know each other, roleplaying together, sharing home tips, and so on.

Roleplaying as a cute idol has been fun, and one of my most memorable experiences, before I was led astray.

I think I managed to reach endgame in Shadowbringers: I once tried Eden 1 Savage, an endgame raid, and sorely regretted it: the experience was rough, and the static I played with wasn't kind with new players.

It's not that I have anything against hard endgame content: it's wonderful to cheer each other's victory and celebrate, if the group is kind and united, and it's an experience that is surprisingly common in Final Fantasy XIV, especially in the NA data centers, where players are there as a way to experience a world and find a place to call home, sometimes.

I'm mentioning that because, even if endgame was never something I experienced much more than that, FFXIV has been one of the depeest gaming experiences I ever had.

Striving For Excellence in Gacha Games

It was all about the God of Contracts, I'm sorry, Venti.

Genshin started with a fresh look, and a cheerful first touch, up until I got to Liyue, at least. Mondstat and Dragonspine were patches that I played riding the feeling of novelty and discovery - even if I ended up spending money for Albedo, this wasn't really about how I was experiencing the game. Yes, you can tell something was already going awry, but it wasn't about how I was feeling.

[...] striving for excellence squeezed me so much that got everything else I liked about games out of me, making me feel part of a loop I had to comply with

While playing the game, I knew that my resources weren't enough to get all the characters: I was okay with getting one out of two, but I still wanted to maximize the chances of getting as many as possible, with the resources I collected.

Genshin's first iterations of the Spyral Abyss - the only endgame for a long time - were my main focus. I now realize how little extra primogems it holds, but it was a recurring thing, and I really wanted to complete it, in order to feel up to the task, when collecting characters.

Don't they make you want to urgently click? They sure do for me... and it was never a good thing.

Wanting to strive for excellence has nothing inherently negative: I've always wanted to improve, to have the feeling I was free to strive for more. I never felt the urgency of doing so, but always wanted the feeling of freedom that comes from self-improvement.

The problem with gacha games is that they're full of deadlines: things just elapse, cycle, and you won't be able to go back to what happened before.

Getting to 3rd place in this game was an experience for me, something I don't regret. And yet!

It wasn't even about the game genre: I strived for the top even in rhythm games like BanG Dream, where you're ranked based on your collection and play time, and not skill: it was still a proof of how dear the game was for me at the time, and I wanted to express it.

Were there no other way to do so, though? At the time of writing, I really don't know. What I do know, though, is that all this striving for excellence squeezed me so much that got everything else I liked about games out of me, making me feel part of a loop I had to comply with, instead of a world I could delve into at my own pace.

The Meaning of TZERØ

The origin of TZERØ was really there: I wanted a guild where people wanted to share their result to achieve something great together: to go beyond the limits the game gave players, that were mostly about resource availability - which basically means money.

What surprised me so much I distanced myself from the game, at the time, was that this culture wasn't shared: people didn't really want to do so, as I expected them to. And I don't blame anyone: I think it was mostly about "bad game design": behavioral patterns do arise from game design choices, and I'm convinced this selfish need to achieve without sharing does come, at least in large part, from how the game is designed.

Awesome art come from fanarts from the game. If you know the artist, let me know in the comments, as I found this without references!

What I ask myself, at this point in my life, is: is selfish individualism, and striving for excellence at all costs, something that I want to associate with when playing games? What I can now notice is that:

• It made me stop playing any other game, as it's flagged as a priority, by its nature

• It takes a whole load of mental energy, just to keep everything in check

• It leads to frustration when I realize that, even if I play optimally, I still won't have what I want - and sometimes, what I want is a limited item that won't come back, or a local optimum choice I'll be missing out on

• It's hard for me to enjoy even those games peacefully, with all of this happening all the time.

My decisions, for now, are:

• Welcome the artistic side of those games: it's amazing, cutting-edge, and I think it does deserve praise

• Welcome players that play those games: game design forcing them to follow patterns is not on them, and I don't blame their strategies. It's just not for me

• Reject shackles that make me feel trapped in a loop, or forced to play boring content, or feel like I have to spend: as soon as a game makes me feel like I'm repeating actions for a goal that is just there by game design choice, I'll immediately drop the game, regardless of its monetization model

• Reject walls that make me feel like I can't perceive anything else, and stop trying new things: life is better when many thing contribute to what we are.

The hardest part for this kind of endeavor is identifying what's a shackle/wall and what's a choice. The biggest indicator I have, as of now, are:

• Is playing making me feel fatigued in any way?

• Am I playing or doing anything else completely unrelated to those games - at least during the month?

• Am I feeling guilty about anything?

And things are finally working out.

How Do I Do, Now?

In this section, I want to share with you how I experience games and life in this phase of my life.

First of all: I'm actively looking for group of players to share my experience with. I roleplay by forum, am starting a new andventure in FFXIV Dawntrail together with Will (also editor here!), and a fresh new character, am playing old (and new!) single player games, trying out games I never opened, writing here (much more than usual) and planning to make videos, at my own pace.

Mr. Hanekoma, I wish you were with me when I got astray! I'll be the one coming back saying hi to your series soon, though, so maybe we'll meet again!

The way I experienced YouTube in the previous period was a side activity to keep thinking about gacha. I want it to be a tool of expression for me, maybe "us", someday, in the idea I'll finally find the TZERØ group I dreamed about while playing BanG Dream.

Most of all, though, I can feel words flowing through me, my imagination running along the activities I engage with, and my life flowing with a much more sustainable, pleasing rhythm.

Without giving up on anything. Just opening up doors to new opportunities.