Video Games

Gaming Doldrums

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I had a post ready to go last week, but I scrapped it because I didn’t like the tone. It was whiny and petulant examination of my increasing disillusionment with video games. I still believe much of what I wrote that video games and the community around them no longer seem to be for me. Maybe I’m growing up (God forbid) or maybe the games really are changing. Either way, I didn’t like the way I complained about my malaise, especially now that I’ve determined the actual cause for it: the games I’ve been playing lately.

Those games are Donkey Kong Country 2 and Viewtiful Joe Double Trouble. They are not necessarily terrible games, but they seemed perfectly suited for ticking me off and disappointing me. Just piles of tedium and bullshit; enough to make me want to quit playing video games entirely.

DKC2, which I’ve already wrote about somewhat, has two big problems. The first is its reliance on Diddy’s animal friends. Rambi the rhinoceros and his cohorts should be analogous to Mario’s various power-ups; useful and needed to reach some secrets, but not necessary to complete the stage. Instead of being supplemental tools, they become the very purpose of more than half the stages. And that’s not counting the three or so mine cart levels. The sheer amount of gimmick levels is disappointing because the “normal” levels are so good.

The animal problem is largely a personal preference, but the other problem is just pure bullshit. That other problem is DKC2’s save system. DKC2 tries to move beyond the earlier game continuation model derived from arcades. There are no continues or passwords, but a more modern hard save. Unfortunately, Rare seemed to think that simply being able to save was too easy, so they clogged the system up with tons of bullshit.

First, saving requires banana coins, which are scattered about the stages. Resident Evil uses a similar system, but that game is based on the idea of scarcity. The fear of not having enough drives the game. Even Resident Evil, though, was kind enough to let keep your typewriter ribbon through after you save. Not in DKC2, all your banana coins disappear when you load your save.

The bullshit doesn’t end there. You can only save at the “Kong Kollege” in each area. But the “Kollege” is not immediately available. No, you have to beat 2 or 3 stages before it usually opens up. So you had better hope you have enough lives to do that left after you beat a boss, because you’ll probably have to fight it again. Alternatively, you could go to a previous area to save, but then you also have to pay Funky Kong a couple of you banana coins to fly to the proper area. If you don’t have enough coins, or if you die, then you have to replay a few early levels to earn the coins needed to leave the area. It is an unending cycle of tedium and bullshit.

Viewtiful Joe: Double Trouble, on the other hand, is simply a disappointment. Clover Studios/ Platinum Games has a pretty much flawless track record, with games ranging from merely very good, like MadWorld and Viewtiful Joe 2, to true classics such as Okami. But Viewtiful Joe DS is not very good at all. Instead of being a handheld game, it desperately tries to recreate the home experience. It also tries to make use of all of the DS’s functions. These toe goals work against each other to make a mess of a game. The two changes from the console games are the screen size and the controls. The controls had me trying to use the touch screen, hit the shoulder buttons and use the d-pad all at the same time. Which had my hands cramping within 20 minutes. The screen size severely limits the series’ trademark stylish action. Together it makes the game a slow, dull, physically painful experience.

Amazingly, once I beat DKC2 — yeah, I beat it, it was not going to beat me — and quit playing Viewtiful Joe, I starting liking video games a whole lot more again. Sure I’m still not too thrilled about where they seem to be headed, as there is less and less of the stuff I like, but now I’m rediscovering the joy of The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask, possibly the most underrated Zelda game. Also, I’m finally starting to come around to Dragon Quest VI. The job system is dumped on me halfway through is starting to be interesting, even if the story is still lackluster.

But video games, yeah I love those. I’m going to go replay Suikoden now, because nothing can restore your faith in video games like the first 2 Suikoden games, except of the holy trinities of the SNES: either the trio of Super Metroid, Super Mario World and Link to the Past, or the trio of Earthbound, Final Fantasy III (VI) and Chrono Trigger.

His name is Donkey

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I’ve been playing Donkey Kong Country 2 lately. Actually I should say I’ve been trying to play Donkey Kong Country 2 lately. Because I am terrible at it. It isn’t my fault though, at least not completely.

DKC2 is a great game. The controls are perfect and the levels are inventive. All of the items set Rare up for the collectathon fall they eventually suffered, but it is at about the perfect amount here. Finding most of the various coins is the point of the game, and they are all cleverly hidden so far. My problem with the game is not about the gameplay at all.

No, my problem is with the graphics. Not so much with how they look, though I do prefer the look of traditional sprites, but with how indistinct I find the various barriers. I jump on a platform, only to find out that it is merely something in the background. I jump over a spiked enemy, but die because the game says I did not make it over. One time I would just assume I misjumped, but more than half of my deaths are from hits I find questionable. I simply cannot “read” DKC2’s graphics.

It conflicts terribly with how buttery smooth the gameplay is. If the game was terrible, I’d just put it down and not look back, but as long as I’m seeing what I think I’m seeing, it is loads of fun. On minute I’m hopping back and forth on honeyed walls in a giant beehive, the next I’m falling to my doom because … I don’t know… maybe I didn’t get to the wall?

These troubles have peaked with the stage Bramble Scramble. The level is 80% killer thorns and the player must lead Diddy on vines from platform to platform, avoid enemies. It is a great idea for a level. Unfortunately, half of the level involves flying with Squawks, a parrot that carries the protagonist through the level. There are spikes above and below, but because Diddy is being carried by the parrot it is impossible to see when he will hit the spikes above him. I have continued no less that 5 times on this one stage. I doesn’t help that the game isn’t consistent in what are deadly spikes and what isn’t. I have jumped through the spikes wall and not been harmed, but the barest edging up against them in some areas spells instant death.

I’m going to keep plugging away. The game is just too much fun to put down. I will not be conquered by a 15 year old platformer. I simply won’t let that happen.

Video Game Archaeology: Dinosaurs for Hire

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It’s time for more Video Game Archaeology! This entry’s game is Tom Mason’s Dinosaurs for Hire for the Sega Genesis. Dinosaurs for Hire was developed by Malibu, probably, and published Sega in 1993. I found it, sans case, at Game Zone, a video game store in Joplin, MO. While the cover comes off as more derivative than genuinely interesting, I thought an unknown Ninja Turtles knock-off to be intriguing enough to warrant a 3.99 purchase.
Extreme enough for you?

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Video Games as Anti-Depressants

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I’m feeling nostalgic. And also kind of depressed. Mostly about video games. For some reason, I can’t seem to bring myself to actually turn any of my systems on right now. I don’t want to play any of my currently in progress games, I want to play something old and comforting. However, I also cannot bring myself to go to the bother of scrounging up any of my old favorites. Usually the Wii’s virtual console is the perfect solution to this problem, bringing many of my favorite classic games to my fingertips, but even it is currently unavailable to me.

I am not unfamiliar with this kind of funk; it have spells like this several times a year. And I know just the games I need to snap me out of it. Some are old, some are fairly recent, but all of them turn the controller into a livewire that zaps my brain and jolts me out of my fugue.

Foremost on this fairly exclusive list is the Mega Man series, mostly the NES games, but some others also do the trick. Mega Man 2 and 3 are the absolute pinnacle of NES action games, and all the games in the series are designed to provide the maximum amount of fun as soon as the game is turned on. One of the best ways they achieve this is the level options. There are sure to be parts of even great games that the player doesn’t like and Mega Man at least allows the player put those off as long as possible. Another is the music, which alone is enough to perk me up significantly.

River City Ransom is a game so full of charm that is goes without saying that it is on this list. But I’ve made my case for it already.

Also on my list of picker-uppers is a select number of JRPGs. For anyone who grew up on a steady diet of SNES, the trio of Final Fantasy 3(6), Chrono Trigger and Earthbound should be familiar. Anyone of those is sure to plant a smile on my face that sticks for at least a week. FF3 is the one side of the tipping point of that series, foreshadowing the changes that were coming while still fitting seamlessly with what came before. Chrono Trigger is the genre’s purest expression and has the perfect snappy pacing to cheer one up. Earthbound is a slower burn, but it’s unequalled charm is immediately apparent. The only non-SNES RPG that works for me is Suikoden 2, another case of a game with fast pacing and one of the best looking 2D games around.

There are some newer games that also fit the bill. While not especially new, the Metal Slug series, played on the flawed but sufficient Wii collection, is the perfect game for a quick jolt. With infinite continues there is no stress, but it still provides a player with gumption a chance to challenge themselves. Every time I try to cut down on the number of continues I use, though I am not always successful.

And lastly there is the Phoenix Wright series for the DS. Playing that series again is like watching re-runs of your favorite TV show. There is absolutely nothing new or different, but the characters you love are always there.

The most important thing about these pick-me-up games is that they provide me with a quick, if not necessarily easy, sense of accomplishment. I can beat Mega Man 2 or a Phoenix Wright case in a short amount of time, giving me the sense that I’ve accomplished something. Which the lack of is usually what has me down to begin with. The RPGs are slightly different. Playing them is like listening to my Grandfather talk about fighting in World War II. The accomplishment was a long time ago, but by going over the tale again the sense of worth his brought again to the forefront.

The games listed aren’t the only ones that fit in this category. But they are my most used ones. Do you readers sometimes need to use a video game as a pick-me-up? What games are your feeling down cures?

Musings on Death (in video games)

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It is the 25th Anniversary of Dragon Quest—in Japan, the first game took three more years to get to America—and since I’m currently playing Dragon Quest VI, I thought it might be a good ides to celebrate one of the series best features. Dragon Quest is the bread and butter of the JRPG genre, with nearly every other game using it at as a starting point or inspiration. For as much as the series is copied, too few other games use Dragon Quest’s no game over strategy.

In most RPGs, as well as most other types of games, if you die you get a blood red “Game Over” screen and it kicks you back out to the title. However, Dragon Quest, even as far back as the first game in the series, just tosses the player back to the last—or only in the case of DQ1—church. All experience and items gained stay with the player, though the gold the player was carrying is cut in half. It doesn’t quite take all the penalty out of dying, but it does severely lessen the blow. Most importantly, it assures the player that they are never wasting their time. In the normal death model, being wiped by a boss means that all the progress through the dungeon has been lost, where in Dragon Quest all is means is you have to fight the boss again. It allows the game to up the difficulty of fights without frustrating the player since progress is never lost.

How do games like Final Fantasy get around to loss of progress problem? By adding more save points, an imperfect resolution at best. With more save points, frequently one just before boss rooms, there is less loss of progress, but it still wastes time. It takes the player out of the game. Sure, you’ll just reload your save and try again; nothing has changed from the last time other than any knowledge of the boss gleaned from the failed attempt. Instead of distressingly punitive consequences, there are none. Why games refuse to adopt Dragon Quest’s elegant death mechanic is puzzling.

Many ill-informed critics don’t seem to grasp the Dragon Quest system and instead deride the series for its draconian saving policy (i.e. at churches, only at churches). That is a feature, not a bug. Though a quick save feature like the DS games have is a welcome feature. By restricting permanent saves to town, it encourages players to reevaluate their approach after a death.

Playing Dragon Quest just really makes me wish more RPGs considered what they are penalizing on death. I love Persona 3, but its death mechanics are unfriendly for the sake of being unfriendly. In the game, there are two separate battle situations. There are the full moon story segments, usually a boss and maybe a small dungeon with a few random battles, where a game over makes sense. There is little progress lost and the fate of the world rests specifically on that time. However, Tartarus, the randomly generated grinding pit, is the opposite. A game over loses all progress on the long trek to the next safe floor. Everything is stacked against the player. If the main character dies game over, many enemies like to spam instant death magic. The battles are not really random, but the enemies in each are.

Very little challenge would be lost if instead of losing everything upon death the player was instead forced out of the dungeon for that day. The floors a randomly generated, so there is no memorizing the layout. The player would still have to start from the last safe/boss floor and make it to the next safe/boss floor in one go. All the player would keep are the levels from the battle that they already won. There is no loss of challenge, just a loss of time wasting bullshit.

I’m not sure the same could be said of the Etrian Odyssey series, where the challenge is to survive in the maze-like dungeon. If dying merely sent the player back to town, with say the loss of all items being carried, most of the challenge would be lost, turning the game into one long tedious, toothless grind. Of course, Etrian Odyssey is much less dependant on gotcha deaths than Persona, at least after the first couple of floors. Instead of no penalty, it could use a rescue system, where the player uses other characters from the guild to go get the ones who fell, but as it is I think it works. While Etrian Odyssey could undoubtedly be friendlier, it at least seems well considered in its hostility.

Video Game Archaeology: Trojan

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This examination of Trojan is the first entry in what is hopefully a long-running and well-loved feature on my blog: Video Game Archaeology. For Video Game Archaeology I will search out games that I am personally unfamiliar with, games that I have never played, never seen played, even games that I have never heard of, and then I will play them. Also, I will try to find out their lineage and their importance, if they have any. I know that many games get forgotten not because they were badly made, but due to mnay reasons that have nothing to do with the games quality, like timing or trends. I hope that in my searches I will find some lost treasures, but more likely, I will uncover lots of junk. Is my knowledge of a game a good indicator of how well known it is? While I do not presume to know everything, I would say I have quite a bit of knowledge on the subject. The games do not have to be completely unknown; I am just hoping to avoid games that are well known.

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Questing for Dragons

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I am back to playing Dragon Quest VI on my DS. Like nearly every other entry in the series, I like it. The Dragon Quest series is comfortable. The games may no break much ground, but they are crafted with so much skill and affection that they never feel tired.

Dragon Quest VI highlights one of the series greatest strengths: the episodic nature of its plot. Some other RPGs do this to an extent as well, like the Suikoden series, but Dragon Quest is notable for placing greater focus on the trials and tribulations of each small town and their inhabitants rather than the larger world saving quest. Not that the world saving is ignored, just that the small vignettes are the focus and therefore more memorable. Dragon Quest VI puts even more emphasis on them than other Dragon Quest games. It really helps make the game world seem big and real when not everyone and everything is focused on the central conflict.

Unfortunately, DQVI also continues a trend in the series that is awful and inexplicable: hiding the job system. Nearly half of the DQ series uses a job system and all of them, save maybe DQIII that I have not played, bury it behind ten or more hours of the game. I just do not understand it. A job/class system is a real draw for me; I want to play around with teaching my characters interesting combinations of abilities. Why hide the game’s biggest draw behind a quarter game’s worth of simplified combat? The Final Fantasy games with job systems make it available within an hour of turning the game on. They limit the class options, but still allow the player some early choices. I would rather DQ do that than just dump the system on the player after ten rote hours.

The Quest 5: The Final Frontier

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I was not sure that I was doing an update of The Quest this week, as I had made little progress, but two nights ago, I became so fed up with backtracking in Castlevania that I disgustedly put it back on the shelf. Ten minutes later Growlanser III joined, though for no specific reason, I just didn’t feel like playing it anymore right now. That left two slots for me to add games to my immediate playing schedule.

The first I added was Marvel: Ultimate Alliance. Fresh off seeing the fantastic Thor movie (review coming) I was hankering for some superhero smashing. Unfortunately, Marvel: Ultimate Alliance has now been added to the distressing list of games my PS2 just will not play. While this is disappointing, it is not as bad as some others are because my brother has the game for the PS3. I can just play it on that system later. So Marvel: Ultimate Alliance has been removed from the list.

I’ve also pulled Killer 7 and Star Ocean 3 from the shelf. I have not played Killer 7 enough to even begin to form an opinion on it, but so for I have enjoyed most of the other games from Grasshopper Manufacture and Suda 51, so I have high hopes. As for Star Ocean 3, I have played nearly halfway through that game over the last 4 or 5 years, but I have yet to really get the battle system. It looks like the Tales games, but it plays differently and it has just not clicked for me yet. I have managed to make it as far as I have on sheer determination and because I’m not stupid. If the rest of the game was more worth my time, I probably spent enough time to figure the game out, but the story is somewhat terrible and I hate the crafting. One more chance is all it gets.

I am still playing Tsugunai: Atonement. I have finally figured out how to enjoy that game. A couple times a week I play one of the games “missions.” Even if I am still enjoying playing at that point, I shut the game off. Tsugunai grates quickly, but has enough good ideas to be enjoyable in small chunks. It does mean that beating it will probably be a long time coming.

From now on, I will only update on mission to finish with all my Ps2 games if I have something to cross of the list, as I did this week with M:UA.

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The Quest 4: The Quest for Peace

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I beat no games this week. I made progress on three, but there is not crossing something off the list this week. Tsugunai continues to be tolerable, but after 15 of the 34 quests, I feel I’ve seen just about everything this game has to offer. While the basics of the battle system is good, the fact that you never control more than one character makes it too simple. Growlanser III compliments it’s fun battle system by going out of its way to drain the fun out of it. When it shines through the crap it is great, but there is too much crap. Too much anime bullshit, Too much uneven difficulty and too much ridiculous battle restrictions.

I also started Casltevania: Lament of Innocence. It is the 2D handheld games perfectly transitioned to 3D. Unfortunately, as much as I like those Castlevania games, this is not a good thing. Since the castle is segmented, the fun of exploring it is curtailed. And 3D space makes the backtracking and constant combat a tedious chore. Still, the game is marginally enjoyable. The mediocre reviews it got on release were accurate. My current map completion percentage is about 55%, so I should definitely finish it up by next week.

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A Month of Gardner 1

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The old nursery rhyme, or whatever the hell it is, goes “April showers bring Mayflowers.”  Well, with all those damn flowers popping up everywhere what is needed now is a gardener.  That is why–or it’s a tenuous rationalization for me doing whatever the hell I want to do, but hey, it’s my blog I don’t really need a reason–everyday in the month of May I am going to post a comic panel of the incomparable Guy Gardner, Green Lantern.

So 31 days of panels featuring the one, true Green Lantern that need no explanation.  Or maybe are just not getting one.  I may add a supposedly funny caption, but we’ll see.  Here’s todays:

from JLA Classified #4, pg 22