10 Years a TBM – Final Fantasy X And My First Reality

As long as I can remember, I have enjoyed playing video games. In the early 90s, my first video game was the original Super Mario Brothers. Another childhood favorite was Megaman. And that, folks, is how I got the name Retrogamerdave. Before I ever had a testimony, I played video games as much as I could. Once I found my testimony, I played video games even more. The reason for that is probably that I finally got a computer of my own (which was definitely a blessing of prosperity for my faithfulness). But my gaming habits began to change once I started to prepare for a mission. I knew that I couldn’t play for two years solid, so I began to wean myself off. But the last thing I did before being set apart as a missionary was play Super Mario Brothers for the last time. During my mission, I would sometimes (ie, often) think about what I would do when I got back. It is no surprise that living in the “real world” as a missionary led me to place less and less importance on leisure and especially video games. I played occasionally after my mission, but it just didn’t have the same appeal as it used to. My logic for explaining my sudden disinterest was that as an adult it just wasn’t important anymore. It was just a waste of time to play video games. It didn’t help that more than one church leader while I was growing up criticized the overuse of video games. Some leaders made it sound like it was bad to play them at all. Obviously none of them knew the pleasure of beating Dr. Wily for the gazillionth time. None of them could knew how it felt to discover the truth about Cloud Strife and his past with Sephiroth, Tifa and Zack. None of them new anything about video games, yet they were apparently qualified to lecture on the subject.

My favorite thing about video games is that they allow the human mind to experience a fantasy world. While video games often depict a world that is incompatible with reality, the characters, music and emotions are real. While many adults I know who never experienced video games as a youngster view film and books as superior media for finding fantasy, video games are unique in the sense that you get to inject a little bit of yourself into that fantasy. And sometimes you get sucked in deeply enough that you have to remind yourself that it’s just a game. Dr. Robotnik hasn’t really captured all the animals and, unfortunately, you can’t save or load your game at will.

Oddly enough, several months after I began to doubt my testimony, I wanted to play video games again. Pretty soon I was spending an hour or two a day reliving the glory days of my gaming career. Although I am definitely more choosy about my games now (and I was pretty choosy ten years ago) I enjoy getting sucked into a fantasy world just like I used to. I keep asking myself why I stopped playing video games in the first place. I think getting married had a lot to do with it. It’s safe to say that I had very little besides romance on my mind for the first year of marriage. Then the kids came along and I had already fallen out of the habit so it seemed like there was no time for playing any games besides peekaboo and pat-a-cake.

The irony is that for the ten years that my testimony lasted, I lived in a fantasy world. It was a world with infallible prophets, hidden scriptures and magic rituals with the power to save the world from certain destruction. I finally understood the irony when I started playing Final Fantasy X a few months ago. I first encountered the game ten years ago as a TBM and inwardly scoffed at the people of Spira who lived in fear of transgressing the teachings of Yevon that were meant to keep them safe in a world threatened at every moment by Sin. In particular, I laughed at Wakka, the zealot who couldn’t look at a forbidden machine without fearing Yevon’s wrath. And now I come to find out that Yu Yevon was just a little parasite who created an ideology to serve his own interests. But he had convinced himself that it was for the good of the people and look at all the problems it caused! It’s obvious to me now that the story was designed to challenge the player to reject false ideologies. But ten years ago I was just as blind as Wakka. As I play that game now, I admire the Al-Bhed for daring to defy Yevon. I respect Yuna and the Ronso for clinging to the good while abandoning the false parts of their religion. Sometimes I feel like Tidus. I definitely don’t feel like a hero or anything, but like him, I have gone through the process of first resenting the reality of now, then eventually accepting it and ultimately embracing it. Maybe the old TBM me was part of a dream, just like Tidus. Maybe my old world of believing Mormonism never really existed. Regardless of the past, it all begins here. This is it. This is my story.