Monthly Archives: March 2003

Storytelling as a craft

  • Reading time:6 mins read

Wind Waker just came today.

Jesus. I had no idea how right I was about the whole legend/storybook aspect. That’s precisely what this game is. The introduction sequence lays it all out.

Link has a lobster on his shirt!

In terms of gameplay and general structure, Wind Waker is almost identical to OoT. The controls are much more polished, mroe responsive, and generally nicer-feeling than in OoT. We’ve still got the god-damned fetch quests. (In fact, I think we’ve got more than in OoT.) Dungeons and towns and shops are generally laid out in the same way as before.

So, yeah. Basically imagine a really buttery OoT, with just about all of the interface problems removed, and you’ve got a good starting point.

At least in the first few hours, the game seems oddly linear. The player is given a boat right near the outset, and free roam of the ocean (which now covers almost the entire world) — but if the player decides to head off on his own whims, the boat begins to complain.

Yes, I know I’m not going in the right direction. Thank you. I don’t care if I’m not ready for that island yet; I want to visit it anyway.

There are more natural contraints for the player than simply not allowing him to go where he pleases.

Honestly, I’m starting to get tired of the post-Adventure of Link Zelda gameplay style. I wasn’t fond of most of the changes in Link to The Past, but one of the things which most irritated me was the way that items came to be used.

I’m not going to elaborate right now on exactly what the distinction is, but OoT backpeddled a bit in this regard; its item system — the items available; the manner in which they, the player, the environment, and enemies interacted; the manner, timing, and order with which the items were acquired — reminds me far more of the way things worked in the NES games than in LttP.

Wind Waker feels more like LttP, as far as items go.

Take that as you will.

Actually, given how integral the whole item collection system is to the game structure (as in Metroid), this has a pretty big effect on the general tone of the game.

In Wind Waker, I feel like I’m just collecting random doodads. Some of them are useful; some aren’t. But the only reason the game is giving them to me is to enable me to progress. At the point I’m at now — around five hours into the game — I’m ceasing to be thrilled when I find a new inventory item.

What’s worse is that about half of the items in the game so far seem to serve no purpose other than as keys in fetch quests. Argh. I don’t care! This is an adventure game convention which needs to die. Soon.

Further, even the interesting items — such as the grappling hook — are often hindered a bit by needless irritation. Every single time the grapple wraps around a post, for instance, the game halts to show me a four-second cutscene. I don’t need this more than once ever, thank you.

The good parts so far: the atmosphere and general graphic design are just fantastic, now that I’ve got some context for all of their elements. Link actually has a lot of personality; his facial expressions add a bunch to the game. Almost every object in the environemnt is interactive in some vague way or another. The water and fire and smoke and heat effects are very well-executed.

There’s this one kid on the first island who has a perpetual, enormous drip of snot hanging from his nose. I don’t know if that was really necessary.

I have a feeling I know who Zelda is. I’ve had this feeling since about half an hour into the game.

Where the atmosphere is original, it’s great. Where it’s not, it’s tiring — at least for me. All of the forced OoT-ish trappings quickly began to wear on me — but in the cases where the game takes a full left turn into its own universe, there’s a ton of life to be found. These moments tend to evidence themselves when the player is either left free to explore and bond with the environment, or when the game locks the player into a tightly-scripted plot sequence. Where I begin to lose patience is where the game tries to yank me around and force me to do things for it for no other reason than the fact that it’s a videogame.

I’m not fond of manipulation. I don’t mind wasting time of my own accord, but I don’t like my time to be wasted for me.

To be fair, I’m still only a few hours into the game. The plot hasn’t fully picked up yet, and I’m not yet as free to wander — so perhaps things will become less annoying in the future.

As far as sailing goes — it’s a mildly interesting mechanic, for a few minutes. The problem is that it takes so long to get anywhere. And once you set your coordinates, you don’t… really do anything. If you try, you’ll probably end up stopping the boat. The best thing to do when travelling is just to put the controller down and get a sandwich.

Again — maybe something else happens with this later. Right now, though, I’m perplexed. There are a lot of really good ideas in this system — so why did they combine them in such an obviously tedious manner?

I hope there’s more use for the telescope in the near future. About an hour in, I found a camera of sorts which has exactly the same functionality, except with the added benefit of enabling me to take pictures. I don’t see what I need the telescope for, if I’ve got this other item sitting around. I hope this isn’t just an oversight. We’ll see.

So — to boil it down:

The good — the graphical style; the atmosphere; the expressiveness of the characters (similar to Skies of Arcadia in this respect (among many)); the smooth controls; the non-annoying menu system; some interesting potential with a few of the new items; the self-reflective sense of humor of the dialogue; the Koji Kondo score; the introductory sequence.

The bad — how manipulative and needlessly annoying the actual game tends to be so far; THE FUCKING FETCH QUESTS; the overall structure of the item system so far.

Again — in its best places, this game has a different atmosphere from any previous Zelda game. I hope the game takes more advantage of its advantages than it seems content to thus far. It feels like a real shame to me that with all of these great new ideas, Eiji Aonuma felt compelled to make a Zelda game out of the pieces.

So. We’ll see, we’ll see…

Fire, psycho soldier! Fire!

  • Reading time:10 mins read

In light of the release date (June somethingth) supposedly now being set for the DC release of KoF2002, I’ve some observations to make about the MVS version of the game.

As far as KoF goes, it’s… okay. It feels a little off, but the presentation is very nice. The music is far better than in 2001. Most of the characters have a sizey amount of new animation.

One of the first positive impressions you’ll get with 2002 is how well-synched the intro is to the music. The intro sequence has its ups and downs, and it ends in the anticlimax of an ugly title screen — but there are some neat sequences in there.

Every time you hit the character select screen, your face is bombarded by the words:

THE

KING

OF

FIGHTERS

They scale from inside the screen, toward your face, at light speed, all within about half a second. It’s dizzying, especially if you’re in practice mode and you keep hopping back out to change characters. It began to make me feel a little strange after three or four times in a row.

(Incidentally, Hiroaki’s new character portraits are great, all around.)

Just about every character has more frames of animation, this time around — bringing some of the older characters, in places, up to nearly the level of someone like Angel. Robert’s fireball animation is different. A lot of characters’ standard moves are much smoother-looking. You will be terrified by Kim’s pants. Just a fair warning.

Several of the characters (such as Athena) feel unusually smooth in this game. On the other hand, the game tends to be a lot picker about what it will accept as a special move command. (For instance: if a move requires QCF, it won’t execute if you enter HCF… think about it for a moment.) Further, several characters seem to be missing some key moves from the last several games.

The entire Sakazaki family seems to have undergone some weird changes. NONE of them has a windmill kick anymore — Ryo, Takuma, or Yuri. Yuri no longer has her twirly fist thing from the NESTS era, but instead that — ball of energy, from earlier eras. Her air fireball has to be cast in the air, now — a difficult feat, at times.

Actually, Takuma seems to have lost all of his moves. He can still do a fireball (and his haoh-syoken dm), but there isn’t any projectile. Maybe he still has some other moves, but — jeez. Well-hidden enough.

K9999 comes out in a brown leather bomber jacket, these days. It suits him. He also has a third special move. He’s beginning to feel a bit more complete as a usable character.

Rugal slaughtered me instantly. I was using the NESTS team. I barely hit him. It might just be me, but he seems even cheaper than usual.

Honestly, I miss the striker feature. Most of the characters from the past three games were specifically designed for the striker era. The strikers made up for some of their shortcomings, making the characters generally more balanced and stategically competetive. Now everyone’s just left to fend for his or herself.

This drop back to the old format causes a few other problems. To change stance with May Lee you hit the first three buttons, yes? Well, this command was instituted during 2001, when there was no “charge mode” for the characters as there is in every one of the previous games (in some form or another; it’s split into two separate, less-useful modes in ’99 and 2000).

Now, that “power rush” mode is back. And it’s entered the same way as in the old games. As a result, every single time you change stance with May Lee, you waste a power stock.

The voice acting is typically good (although Terry’s move names — he’s changed them entirely; no more “burn knuckle” or “rising tackle” or “crack shoot”). The sound effects are better than usual.

The music sounds like circa-’97 level material. Most of it is made up of remixed themes from earlier in the series — from ’94 all the way through 2000. The NESTS-era stuff is now all guitary, in keeping with the earlier musical style of the series. (The Burning Team uses a variation of the ’99 hero theme, only transformed from burbling techno into thrashing metal with some electronic overtones.) There are even some voice samples here and there, in the music. The Garou theme, for instance — yes, the familiar one — has been turned into hip-hop now.

The instrument samples are still not of as high a quality as in most of the pre-Eolith games, but the composition is a hell of a lot better than last time around. I like the new (ex-)NESTS theme.

Kyo’s theme is now “Tears”. (I like both Tears and Goodbye Esaka, actually — either would have been appropriate as the NESTS-era Kyo’s theme here.) The Ikari Team is the one from ’94 — the one which sounds kind of like a Faith No More song. Now that King is gone, the Gals theme has reverted to the Yuri theme from the AoF series.

The Spy Team (as I call them) uses one of the two hero themes from 2000. I think it’s the K’ one rather than Benimaru, though — which seems a little weird, as the 2000 Burning theme is really just a variation of the ’99 theme (just as Goodbye Esaka and Tears are both variants of Esaka Forever). But the Benimaru Team — that theme isn’t really attached to anyone.

The backgrounds here are are technically very well-done, if a bit flat and uninspired. There are a good number of successful in-jokes and references.

There’s this one level — the China one — which is getting on my nerves. Whomever you face there, you’ll invariably get the “China” theme (which doubles as the theme for either Kensou or Chin) rather than that of your opponent. Further, while there are only half a dozen stages in the game, the China stage seems to pop up more frequently than any other background in the game. So it’s like you’ve a one in four chance of having that theme pop up, every battle.

Whatever happened to the complex pre-’97 stages, anyway? The ones with the intro animations, the multiple levels of scrolling, the unusual perspectives, the interactive background elements? And if there are only three characters per team in 2002, why don’t the non-fighting teammates stand in the background to wait their turn, as in every game up until ’99?

Aside from the title screen (which is blessed with the most ugly, ill-concieved logo in the entire series), KoF2002 has to be one of the prettiest, more well-presented games in the series for at least a few years. This is not to call it coherent, but all of the individual elements tend to show a large amount of skill in their device.

Again, however — there’s… something inherently missing in 2002. It feels emotionally tied together with twine.

There’s something a little empty about this game. Half-hearted.

’98 was a dream match, but it was really vibrant; probably the most fun the series has ever been. The characters had more personality than at any other time in the series. Shingo was around. There were lots of silly little details. There were alternate versions of many of the characters. The game was internally-consitent to a degree that none of the other chapters really have been, with the probable exceptions of ’96 and 2001. It was alive.

I guess one of the key problems of 2002 is a reasonably subtle one — merely that the characters are from all over the place. There isn’t a lot of internal integrity to the roster; many of the characters just don’t really have much of anything to do with each other. There aren’t any relationships going on. I mean, what does Shermie have to do with Billy have to do with K9999? There’s no context for anything.

Peculiarly, even for those characters who do have strong relationships, most of their special intros and endings have been removed. There’s nothing in particular going on between Mai and Andy, or Kyo and Iori.

’98 — you felt like it was a big party of sorts, y’know? Everyone’s invited. Most of the characters knew most of the others in some way — and they had something to say about it. Here — it’s just a bunch of characters thrown together. They don’t seem to know why they’re there.

And a lot of important people have been left out, who might make things more coherent, such as King. Chizuru might help, even if I don’t use her. Or Saisyu. Shingo, definitely.

I mean — there are good characters here. But. One of the intregal qualities of KoF is that internal consistency of the cast. They all support each other. Here, it’s like they’re drawn out of a hat. It can’t just be that these are the most popular, as King is a profoundly popular character.

KoF has a lot of background that one needs to deal with in order to make it KoF.

The problems go beyond merely the emotional depth, however. Frankly, the game also feels little empty to me in terms of gameplay.

I’m used to the striker system now, and four-character teams. This feels stripped-down in comparison. Thing is — ’98 and before? They didn’t feel this way. The first time around, this game system didn’t have holes in it. Now it does. The series has been steadily evolving, and most of the internal elements rely upon each other pretty strongly. By just ripping out the core game system and replacing it with an older variation — you’re setting yourself up for some problems.

It just feels like… there are fewer options now, in terms of gameplay. Even in ’98 you had two play modes, y’know? And before that, there was something new to learn every year.

2002 feels like KoF lite — with most of the soul and energy removed, both technically and emotionally. I find it really difficult to bond with this game.

What’s a little weird about this is that the same team behind 2002 was responsible for 2001 — which I find to be in many ways the pinnacle of the entire series. All it lacked was some polish around the edges. Now we’ve got the polish, but we’ve lost almost everything else which made 2001 great.

I hope Playmore is doing something really special with the DC port. Rumor has it that they’re adding up to fifteen more characters. If so, this could go a long way toward fleshing the game out.

I’m undoubtedly going to pick the game up when it’s released, just for the sake of posterity — but my scrutiny is doubled for KoF2003 (if indeed it’s in production; Playmore hasn’t said anything about it yet). It’s really difficult to assess where things might go from here. What should be even more difficult for the team is that 2003 is the start of a new era. They’re going to have to be unusually creative this time around in order to sell the game as anything but just another chapter of the series.

I know that Eolith and Brezza have it in them. It’s just hard to tell whether they realize it.

I’ve yet to pay for a Gamecube game.

  • Reading time:6 mins read

I’ve got the OoT disc now. It’s… a decent port.

At the point I’m at now, I just beat Gohma and hit Hyrule Field again. Golly, it was a lot quicker this time around. The first time I played this portion of the game, I think it took me several hours to get as far as this. Now it’s taken me only around half an hour. Of course I did poke around quite a lot, before.

There are a lot of ads included for Wind Waker (both on the disc and in the packaging), which seems superfluous considering that the only way to get this disc is as a pre-order bonus with that game.

This compilation disc is apparently labeled, officially, as The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. Master Quest is called “The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time: Master Quest” Which… makes sense. It’s not really a novel game in its own right so much as it is a second quest of OoT. (The instruction booklet doesn’t even bother to distinguish between the games.)

So collectively this disc kind forms the complete version of OoT. OoT DX, as it were.

The actual presentation of this package, I’m not sure about. It was thrown together pretty quickly.

The game disc is printed with the logo and the game title in red and black. The side of the case again simply lists the game as OoT. The back of the case actually goes into a fair amount of detail, considering that this isn’t intended for direct sale. The front is graced with a disappointing excuse for cover art (even more so than usual for Gamecube games). heh. It’s just the two logos against a gradiant background, with a few blurbs.

Just the logos would have been fine, if they were presented elegantly. Not so here. It’s not terrible; it’s just not… amazing.

When you boot up the system, tou’re presented with a screen that’s got an ocarina in the background and then logos (with corresponding pictures of link) in the upper-left and upper-right, for each of the two quests. Then down at the bottom is an option to allow you to view trailers to several other Gamecube and GBA games.

A new mix of Hyrule Field/the original Zelda theme plays in the background.

Below the logos, some… rather loud, overly large text explains the current selection in greater detail; a one-sentence synopsis which honestly seems a little condescending to me.

When you choose either quest, it gives you a splash screen that illustrates the controls for you and asks you if you want to use the rumble feature. Seems again kind of superfluous; they could have just thrown that into the options menu. And the game already teaches you how to play, and the instruction booklet is quite thorough.

The game takes a good while to load once you select one of the two quests. I understand why, of course. But you just get a black screen with a progress bar and a bit of related clip-art pasted above. That could have been more seamless.

The only changes are that it’s in a higher resolution now (and there’s no more of that palette dithering), and the issues with the controls. Any text and icons in the game have been altered to reflect the Gamecube pad a little more closely. The button colors at the top of the screen, for instance.

It’s strange. Not even the frame rate has been brought up. It’s just as choppy as on the N64. Draw distance seems the same.

It’s basically a perfect port. It emulates the positive and the negative of the original game. Including all of the text that you can’t skip and Navi’s over…Naviness. Even the small issues which could have been repaired, generally aren’t. Or they don’t seem to be; all of the graphical and camera engine peculiaries.

The controls are fine. They feel as natural as possible considering the differences between the N64 and Gamecube pads. I think the L trigger, being analog, is a little mushier than what we had before with the Z trigger.

The secondary items work okay. Right now I have slingshot on Y (the missile button in Metroid). Deku nut is X. And I’ve the ocarina set to Z.

It’s a little annoying to have to reach for the C-stick every time Navi starts to whine, though. And I’m not sure yet how it’s going to work once one has to start playing melodies on the ocarina (that’s the only place to access one of the notes).

So that should be… interesting.

The music stutters slightly when one brings up the menu screen.

The game takes a lot of memory for saving — fifteen blocks, to compare to Metroid’s two. This accounts for both the normal game and Master Quest, though.

It also takes a while to save. And as with the loading sequence, the method isn’t as polished as it could be. The screen just goes black, and a clumsy message appears to instruct you NOT to touch the memory card or the power button. Then it says the game has saved, and requires the player to hit “okay” to continue. And it drops back into the game.

Again, that could have been more seamless.

I also… Hmm.

The demo movies are interesting, but I think they’re kind of out-of-place here. They take down the tone of the disc in general. If it were just the two quests, with an elegant selection interface, I think that would take up the respectability several notches. As it is, this feels like… a free bonus disc.

Oddly, Sega’s name doesn’t appear anywhere on the F-Zero trailers. Nor does that of Amusement Vision. I’m not as surprised that Treasure isn’t mentioned in relation to Wario World.

In a big, edited sequence that shows off most of the big games which have been released since the Gamecube’s launch (all the way back to SSBM), PSOep1&2 and Super Monkey Ball 2 are amongst the last two or three items shown.

And there are some odd ones in there. A random James Bond game from EA. Timesplitters 2. Some other things which have little specifically to do with the Gamecube.

It’s more like “we’ve got this too!” than “look at what we’ve got that no one else does!”.

There’s nothing really wrong with the disc, and it’s certainly worth having around. It’s just — I’m surprised that it wasn’t handled with more care than it was. It wouldn’t have been at all difficult to have made things feel a little less cheap.

The games themselves are basically fine, from what I’ve seen so far. It just feels like an N64 perfectly emulated on my Gamecube.

Things To Do!

Theramin power!

  • Reading time:2 mins read

I’ve concluded that a large part of the power of Metroid Prime’s main theme comes from its use of its time signature. It took a while for me to lock into what it was doing, rhythmically, as it works perfectly well when jammed into a 2/4 meter.

For those of you who’re following me out there, you probably know where I’m going next with this.

That’s right. In reality, it’s set to 6/8. This explains a large part of everything, as far as I’m concerned.

Allow me to illustrate.

Time signatures of a multiple of three (waltz time) are inherently circular. Unlike even beats (2/2, 4/4), which can be considered “square”, there is a constant, swirly, forward motion to threes. (You can ponder the logistics as to why, on your own. It can get pretty deep.)

The thing is about 6/8 — which, incidentally, is not one of the most common signatures out there (although it’s not all that odd either; it’s just underused) — is that it’s a hybrid of sorts. You’ve got the circular motion from its 3/4 element, and you’ve got an even-sided, comprehensible measure with its 2/4 qualities.

It’s the best of both worlds, to a certain extent — and if it’s used well.

The inherent possibilities of this meter are as follows.

You have a square measure which is split down the middle, into two round halves. Intuitively, in order to create forward motion, you need the halves to roll into each other in a balanced way.

One roll to set up; one roll to conclude. And it goes on like this. Pressure, release, pressure, release. Like an inchworm, or a heartbeat. The music seems to live. And it yanks the listener forward in an unusually powerful way.

And what’s more — because of the circular nature of the music, it has the potential to loop pretty seamlessly. Heh.

I have to go.