From its very first trailer, Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin (too long of a name so I’ll just call it Stranger of Paradise from here on out) looked like an incredibly goofy game. Sadly, however, with the current state of the Internet and any discourse related to gaming, words like ‘cringe’ are thrown around with reckless abandon. Here’s a protagonist in what is ostensibly a Final Fantasy game wearing sneakers, wireless earphones, and constantly talking about wanting to kill Chaos.
Now, make no mistake, the first impression from this trailer is… weird. The setting looks like a weird mix of traditional high fantasy with modern-day aesthetics, the protagonist seems to be the literal definition of one-dimensional, and the gameplay and story look like Stranger of Paradise is trying to reimagine the original Final Fantasy as a much edgier, grittier game than it has any right to be. Here, however, is where I must bring forth the idea of camp.
What is Camp?
For a non-academic person like myself, camp is a difficult concept to explain but incredibly easy to notice. Many often confuse the concept with the idea of something being ‘so bad it’s good’, but to assume everything campy is somehow ‘so bad it’s good’ is to do it a disservice. Sure, one of the most common examples of camp over the last couple of decades has been Tommy Wiseau’s The Room. A movie that is filled to the brim with bad acting, terrible pacing, and stupid writing, but one that viewers just can’t stop watching because of the sincerity involved.
A lot of my own understanding of camp comes largely from Susan Sontag’s essay, Notes on “Camp”, originally published in 1964. In the essay, Sontag describes the concept of camp as being defined by its love for the ‘unnatural’. By the ‘unnatural’, Sontag is referring to artifice and exaggeration, and it’s worth noting that most art described as campy is often making use of a lot of exaggeration in its various aspects. “I am strongly drawn to camp, and almost as strongly offended by it,” says Sontag in the essay.
I do find it important to point out that I personally disagree with a few of Sontag’s notes on camp, such as works of camp being inherently apolitical. I believe that it is impossible to create any sort of art without some form of personal politics getting involved, and in this day and age where even the concept of whom a person loves or who they are is considered political, to call a piece of art apolitical is to stop calling it a piece of art to begin with. It also doesn’t help that Sontag’s views on camp and art in general come from a point of view heavily influenced by European and American sensibilities. But these are conversations for another time.
Is Camp Bad?
To describe something as campy isn’t generally a statement on its qualities. Rather, camp is more of an aesthetic; a style of storytelling. Several things are often described as campy aren’t really bad. In fact they’re really good. A great example would be Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater. A game that’s goofy as hell, but has genuine claims to being one of the greatest of all time. Resident Evil is an entire franchise full of camp, and it’s one of the most successful and influential gaming franchises ever.
To call Stranger of Paradise bad because its campy aesthetics don’t gel with your own sense of taste is to be ignorant. Stranger of Paradise has an incredibly clever story, and its combat is some of the best the Final Fantasy franchise has ever seen. Those who acknowledge and appreciate camp can even come to love protagonist Jack as he keeps talking about wanting to kill Chaos.
The whole point of this article is quite simple: stop using the word cringe. It sucks, and severely limits any actual discussion that can be had on a work. To describe something as cringe is to refuse to acknowledge a work of art that doesn’t correspond to your own tastes, and to try and undermine the quality of a work by using the word is to do a great disservice to the very concept of video game discourse. If you want video games to be taken as serious works of art, even if you don’t appreciate camp, acknowledge it.