We All Fall Down

Iconoclasm

  • Reading time:5 mins read

This is a note to myself, for later reference, on the ICO thing.

I climb a ladder, and walk along a raised pathway supported by arches and pillars. The pathway ends in a door that opens when I stand on a pressure plate in front of it. I walk through. I walk across another parapet-styled bridge, to stumble through a side entrance into a room. The main door to the room — a big, solid wooden thing — is closed. To open the door, I climb a ladder to a platform near the ceiling, jump to a pipe which juts out of the wall next to the platform, sidle hand-by-hand along the pipe to another platform, which happens to be positioned right where the pipe turns off and ends in the wall again. On the other side of this second platform is another pipe, that runs straight across the room, toward a parallel platform. I again hang from this pipe until I reach platform number three. Here, I find a third pipe, parallel to the first, which leads to a fourth platform. This platform also happens to be in front of a window. I walk through the window, and climb down another ladder which does not quite extend to the ground below. I will not be able to climb back up it, once I drop. Next, I open the door by pulling a nearby lever. I then go back in, grab Yorda by the hand, and leave.

This is all clever level design. It uses my character’s abilities well. It is clear what I have to do. On a technical level — one of pure mechanical design — there are no problems. The situation is even to be commended, for the ingenuity in its scupture.

However, as far as world-logic goes: huh? The game seems to want to suggest that the game world is a real place, with a certain reason to it. This is why it gives me pipes and ledges and windows and comprehensible architecture. Yet the only function this architecture holds is to be traversed by the player character. The back-entrance to the room could have any explanation. The pipes, although arbitrary, are similar in this respect. What, however, about the two (latter) ladders? The platforms? Why are they placed just where there is a break in the pipes? The ladder surely is there for no other reason to reach that first platform — which serves no purpose but to allow access to the pipe/platform “puzzle” (as it were). The window needs no reason — yet what of the drop-off ladder which leads from it? There is no access to the window other than the pipe, which I assume no one but the player character would have reason to hang from in order to reach that far platform. There is no way up to the ladder from the ground below, nor would there be reason if there is no way down from the inside. And what of the lever to open the door? Unless the room serves no purpose but to keep someone in, there is no practical reason to put a single lever on the outside of the room. Yet that is an unlikely purpose for the room, because of the back entrance.

All of this might sound like quibbling — yet it is in leaving room for questions like these that the game world betrays itself. And it is so unnecessary. Only a few extra details would be necessary to give context to the game world. Don’t make it so easy for the player. Or don’t just give a single route. Put some more pipes in the room, which don’t just lead to the exit. That one happens to, will seem arbitrary. Rather than the convenient ladder, force the player to find his own convoluted way up to the pipes. Let him notice the pipes through his own observations and then devise a plan for maybe using them. And rather than putting a single lever on the outside of the door, give the door an internal switch. Just make it broken. Or, perhaps, put a bar on the inverse, that the player must remove. That would be adequate. Either get rid of the platforms or find some other rationalization for why that geometry would be present. Turn them into hay lofts, perhaps. Or maybe force the player to swing from one pipe to the next. Maybe have one pipe break off, when the player puts his character’s weight on it, allowing him to swing to the next — which will itself creak, and maybe pop a rivet, but not collapse. Or devise some other scheme. It’s not hard.

This is my issue with the game. It can all be rationalized, sure. Should I have to rationalize it? No. Is it appropriate to make up my own connections? I fear not.

The game does far more right than it does wrong. It’s just, it is an experiment. And this is one of its lessons.

Smile, Apollo, Smile.

  • Reading time:4 mins read

I found a copy of Space Channel 5 Special Edition, for the PS2, for twelve dollars. The localization perplexes me a little. Of course, none of the voice actors save Apollo Smile return for Part 2 — so several flashbacks to the first game are redubbed. Yet, the title screens and packaging have been changed to both games. In no obvious place is it stated that discs 1 and 2 are supposed to be two separate games; they are just packaged as discs one and two of a single game. This makes the sudden change in (quality of) voice actors sort of peculiar.

Let’s see. Other arbitrary changes. In Part One, the Report Two boss — remember her? There’s a bit where Ulala yells: “Is that a tongue? AAH! It’s so slimy… incredibly… slimy…” — with horror changing to a weird kind of ecstacy, in her voice. That’s been replaced with something like “Ah, get yet mitts offa’ me! It’s so slimy!” In part two (though not in part one), the ability to zoom the characters around in the profile mode has been removed. Or. I think it has. I seem to recall being able to roll the character models around and look under their skirts. Can’t do that anymore. Remember the loading screens? “Now Moloading/Roboading”? No more. Just “Now Loading”. Lots of fun, these Agetec guys. In a similar vein, most of the unimportant characters in the profile section (even returning characters, like Biluba Boriskovsky) now just have generic names — Preschool Student (Green) — rather than specific names. The teacher, Mr. Joely, has been blandly called “Mr. Nervous”. No more effort than required here.

I think one of Evila’s lines was changed, and dubbed over by a wholly different actress. And then they didn’t bother to process the voice as the voice was processed before. Also, Fuse does have voice samples for the first game where he advises you to use the “X” and “O” buttons. I’m not sure whence those came, unless Sega was forward-looking enough to get Dave Nowlin to record those during the original redubbing sessions.

A lot of the charisma of the Japanese versions and of the English dub to Part One is just missing in Part Two. Even Apollo Smile does not seem to have been directed well, or to have been given all that great a script. Or to be having much fun. As superior as Part Two is in just about every way, it is harder to tell in this case. Interesting how much a bored dub can interfere with a game’s momentum and overall energy.

Some of the dubbing even makes the game harder to play. A few commands, particularly in Report 3, are ambiguous to the ear. I swore that it kept telling me to hit “left”, but it meant “chu”. Others are mumbled or a little off-time. Not helpful.

You can save multiple states in Part One, now. I notice that Part One says “Reprogrammed by United Game Artists” — I guess because the game originally was released just before UGA had become a distinct entity. The mpeg compression is now much less terrible — as you might well expect, from a DVD. A bunch of awkward subtitles keep popping up, that I don’t remember, which explain things a bit more than I remember them being explained. I think some of the obvious synchronization issues have been fixed a little.

I also now realize that a lot of items are obtained in Part Two by a scavenger hunt through the character profile section. You talk to characters you have saved, and they tell you to talk to other characters, who tell you to talk to other characters, who give you hints or spatulas.

That’s really about all there is to it. It’s still Space Channel 5 — both parts. It’s just a little more awkward. You can pick up the US Dreamcast version for five bucks, and the Japanese Dreamcast version of Part Two for about fifty still, probably. Or you can get this for maybe around ten to fifteen bucks. Not all that bad a compromise. And all things considered, this isn’t a bad localization or package. It was a great idea to bundle the games together, and it was good of Agetec to get Apollo Smile back again. It’s just. Well, you get what you pay for, to a certain extent.

So there it is.

Touchy Touchy

  • Reading time:2 mins read

Although the Guilty Gear series has long fascinated me, today is the first day that I have opportuned to spend some time exploring, and attuning myself to, one of its games — in this case, X2.

My first clear observation is that, although this is a PS2 game, I can actually pull off any move with no trouble. I assume this is due to the effort Sammy put into adapting this game to the PS2. Just as the game comes with an optional anti-alias filter, it comes with controls that recognize how dearly Sony’s idea of a functionable controller is in need of re-examination. The game remains tight enough that I never pull off a move by accident, yet it has been untied enough that the stupid pad never gets in my way. I think perhaps Noise Factory might have studied this game (or perhaps its predecessor, if it is similarly forgiving), during the development of KOF: Maximum Impact.

This is such a relief after the likes of Capcom vs SNK 2 and The King of Fighters 2000 & 2001 — otherwise-decent ports which seem to forget which system they’re on.

Something to think about.

Another observation is that the most interesting characters tend to be the most recent. Without the new guys, the cast would be kind of dull.

Curious.

Monsters known as “Hellspawn”

  • Reading time:2 mins read

Oh, there is a Japanese dub. Was this in the menu before? I don’t recall seeing it. Although still not perfect, the acting here is about the level of a decent-budget anime. Especially given the setting and the subject, the game sounds far less proposterous this way.

Yeah. The only part of the game which is really tough so far is in the jumping. And that is not so much because the jumping itself is poorly-done; it’s just that it can take some trial-and-error to gauge where Hotsuma can leap and where he can’t. The game does not really support this approach: when you fall, you die; when you die, it’s game over. You must start the round again from the beginning. This can be refreshing; in this way, you learn the hard way how to blast through a level without error — as with, say, Castlevania. For platforming sections, and for other areas where you’re just trying to figure out how to progress, it is less refreshing.

Still. This is kind of fun, so far. Although I guess it does have some Shinobi-ish qualities after all — they are just minimized — the game continues to remind me more of Ninja Gaiden. Which in itself is fun, since — as I mentioned a while ago — the new Ninja Gaiden reminds me more of Shinobi than of Ninja Gaiden.

I think I am on the doorstep of a mild sickness. I am doing my best to backpedal.

Bishounen have the best firearms

  • Reading time:3 mins read

All is well. I cracked my way into the parental menu. I’m my own daddy now! I just watched A Fistfull of Dollars. Interesting how all of the elements are pretty much in place, yet Leone has not yet figured out how to mix them well enough to turn out something like he did two films later. Still not bad. The movie, on its own, comes off as far above average for the genre. It just doesn’t transcend it, making the genre irrelevent.

Speaking of such things: I just got around to playing Devil May Cry.

Jesus. I had avoided this game since long before its release, because I was annoyed with how vapid and trendy it looked — and because of the way people reacted to the game. I guess I never really learned my lesson from Kojima. Yes, the game is supremely stupid and shallow — yet consciously so. It is so over-the-top that it comes off as a lot of fun.

Also now I see just how inspired Koji Igarashi was by this game. Everything from the not-falling-over-edges-unless-you-want-to mechanic to the odd stopping-in-mid-jump-for-a-combo detail, to the zooming-into-the-character’s-back-when-he-opens-a-door effect, to the way you hold the right trigger to duck and weave and strafe around. There are the over-the-top round titles. There’s the atmosphere. There’s the jumping (although Dante has no need for a double jump; instead, he has a variable and really high normal jump, plus a wall jump — not unlike Leon’s ability to whip railings to pull himself even higher).

Thing is — Devil May Cry is so much better a game. At least, so far. It’s linear, as Lament of Innocence should have been (and I think originally was supposed to have been). There are a few invisible walls, yet mostly you can not only jump all over the scenery but you can smash it up. It doesn’t take itself seriously in the least, unlike Igarashi’s game — which is goofy, yes, though as decoration on top of a concept which struggles and does not entirely succeed to do something marginally meaningful.

So. Now I understand some of what I have heard.

I still defend some of Igarashi’s intent with Lament of Innocence, and a bit of what he accomplished. He did get a decent start down. Just, hmm. The game is even more of an unfinished doodle than I realized.

I would say that I expect his next game to be far better — yet his next game is Nanobreaker. And. Well. I have yet to write about that. It didn’t impress me a whole lot. Of the recent set of slash-slash-slash combo games, it strikes me as one of the duller. Granted, all that was available for play at E3 was some kind of a time attack mode. So I don’t know how the main game is supposed to work. Yet, I don’t know about this.

Ah well. I need to play more of both games.

Perhaps this ties in with my ICO vs. Silent Hill 2 thing. I think that Riven, Super Mario Bros., and Bionic Commando might, too. And a few other things.

This might get kind of messy.

I will know, later.

I should have gotten the horizontal stand.

  • Reading time:3 mins read

So, I now have a PS2. However, it chooses to patronize me. When I put in The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring: Extended Edition: Disc One, the system complains. It asks me if I really want to play such an inappropriate movie. I insist that I do. It asks me for a password. I enter zerozerozerozero. The movie plays. I go into the options, to change the parental settings… and it doesn’t allow me access.

I shall have to do research here.

Shinobi is rather entertaining, so far. I don’t know what people are complaining about, as far as difficulty. I kept falling to my death on one section, although that was due mostly to my own stupidity. I do know that the dub could… use some work. I wonder how the original acting is. Hotsuma’s inherent envelope of cool stoicism is shattered somewhat whenever he opens his mouth and a high-pitched, bored American voice burbles out.

The PS2 memory card browser utility is interesting. I like how it applies old PSOne saves to 3D tiles. I like even more the way PS2 games can use polygonal models for their icons. Lament of Innocence has a little, animated Leon. Standing next to him is a slightly-chibi K’, from The King of Fighters 2000. Next to him is a blow-up of his fist, from KoF2001. All different sizes and shapes. Eccentric!

I also got a second controller for my Gamecube — an orange one, to replace the orange one on the old Gamecube that my old roommate from college, Matt, used to have. It will be of aid in future Monkey exploits. Now that, you know, I have people to play with.

What a novelty.

It seems the one E3 feature I have yet finished (I assure, more soon pend) has gotten slashdotted. Although this is common for some other writers, it is a first for me. So. One more item on the checklist.

I received two emails in a row, in response to the article. The first, from the person who informed me of the slashdot link, is titled “Contrats on KOF:MI article being slashdotted!”. This is a good title, to help me sort out the message from all of the others with titles like “tuft blustery” and “all i want is.. dumbbell abdicate” and “Generic Phentermine is just as good!” Thing is, the message just after it is titled “Congratz 2 a real player”. That one was also in response to the article, although from… someone else.

It is time to eat burritos.

I think tonight I will probably finish the next article. It’s just. I take a while to do things.

Who shot who in the Embarcadero in August 1879?

  • Reading time:4 mins read

So. I have my Gamecube and my Dreamcast back again. I can comment a bit on my three new Gamecube games.

I do not yet quite understand P.N.03 — although I think I see what it is trying to do. If I can get into the right mindset, and respond in the way that the game seems to be hinting I should respond, the game might be rather enjoyable. It is not, yet. We shall see.

I enjoy Pikmin. Or. I enjoyed it. I am not sure that I do anymore. I have reached a level where it seems that none of the remaining challenges can be passed through anything other than force; pushing through with as many pikmin as possible, to overwhelm and, as the old Roman kids say, conquer. It’s getting too clever. The game has a great premise. It’s just. Huh. I don’t know if I want to play a lot further. Given the time limit, I am unsure that I will be able to complete the game this time through anyway. It seems clear that the whole idea is that I am supposed to play through the game multiple times, before I am proficient enough to complete it. At first, I thought this might even be something I could want to do. I am unsure now. We shall see.

Super Monkey Ball is pretty much what I expected. There is not much to say here, except that I sincerely doubt I will ever pass level fifteen in Advanced mode. It is too much of a balancing act, and I do not have the reflexes. Heck, just the wobbling brings back uncomfortable flashbacks to a series of nightmares I have had through my whole life, where I am hanging onto control of a situation by the edge of a proverbial toenail, trying my best not to fall (in whatever manner) — yet never quite succeeding. Instead, I am trapped on the edge, nearly in tears, unable to either let go or find safe ground. Just the mechanics of the level make me shudder.

After the first two sections, I had no problems with Metal Gear Solid. I barely passed the second area — almost no health, guards chasing me. Since then, roses. No setbacks. I got past Psycho Mantis on one go, then let it rest for a while. I’ll get back to it in a bit. Odd thing is, Vera came over the other day, after having suggested she teach me how to play. She threw the game in, and began to run around. She had the exact same problems I did.

I have a map, now. Jesus, San Francisco is big. I had no idea. I seem to be right in the center of the portion of town that I associate with the area. It also seems to be where Vertigo more or less took place. I guess this must be the old part. Looking at the map, my guess is that town used to extend down to Market Street and West to… oh, I don’t know. Somewhere before the Western Addition, anyway. Let’s say Russian Hill. Somewhere around Van Ness. Then I guess that all of these other big places — Haight-Ashbury, Twin Peaks, and whatfor — used to be their own little island communities, and that the city just sprawled and filled in all of the cracks.

Now I have no need to be afraid to walk more than a few blocks outside the door. Heck, I even know how to find Coit Tower! I think that speaks for itself.

…

All this writing puts me in the mood to gnaw on living flesh.

Yet another benefit of living in the city.

KOF: Maximum Impact

  • Reading time:1 mins read

by [name redacted]

From the beginning, SNK has tried to spruce up 2D fighters by incorporating elements of three-dimensionality. With 1991’s Fatal Fury, SNK introduced the idea of multi-planar fighting, where the characters may step along a Z axis, into or out of the screen. The King of Fighters ’94 adapted the idea of a sidestep for a single plane: press two buttons, and dodge into the background for a moment, to avoid being hit. SNK already had the technique down, that was not rediscovered until five years later, in Sega’s Virtua Fighter 3.

All of that I see now, in retrospect.

( Continue reading at Insert Credit )

EXTREME BUTTON-PRESSING ACTION

  • Reading time:5 mins read

A guy ahead of me in line began to stare at me while I was waiting to see the new vampire western FPS game by Sammy Studios. Eventually, after getting the attention of the rest of his posse, he spoke.

“Dude. So you’re a journalist?”
“… I guess so.”
“Have you seen Halo 2?”
“No.”
He paused. I could see he was confused. “But you have a press pass. You can get in to see it, right?”
“Theoretically, I suppose.”
“You aren’t going to see it?”
“No.”
A companion with bleary eyes and blond hair looked incredulous. “Why not?!”
“It doesn’t interest me.”
They stared. I ignored them. The first guy spoke up again. “But [whatever the name of Sammy’s game is] interests you?”
“Not particularly.”
“Then why are you here?”
“It’s the first original game by Sammy Studios. That is kind of interesting.”

They found nothing else to say to me.

I didn’t make it to the show flow today. I was just too tired. Several days of barely any food or rest, and too much eventitude, was enough to make me immobile until maybe an hour or two ago. I guess that’s okay. I saw everything I really wanted to see, the first two days. Today would have just consisted of poking around. I heard that Katamari Damacy is playable in an obscure corner of Namco’s booth, for instance. Also, it would have been nice to have talked with Tycho some. I keep missing him, although Gabe seems to be everywhere. Then there is the Pac-Man game for the DS, that two people in a row asked me about. I never got a chance with it, as the booth babes were rather quick to shoo me out of the demo room.

I have things to write.

Most interesting items this year:

There’s the Nintendo DS. It really could be revolutionary. You can’t understand until you hold it. This has the most potential of any current system to do something interesting. The PSP, while attractive, is just more of the same thing that Sony has been doing for nine years. There is no comparison between the two systems. Nintendo wins, somehow. I am shocked and surprised.

Neo Contra is a new Contra game that might as well have been made by Treasure, although Kojima insists that it wasn’t. It is more fun and bizarre than any other game in the series besides perhaps Hard Corps, for the Genesis, and it might be an example for how to do a series like Ikari Warriors in the modern era.

I asked Michael Meyers for a demo of KOF: Maximum Impact. He asked me if I had a dev system. I told him no. He said that it probably wouldn’t do me much good then, at the moment. He will send me a press demo when they have one ready. And. Good, because I want to play more of this game. I think I spent more time here than anywhere else. SNK did it. This game is more than competent. It is darned good — on whatever terms you might want to examine it. Brandon and Vince dismiss it rather quickly. They didn’t look close enough. Seriously, this is the start of something really good for SNK. I’m proud of them.

I hate Biohazard. Resident Evil 4 (version 3) is probably tied for my game of the show, along with the chat program for the Nintendo DS. (Just trust me on that one.) As Tim put it, it is already a great game. While it ain’t perfect, I can’t blame its few downsides in the face of what it has accomplished. There is an energy here.

Then there is Rumble Roses. I…

Jesus.

This is perhaps the most honest thing I have seen in my life.

It is a female wrestling game, designed by Yuke’s and published by Konami. It includes a mud wrestling feature, and a girl with devil horns and a tail who is chained up in a cellar somewhere, being whipped by another woman. They are still deliberating whether to include a nude mode. I think they should. From what they have accomplished so far, I see no reason to hold back. It would… taint the honesty of the rest of the game. And they say it will be an adults-only game anyway (the videogame equivalent of NC-17), so why not.

Tim says that he bets the game was designed by a woman. I think I agree with him on that. It would… take a while to explain.

Perhaps most surprising is that it plays well. It is a real game, with real depth to it. It plays like a 3D fighter, basically. And it’s just plain fun. Although again, it does not pretend. One of the main options on the menu is a computer-versus-computer mode.

Beat that, Itagaki.

EDIT: Wrong subtitle. Guh.

More on Ico and “World-Logic”

  • Reading time:2 mins read

Not only does a game like this at least attempt to be interesting and wonderful, but it’s failures are the kind that are going to teach us what makes gaming work, and what doesn’t. It’s going to elicit thought. In many ways, this is better than the games that get it completely right.

The only part I disagree with there is the example.

Ico…

Well, once I am done with it, I intend to write something on it and Silent Hill 2, illustrating some common problems in execution (particularly when it comes to level design and world-logic).

Why are bombs always provided in Ico‘s world, right near something that I need to blow up? Why has the castle been smashed up in just such a way as to allow me exactly one possible route through it? Why does the entire world feel like it is laid out just to take advantage of my character’s abilities?

A game like Super Mario Bros. does not need to explain these things, as on the one hand the game is so clearly surreal — and yet such situations tend to make up the game’s own persistent reality.

Metroid Prime got around these questions with a rather startling bit of insight that also helped to explain and contextualize every other game in the series. Even Lament of Innocence gets away with some of its contrivances with its claim, right near the outset, that “this is all a game” to the villain; that Leon’s quest has been specially put before him for the amusement of the final boss.

Ico plays well, as a game. It is wonderfully-designed. Its world is the most intriguing I have encountered since that in Riven. The problem is, it is transparent as a game. It is too focused. In the same way that you wonder why James can’t just step over a police line in Silent Hill 2, you wonder why Ico can conveniently make his way through the levels as he does; why everything is left out for him. The two games sit on different sides of the same issue, to a similarly disconcerting effect.

There is… more.

You do not care about fight club.

  • Reading time:1 mins read

Some of you may be aware that someone is making a videogame based on the movie Fight Club. This sounded off to me, from what I had heard of the film.

I just saw the movie.

Now that I have, it is hard for me to feel indignant. A licensed fighting game does not seem any more inappropriate than it seems appropriate.

Might as well make one as not.

…

There is… more.

Soccer

  • Reading time:3 mins read

Among other things, I saw this recently. It had some kick to it.

I also think that, collectively, Kill Bill is probably one of the best films made in the last decade. Not for the reasons you expect, though.

No, I don’t intend to clarify. Because. That would mean talking about it.

I bought a VCR today. The man said it came with no RCA cables, so he sold me some RCA cables that cost half as much as the VCR itself.

I assume you can guess the punchline.

We will take the cables back tomorrow.

Gladstone Comics is back in the form of Gemstone Publishing. Same people: Gary Leach, Susan Daigle-Leach, John Clark; it just seems that they have parted ways with Bruce Hamilton. They publish Don Rosa, William Van Horn, Daan Jippes, and everything. Seems that WVH now has a son named Noel, who does Mouse stuff. While he is not as interesting as his father, the influence is clear.

There are five books, in three formats, which more or less correspond to Gladstone 1’s original debut lineup: Uncle $crooge, WDC&S, Donald Duck, Mickey Mouse, and DD Adventures. (Curious, on that last one, that they chose not to carry over the numbering from the first two Gladstone runs.) The first two are in the deluxe square-bound format that you might recall from the last year or two of Gladstone 2’s lifespan. The next two are in a standard, less expensive, more mainstream format. The final one is in the thick-n-small digest format (with which, you might remember, Gladstone experimented in the mid-late ’80s).

Were these not so expensive, I would have subscriptions to them all. This is important stuff. As far as I know, this is the only place where Duck comics are published in English. And there should be a sizey backlog of Rosa material, that he has built up at Egmont over the last half-decade or so.

For those not in the loop, this is the stuff which defines much of my personality, vocabulary, writing style, and knowledge of the world. Barks, Rosa, Van Horn, Taliaferro, Gottfredson. They, along with Tintin and Groucho Marx, are inadvertently responsible for the core of my being. Everyone who reads this, I recommend that you go to a comics shop and pick up an issue of Uncle $crooge — particularly one with a Rosa story. If you don’t already know what you’re in for, then you just don’t know.

There is… more.

Igarashi: For the Nerds

  • Reading time:3 mins read

A few things I don’t remember seeing mentioned anywhere:

When Leon renounces his title in order to go searching for his woman, he is forced to leave his sword behind. As a result, Leon is unarmed when he rushes into the vampire’s forest. This is why, when Leon runs into this Gandolfi fellow, Leon is presented with an alchemically-fortified whip (later, I assume, to be dubbed “Vampire Killer”), with which to defend himself.

It always did seem a bit out-of-place, did it not?

To go with the whip, Gandolfi then treats one of Leon’s gauntlets, giving it energy-absorbing powers. This allows Leon to block near any attack, and also to absorb magical power with every blow the gauntlet withstands.

Whenever the player defeats an Elemental (in the Dungeons & Dragons sense of the term), that Elemental’s power may then be applied to Leon’s alchemical whip. So the way you get a flame whip is to kill a fire elemental (modeled after Weta Workshop’s idea of a Balrog). Sort of clever.

You know those orbs that you collect after you defeat a boss in the older Castlevania games? They are kind of arbitrary, aren’t they. They refill Simon’s or Trevor’s or Juste’s life bar, and they mark the end of a level. That is about it.

In Lament of Innocence, the orbs are back. In this game, however, Leon collects the orbs; each contains a unique magical influence. Do you remember the Spell Fusion system in Harmony of Dissonance? The way it works is, Juste collects spell books — ice, fire, what-have-you — and then can apply those powers to whatever secondary weapon he might be holding. So if you have the ice book and the cross, a little ice crystal will follow Juste around and shoot at enemies. If you have the wind book and the dagger, Juste can throw a bunch of daggers really quickly.

Exactly the same deal here, with Leon — only with a logistical twist. Get a subweapon, equip an orb (claimed from a defeated boss), and you may use your gauntlet — and the power you have absorbed with it — to cast similar spells depending on which orb and which subweapon you choose. The important thing is, this relies on Leon’s enchanted gauntlet and on the old boss orbs. It… well.

I really like some of these details. It would take a while to explain why I find this as neat as I do.

The game is, indeed, getting more interesting now. That first level I entered — the one in the center — was bland and annoying. This second one — the one on the far left — has a lot going on (in comparison, if perhaps not absolutely). If the game continues to improve at this rate, it could be pretty darned satisfactory by the end.

Again, we will see.

1up

  • Reading time:1 mins read

The site has… not really fulfilled its potential. The reason, as far as I’m concerned, sits in coverage such as this.

Oy.

Good job, man. You not only noticed Mega‘s tiny booth; you found the courage to ridicule them for their obscurity. Use your knowledge well. Don’t waste it on bragging alone. Remember, you’re getting paid for this!

The sad thing is, what you see here is pretty standard behavior in the gaming media. On a good day.

Neon Leon

  • Reading time:5 mins read

I have progressed a bit in Lament of Innocence; I am now closing in on the end of the first level. All I have to do is beat the boss (I died toward the end of my first attempt), and I may move on.

The controls — I don’t know that there is any end of praise I can give to how they are designed. The only flaw I can find is that there is no way to cancel an attack with the block button. So if you see, say, an incoming spear, and your whip is extended, you can’t make Leon lift his gauntlet and block the attack until after his animation is completed. By then, it is usually too late.

Otherwise… well, I will dissect it all later. The mechanics are precise and splendid; they are exactly what I remembered from E3.

The real problem — again! — seems to be in level design. See, now I enjoyed the E3 demo. It was just room, room, room, room, room, room, boss. Clear all of the monsters; move on. Clear the room; move to the next room. Occasionally the player would face a small puzzle room or a platforming section; then he would move on. At the end, the boss.

That was it. It was fun! It was mindless, yet wholly entertaining. It was a straightforward action game, as with the original Castlevania, yet organized like the first well-made 3D brawler I have played. Castlevania: Fists of Fury. No nonsense. Just leap into the game and have fun with it.

When people complained of how shallow the full game was, I scoffed. Well, duh. Igarashi has already said that he intended the game to be a shallow hackfest. And it looked like he succeeded in making an enjoyable one. If the demo was any good representation of the finished result, then I did not see how a person could confuse the game’s ambition for anything else.

The problem with the full game — from what I have so far seen — is that it is no longer so focused. Now there is… wandering. And it is not particularly enjoyable wandering. It is not the sort of “backtracking” that one sees in, say, a Metroid game — which consciously exists to create a coherent sense of place, for the player. It…

Well, take the first level. There are two doors you need to open, to reach the boss. To do so, you need to go out of your way and flip six switches in far, unmarked corners of the level. To do that, you need to zigzag across the same collection of flat, almost wholly non-interactive (if pretty) rooms over and over and over again, fighting or avoiding the same respawning enemies over and over — to no benefit, given that the game contains no experience points (since it was supposed to be more of an action game).

There is almost no verticality to the rooms. When there is, it is usually just to hide a money bag or some other trinket; there is nothing vital on the upper plane. There is no sense of coherence, as the player wanders from one room to the next, as there is a scene transition every time the player opens a door. This, again, is because the game is supposed to be an action game: room, room, room. Clear a room; move on.

That ain’t how the levels are built, though. Instead, it seems like somewhere along the way, someone became worried that the game was too linear. So the rooms became connected to each other in a big enough network as to necessitate a map. In order to encourage the player to explore every corner of that map, the designers threw in obstacles such as those doors and switches. Puzzles now, instead of existing as a relief from battle, act as yet another hinderance, preventing the player from just trudging forward as she is supposed to.

At this point, I think you can see the problem as well as I: it is that Igarashi did not stick to his original idea. If he had just made the game he wanted to make, I am confident that it would have had a bunch of energy and would have been a blast to play. This is just tedious, though. Either someone interfered, and told Igarashi to make the game longer and more complex — although the game was not designed to work that way — or Igarashi himself lost confidence in his design somewhere close to the end of production, and tried to spice it up.

Not a good plan, that — as I am sure you are aware by now.

Oh well. Igarashi does have him some great ingredients, anyway. And heck, maybe the game gets more focused as it progresses. We shall see.