It must seem, to people who remember the magazine days of video game news, that today's gamer is a whiny little bastard with nothing better to do than sit around and moan about things he or she ought to consider a luxury. Some say that this is just because, via the magical internet, we can now see and hear the complaints of our brethren, but no -- even when it was just clusters of schoolyard friends, the level of whining was way lower. Or so it seems to me.

Undoubtedly there are a number of factors leading to this increase in whine-age (if this phenomenon is in fact real and not a "darn ungrateful kids" response), but I think I know the main source -- optimism.

"Gasp! But Optimism is about looking on the bright side!" Well, yeah. But you know what else? It's about hope. And a game is a thing played, my friends, so we hear about all kinds of details before we can really enjoy a game. In this day and age, you don't work to find info about upcoming games, you have to work -- really hard! -- to avoid getting this information if, say, you'd rather not be spoiled.

I was very recently stung by this unfortunate optimism.

Let me admit from the start that I like Square games. I'm only a middling Square fan, though -- never played X-2, really didn't play much FFX in the first place, don't want to slobber all over Sephiroth, etc. But I like the games, and I'm playing FF III for the DS right now.

At some point I heard about a new Square game for the DS. My interest was piqued. All I heard, at first, was the title:

The World Ends with You

Maybe it's just me, but what a crazy, awesome name for a game. The "with you" at the end is weirdly cheerful. The world doesn't end because of you, or despite you -- it ends with you, like it's your dog or something. I was intrigued, but tried to stay away from more info. I like to be surprised. Or so I thought.

Alas. It turns out the game is really fun (or so everyone tells me), but the fact is that this game has a setting I just plain didn't expect and don't like -- something I hear people call "urban", as if being in a city necessitates the ridiculous clothes and the pseudo-gangsta shit that I loathe. The World Ends With You is not a strange serious-yet-not title after my heart (see: "Earthbound-esque"), like I'd hoped, it's Kingdom Hearts meets "edgy, grungy, real!" teens. I mean, look at this screenshot:



You know what I thought when I saw that? "Look, a DDR cell phone game." Darn it. I have a stupid cell phone version of Bricks that has the same setting. Lame graffiti (I know the cool stuff exists, I have seen it), too many neon colors over washed-out grungy cityscapes ...



You know what your money is called in The World Ends With You? Bling. Bling.

Before anybody gets too mad at me for being disappointed, know that I'll probably eventually try the game out. But atmosphere is really important to me, in a game -- I'm one of those people who played ICO and had no problem with wandering around in the sunlight for no reason. At the same time, I recognize that the setting isn't objectively bad -- people really liked Jet Grind Radio and these people will probably like the design of The World Ends With you. It's just that I don't like that kind of thing.

After snapping my fingers and exclaiming "Aw, rats.", I started thinking about where my disappointment really comes from, and it's not because the game isn't a game I'm going to like -- it's because I hoped that it was going to be. I see lots of games I won't like and have no problem with people playing them. But because I got these ideas of what the game might be, I got burned a bit.

No problem. This post is just a reminder, mostly to myself, that it's silly to get too worked up over having your hopes put to rest when it comes to what a game will be like. If you paid for the darned thing, well, that's a legitimate excuse. And if the developers lied, that's legitimate too. But I think a lot of times we get wrapped up in our own daydreams about what a game could be, and that just opens us up for disappointment. Not that it's bad to have hope for amazing games, it's a good thing, but when a game turns out to be different than our expectations ... well, there's no need to get really mad about it. I think The World Ends With You looks dumb, but I never got a chance to play Okami, but now that it's a Wii title I went and picked it up. What a game. :D There will always be more cool and awesome games, so it's just a matter of waiting for the next one. ... without getting too attached.