Video games, beyond any other medium, are capable of so much. Interactivity is the thing that sets games apart from books, TV, movies, and so on. A game like Persona 5, for example, can take players a hundred hours to complete. In that time players can become enamored with their party members as if they were part of their family.
It can be hard to let go and in games where choices matter, this feeling of bonding can increase. Games can make players cry, laugh, and even think with philosophical ideas. Square Enix has been around for decades, and they have certainly put some thought-provoking questions into their games. These are just a few big examples and there will be spoilers.
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6 Final Fantasy 10
Final Fantasy is quite obviously one of Square Enix’s biggest franchises. There are a lot of games that could be highlighted to discuss philosophy in the series. However, the game that sticks out the most is Final Fantasy 10 because it deals with sacrifice, the greater good, and religion. Thousands of years ago in this game’s world, Spira, people used to worship technology. This idolization led to a god appearing, Sin, who was sent to punish this false worship.
Every hundred years after this people called Summoners must make a pilgrimage to appease Sin and make it go away for another hundred years. It is a cycle that everyone accepts, but there is more to it that the newcomer to the world, Tidus, doesn’t understand. Two people will be sacrificed at the end of the pilgrimage to continue the cycle, which in this case will lead to the death of Tidus’ new love interest, Yuna. Should Tidus and the others accept this god’s plan to keep the peace, or should they attempt a coup d'etat in the hopes of breaking the cycle?
5 Front Mission
Front Mission is a series that emulates itself after the original Gundam anime. The Gundam anime showed that there are always two sides to every story. Even though it may seem like the side of evil is truly that, evil, there are gray areas to consider in war and that is what the first Front Mission game explores too.
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Players can choose to start as Royde who OCU, or they can play as Kevin who USN. It’s two perspectives in a war that is covered in bloodshed. What side is right? Is there ever a right side to war? It’s a hard subject to think about let alone play through as war is something around us every day like a disease that cannot be cured.
4 Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days
Kingdom Hearts is one giant interconnected story that started in 2002 and is still ongoing to this day. For a series that includes Disney characters, there are a lot of thought-provoking questions. Of the many games in the series, the odd DS spinoff, Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days, that focused on Organization 13 can best highlight the deeper philosophy of the franchise.
The goal of Organization 13 is to gather hearts. The members of the group are called Nobodies, and they are created after someone loses a heart. Some turn into monsters while others retain their human looks but lose their memories and Organization 13 members fall into the latter category. Why can they retain their bodies but not their memories? What is a heart to a person? It’s kind of a depressing game in all honestly with a lot of heartbreak and subjects that will gloss over the majority of younger audiences.
3 Life Is Strange
Life is Strange is a game that is guaranteed to make players cry as it is a completely story-based adventure game. The first entry follows Max, a budding photographer who moved back to her hometown after becoming estranged from her best friend Chloe. She briefly runs into Chloe in school, doesn’t have time to catch up, and later discovers her dead. That’s not all.
Max also unlocks the ability to travel through time by observing photographs. Her goal is to change the fabric of history to bring Chloe back and to make up for her past mistakes. What choices can she make to do this? Unfortunately, Max will discover that messing with time is a bad thing. To save Chloe players will literally have to sacrifice an entire town to a deadly storm. Is one life worth saving over hundreds of others?
2 NieR: Automata
NieR: Automata is one of the wildest experiments that Square Enix has ever put out in collaboration with PlatinumGames. The story follows two androids who are sent to Earth to bring supplies back up for the last remains of humanity in space. There was some sort of post-apocalypse that led to this escape to the heavens which isn’t explicitly detailed. Everything is not what it appears to be though.
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The first playthrough should take about thirty to forty hours which is standard for an action RPG. However, there are two more major campaigns to play after this which will lead to the true ending. It is a monumental task that leads to some very important questions. What does it mean to be human? Can a consciousness exist digitally? Also, players are asked to sacrifice their entire save data to help others. Doing so will delete everything. From a player’s perspective, this might be the biggest sacrifice any game has ever asked.
1 The World Ends With You
The World Ends With You
- Platform(s)
- Nintendo DS , Switch , Android , iOS
- Released
- July 27, 2007
- Developer(s)
- Square Enix
The World Ends With You is a game about life, death, and acceptance. It begins when a teenager, Neku, learns that he is in a game of death. Neku and his first partner, Shiki, have seven days to complete tasks set up by an organization known as the Reapers. Whoever wins is supposed to be able to make a wish like getting their life back. However, Neku finds himself in a never-ending hell that keeps looping through the seven-day doomed scenario but with different partners.
The entire game is about acceptance, as previously mentioned, but it is not about accepting death. Neku has to grow as a person and accept his limitations just like Shiki and his other partners have to accept their issues. As typical in a Square Enix game, god also comes into play which raises a whole other mess of mind-bending problems.