The Games That Inspire My Writing (Part 3)

Last time we talked about my abiding love for the Legacy of Kain/Soul Reaver series, and how it taught me the courage to go nuts with stories (and how it partially inspired my Deadgirl Saga).

This week I’m casting the net a bit wider, with a trio of unconnected but stylistically related games that made me want to write my own epic fantasy series. Alongside a heaping helping of D&D and fantasy novels in my youth, of course.

Let’s get into the business with three beloved 90’s classics: THE SECRET OF MANA, ILLUSION OF GAIA, and the FINAL FANTASY series.

These three games are all part of different series, though they share a lot of creative influence and even a publisher/developer or two.

SECRET OF MANA Helped Me Write My First Awful Novel

SECRET OF MANA (1993) is a Zelda-esque adventure where three companions—a chosen one farm boy, an amnesiac last-of-his-kind fairy boy, and a runaway noble girl avoiding an arranged marriage—face their destiny, get a magic sword, and defeat an evil empire. As is tradition.

It’s an interesting game with pretty unique mechanics, but the funny thing is I didn’t play it that much. Instead, my friend Jacob played SECRET OF MANA religiously, and would even bring the game manual to school so we could pore over it like a holy text. Together with my friend Michael, we spent most of our fifth grade year playing a kind of live-action RP/impromptu D&D game during recess. In it, we spun off ideas from SECRET OF MANA into a new, ever-evolving story starring our own original OCs (do not steal). Real nerd shit, it was great.

Our story borrowed from everything and anything, tossing bits of HERCULES and XENA, FINAL FANTASY, ILLUSION OF GAIA, and even STAR WARS onto the substrate of SECRET OF MANA, like toppings on a pizza.

This story became the seed for my first (unpublished) manuscript, FOOLS AND LYRES, which was terrible because it was my first novel and I was 19 when I wrote it. In fact you can read bits of it that I hilariously excoriate in my “Asshole’s Guide to Editing” series.

ILLUSION OF GAIA and FINAL FANTASY Taught Me How to Party

ILLUSION OF GAIA (1994) is a strange beast, a bit more traditionally Zelda-inspired than SECRET OF MANA. In fact, you could call the gameplay just a Zelda reskin and not get much guff. However, the narrative is more aligned with a sprawling adventure like FINAL FANTASY, with multiple characters, explored backstories, new countries and cultures, and an absolutely bonkers story.

The narrative is about Will (pictured above), a chosen-one boy from a small town (deja vu anyone?). He’s got psychic powers and a magic weapon, a disappeared father, he’s Luke Skywalker again we can just say it. His childhood friends get pulled into an adventure alongside a runaway princess (it’s Leia again, we can just say it). It turns out a magical comet is warping the world with mystical radiation, and the answers to its mystery lie in the ancient ruins of past civilizations.

You also collect magic songs and the ability to change shape into legendary warriors from the past. One of your friends gets turned into a giant fish, another realizes his wealthy parents participate in the slave trade. You eat the Princess’s pet pig who sacrifices itself willing to you, and you fight Dracula and his wife in the lost city of Mu, etc. Did I already say it’s bonkers?

Tangent: My friend Jacob and I would get on the phone every night, he’d play SECRET OF MANA, I’d play ILLUSION OF GAIA, and we’d describe what we were experiencing and chat about bullshit.

We invented Twitch in 1995, is what I’m saying.

Above: I know it’s technically Final Fantasy IV above, but in America IV came out as II. It’s not confusing.

Onto the next game! I’m not going to describe the story of every FINAL FANTASY (1987-present) to you because there are like 25 of them and we’re already a little long in the tooth.

It’s also one of the most famous game series of all time, there’s a good chance you know at least the basics. Party of strange heroes with elaborate backstories, evil empires, moogles, huge chickens, airships, crystals, save the world.

ILLUSION OF GAIA and FINAL FANTASY inspired me to want to write big sprawling fantasy adventures, though ironically I haven’t drafted my own yet. My first excruciating novel scared me away for a long time.

However, these games also taught me how to build fictional friendgroups, “parties” if you will. How much fun it is to create a bunch of misfits and have them bounce off each other, learn from one another, save and even doom each other as they quest together to make the world a better place. Or just to redeem/conquer their terrible pasts. DEADGIRL, RIVEN, and even DJINN & TONIC all feature tight friendgroups of badasses, because I’m a hack and also they’re my favorite thing to write.

All three of these games (and decades of fantasy novels) have together inspired a fantasy story I’ve been working on for a few years now. It isn’t the story I’m currently drafting (though that is fantasy), but one I’m creeping up on. It’s based on our SECRET OF MANA fifth grade recess story, but more from a meta perspective, a story of childhood, escapism, imagination, and the bonds that last well into adulthood. How it felt to play with your friends and imagine entire worlds as a kid, and how hard it is to access that kind of power as a grown-up.

I’m not quite ready for that story—it might be my big one—but I can feel it approaching.

Moving On

This’ll be the end of this series for a bit, but I reserve the right to add further entries when they occur to me / when I get hard-up for blog ideas.

Thanks for staying, and if you take anything from this large pile of words, it’s that I play too many video games. I mean, inspiration comes from everywhere, and you need to be open to absorbing lessons wherever your passions take you.

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