We All Fall Down

Dated, stiff, and often grotesque

  • Reading time:11 mins read

Shinkirou’s characters look like mannequins. They have no motion or life to them.

Further, they remind me of the art one used to see on the back of cereal boxes in the 1980s.

It’s dated, stiff, and often grotesque.

Shinkirou obviously has technical talent as an artist, but his art just doesn’t seem appropriate to something as vibrant as a fighting game.

Nona’s art has been controversial ever since his work on KoF2001. It’s often strange — but it has life to it. It’s often dark. It’s often a little disturbing. It’s gritty, and yet stylized.

Like it or not, Nona’s work has personality. And on that basis, I’d take it over Shinkirou any day.

I don’t know why Playmore chose to go with Nona for as high a profile game as this, however; I’d have thought that Hiroaki (the Bukiri-One artist, who most recently did the art for KoFEX2 for the GBA) would be more appropriate.

But whatever. I like Nona, if for nothing else than the fact that he’s different. And that so many people complain about his art without much of an attempt to understand it.

Nona’s fine, but yeah — it’s a little weird that Playmore doesn’t seem to be sticking with someone a little less controversial.

From what I’ve read elsewhere (such as The Stinger Report) Capcom doesn’t want much to do with this game. They’re annoyed that Playmore is even going through with it, and perhaps the only reason that they’re allowing Playmore to go forward with it is that Capcom is soon to be leaving the arcade business. Therefore, the game won’t be much competition for any of their upcoming projects.

Furthermore, Playmore doesn’t have a huge reservoir of money. So it makes sense to me that they’d stick with the artists they have on-hand.

However, of the artists that I know they have left — why Nona? I, personally, am very fond of Nona’s art. But I know that I’m in the minority. His art is often not very easy to understand.

I know that Hiroaki (Bukiri-One, KoF2000) is still with Playmore, and I believe that Tonko (Mark of the Wolves, Last Blade) is still around somewhere (given that Nona did the art for Metal Slug 4). Both of them are fantastic artists, and both are immediately appealing to just about any audience.

Plus, Hiroaki’s style is a little reminiscent of Akiman’s — Capcom’s main illustrator ever since Street Fighter 2. Personally, I think Hiroaki is far more talented than Akiman — but they work in a similar manner.

He’d seem perfect for a game like SVC CHAOS.

And who knows — maybe Playmore is using Hiroaki for the in-game art. All we’ve got now is a small handful of character sketches.

If you remember, Nona did the character illustrations to KoF2002 but Hiroaki did most of the in-game portraits and whatnot. I thought that this was a perfect balance.

For all we know so far, it’s entirely possible that they’re doing the same thing here — Nona on the outside illustrations and someone like Hiroaki or Tonko on the in-game art.

Probably best just to hold out and see how things go over the next few weeks.

If nothing else, the logo is very well-done.

* * *

Regarding The King of Fighters 2002 DC:

Buyrite is renowned for just plain false information, but there’s been discussion before about whether Playmore will bother with the extra chracters.

Just about everyone has expressed some consternation about the original MVS roster. King is my favourite character overall, so it figures they’d choose to ditch her (even though she’s been in every other KoF since the series began). Why they chose not to bring back Jhun, where Shingo went off to, and why we’ve got Rugal again (rather than, say, an enhanced Krizalid), I can’t really fathom.

Furthermore, why does 2002 — a dream match — have fewer characters than 2001? 2001 was a standard plot chapter. 2002 is supposed to be a no-holds-barred, over-the-top celebration of all that is KoF. With the game’s wimpy and unrepresentative cast list, it’s kind of difficult to get as excited as Playmore intends.

Basically, they had to cut corners somewhere. After all of the complaints about the backgrounds and music in 2001, Playmore devoted more time and cartridge space to that aspect of the presentation. Personally, I’d take the characters over the backgrounds — though I appreciate the effort (even if I feel it’s misguided).

With the Dreamcast, though, Playmore doesn’t have these space limitations. They can do whatever the heck they want to, really. This is the perfect chance to fix the game (or finish it, depending on how you look at things), and quiet their audience’s moans; to show that they’re really listening.

So there’s the obvious and immediate potential, right off the bat.

There’s a bit more, though, to raise a person’s hopes.

First, this is the kind of thing that SNK and Playmore have done with all of the Dreamcast ports so far.

’98 got a snazzy new anime intro, a 3D background, and other assorted bonuses;

’99 got better 3D backgrounds, a shop system, extra strikers (including Seth and Vanessa from 2000), and a really nice presentation overall;

2000 got a surprisingly-entertaining sliding puzzle and extra backgrounds and music;

2001 got even more levels (including “fixed” versions of all of the original 2001 levels), and a well-designed puzzle battle mode.

So there’s a history of some decent additions, most of which do a good job to fix some of the shortcomings of the games in question (although 2001 really could have used some added music).

It seems highly probable that Playmore will add something worth mentioning to 2002. The only question is what that might be.

The other factor which is getting at least my hopes up is how long the game seems to be taking. 2000 and 2001 were each ported pretty quickly, and released mere months apart from each other. 2002, however, was announced way back in the middle of December — and it’s not to be released until some untold time, this coming summer.

Part of the delay, I imagine, is so as not to interfere with sales of the Neo-Geo cartridge. But the fact is, this is a pretty long wait for what should otherwise be a simple Dreamcast port. Playmore’s got lots of experience with the DC. They know how to do this by now.

So what’s Playmore doing with all of this extra time, then?

It sounds kind of suspicious to me.

On the other hand, this is all speculation.

As for the complete cast for the DC version — all that’s been announced beyond the original MVS release is Shingo.

For the full cast of the MVS version, look under the Neo-Geo FAQs section.

It is my understanding that Shingo was originally intended as a character within KoF2002 (thus the rumors of him popping up in the early public tests), but that Eolith and Brezza removed him in the final version (for whatever reason).

This would make some sense, as his sprite doesn’t appear to be in any of the backgrounds. Just about every other major KoF-universe character makes an appearance, so it seems odd that Shingo isn’t even referenced.

With luck, we’ll see some more characters added back in. It seems absurd to me that a “dream match” game like 2002 has fewer characters than a standard plot chapter. (There are 40 characters + 2 bosses in 2001; 39 characters + 1 boss in 2002.)

Further, it seems pretty ludicrous that the cast manages to be such an awful compromise that it isn’t representative of anything in particular. One of the most long-standing and representative characters (King) is omitted. One of the bigger recent fan favourites (Shingo) is left out. And few of the remaining characters have much of anything to do with each other.

In ’98, most characters had a large number of special introductions and/or endings. It was a reasonably tight group. The characters had reason to joke with each other, to taunt or threaten each other. There was a lot of personality going around.

Now… well, what is this? We’ve just got a bunch of random characters thrown together, with no context at all. It’s so cold.

What’s even weirder is that even amongst the characters who have some obvious connections — their interactions are omitted!

Kyo versus Iori? Nothing.
Mai versus Andy? Nothing.
Terry versus Billy? Nothing.
Terry versus Yamazaki? Nothing.

And the list goes on.

There still are a few random intros in there (Kensou versus Athena), but — well, you get the picture.

This game needs a lot of work — and I’m hoping that Playmore does a decent job at finishing it for the DC release.

The inclusion of Shingo is a good step. It’s very encouraging. We’ll see what else they polish up.

Akaimizu: That’s true, with the alternate characters; I don’t really count them any more than I count the alternate characters in ’98, but it does depend on how you want to look at things.

If that’s the way one is going to measure the game, however, I can’t help but wonder where all of the other alternate characters are which were present in ’98. We’ve gone through two whole eras at this point. You’d think there’d be a lot of history to cover and to try to encapsulate in a Dream Match like this.

But no.

As for that other person:

No, this game is far from perfect.

This has nothing to do with the details, specifically; I bring them up only to illustrate a point.

KoF2002 is by far the least coherent game in the entire series. It is arbitrary; it has no reason to exist, in the form that it has been executed.

It has potential, and certain elements are individually executed very well. The backgrounds are nice. The character portraits are pretty. Some of the characters’ new moves are nice. It’s nice that some of the older characters have finally seen some new frames of animation.

But compared to the direction the series was going in with 2001, it’s a pretty huge step backwards into irrelevancy. This is unfortunate.

I fully intend to pick it up, for the sake of posterity and because I want to support Playmore. But I’m still disappointed on a number of levels.

You would be as well, if you were to pay more attention.

Let’s see if anyone can anyone answer me this:

What is the point of KoF2002, as it currently exists? What does the game accomplish?

Why did this game need to be made?

I can quickly tell you the answer for every single other game in the series, from ’94 up through 2001. For 2002, it’s not so easy.

Try as I might — and believe me, I want to like this game — I can’t understand what its purpose is, beyond simply pumping out another KoF game for the year 2002.

Anything it might feign to hold up as a tangible goal, it fails in — aside from being generally prettier than 2001 in most of the obvious aspects.

There’s no reason for a Dream Match right now; we’ve still got some plot threads unresolved from 2001. But okay, it’ll make Eolith a bunch of money before they hand the development back to Playmore at the end of their contract. So whatever. Let’s make this a blast to remember, as we did four years ago!

In ’98, every character save the Boss Team, Eiji, and Kasumi returned. Okay, and the post-Rugal bosses. But we got Saisyu as a playable character and we got alternate versions (pre-’96; ’96-and-on) of most of the major characters. We got a ton of interaction amongst the characters.

The game had a general air of fun; one big party, where everyone is invited. One big storyline is over with. Now we’ll make the KoF to end all KoFs; the one game which, above all else, is representative of the heart and the history of the series.

We could have had another one of those. That would have been neat. But what did we get?

What is 2002, exactly?

Why do we need it?
I’d like someone to explain it to me. Because I don’t understand.

What does a genius need with pants?

  • Reading time:10 mins read

The Metroid 2 score really gets a bad rap. Actually, Metroid 2 seems to be the whipping child of the series in general.

I think it’s worth pointing out that when the music is good, it’s really good in this game. The main tunnel theme, the Metroid battle theme, the revamped Samus and Item themes.

Where it begins to get a little controversial is in the various ruins. Once the player wanders out of the central tunnel and into any of the larger playfields, the music switches to an atmospheric pattern of bleeps. Not a lot of melody. Not a lot of rhythm in particular.

If you’re looking for Hip Tanaka’s tuneful power-ballads, I can see how it should be easy to feel let down. But the music serves a different purpose here.

Metroid 2 is by far the creepiest, most clautrophobic game in the series. It’s lonely, unnerving, frustrating, almost trance-inducing. It has a tangible atmosphere which I think is wholly fitting to the game’s setting and general purpose. (This atmosphere is most obvious when the game is played in full black-and-white, as originally intended, rather than with the upgraded Gameboy Color palette.)

The music is an important element of that formula. It exists to create and sustain a particular mood. I feel it was composed very deliberately; Ryohji Yoshitomi could have written anything, after all. But he chose to go the avant garde route.

There is a method to the music, as you can tell if you listen closely enough. It’s not random, and it’s not careless. It’s an attempt at an unsettling ambient soundscape.

The problem that Yoshitomi faces in this instance is the limited sound capacity of the original Gameboy. Melodic fare is easy. More experimental music is a bit tricker to pull off convincingly with only a few triangle and square waves at a person’s disposal.

Whether Yoshitomi succeeds in his goal or not is up to the listener. But for what it is, I think his score works very well.

Combined with the excellent quality of the more melodic portions of the soundtrack, I’d easily rank the Metroid 2 score up there amongst my favourite original Gameboy soundtracks — somewhere in the neighborhood of Gargoyle’s Quest.

On the other hand, it’s worth noting that Yoshitomi was never asked back for the future games.

The music in Prime does something odd to my head.

It all began with the theme which plays behind the game-select screen. For whatever reason it might be, that theme moves me pretty strongly.

The last time I felt this way about a videogame theme was in 1986, when I first slotted my copy of Legend of Zelda into my NES. At the time, I was struck with a profound awe and wonder. I knew that I was seeing and hearing something important. And my whole body reacted.

The Metroid Prime theme (from it’s use later in the game, I’m assuming that this is intended as the main theme to the game) has a similar, if somewhat more muted, effect on me. And the deeper I crawl into the game proper, the more impressed I am with the music in general.

In the case of the main theme, I think a large part of it is the uncommonly synchopated rhythmic pattern. Short-long, short-long, long, long, long. Another part of it is the weird, theramin-like lead instrument. But it’s just the overall weight of decisions made in the tune’s composition, arrangement, and production that make it so strange and so captivating to me.

The rest of the score seems a bit more tame — although there are more touches of experimentation, the deeper I crawl.

In my view, Kenji Yamamoto makes some very tasteful and wise decisions in terms of references to earlier themes. I particularly like his restructured Metroid and Brinstar themes.

Some of the earlier, more traditional soundtrack fare (particularly during the pre-Tallon introduction sequence) isn’t altogether interesting. And the planet-side music does take a while to build up to anything. But I’m beginning to sense a sort of a method behind the score’s evolution.

If it keeps going where it looks to me like it’s headed, this is going to be a pretty darned sensitive and impressive work. I don’t really know that it has much comparison in terms of what else is out there at the moment.

The Prime soundtrack is, so far, perhaps the most original and generally satisfying one for my tastes.

However: as for the soundtrack which I find the most memorable, well-written for its time, and which I personally enjoy the most — I’d have to go with Hip Tanaka’s original Metroid soundtrack.

There’s not a dud in the bunch. It consists of some of the best themes ever written for any videogame. And it made the game far more interesting to play than it really should have been.

I do quite like the Metroid 2 score, for what it is. Super Metroid’s music was… functional, to my mind. It was very Metroidy. To my mind Yamamoto has improved greatly since 1994, however. I don’t have much comment on the Fusion score. It, too, was Metroidy — though in a way which fit Fusion.

Return of Samus is really what comes to mind when I think of Metroid.

The first game was a bit of a fluke; the elements which make up the game don’t really cohere as well as they might. There doesn’t seem to be much of an overall vision. It was done on a pretty low budget. It seems rather random to me that it turned out to be as memorable as it was.

Metroid II was the first game where all of the elements really came together. Samus was retooled to look more or less as she does now. Her ship was introduced. The game upped the creepiness level several notches, along with a deep sense of disorientation and paranoia.

It’s perhaps the loneliest game in the series. The grainiest. And also the most wonderful.

More so than in any of the recent games, there is a sense of nigh-unlimited possibility in Return of Samus. You just don’t know what’s out there. Anything could be important. Anything could be a threat or a relief. You just don’t know where a new item will turn up. Or where the end is. Or where you’ll unexpectedly blunder into another Metroid.

I think the most important factor in so establishing RoS in my mind has to be the spider ball. The way it’s been retooled in Prime is interesting, but the item was far more flexible in RoS. (It was also probably a nightmare for the level designers, so I can see why it’s mostly been left out since then.) The way it was implemented in that game opened up a wealth of possibilities for exploration.

Super Metroid was certainly enjoyable. But it was a bit over-polished and conservative for my tastes. It was engineered to please as wide an audience as possible, while feeding fans exactly what they wanted (rather than what they didn’t *know* they wanted). Sort of like Phantasy Star: End of the Millennium. It didn’t really do very much new; all it did was take the best of the first two games and make it all a lot more palatable.

Basically — the first game establishes the concept of Metroid. The second game begins with that template, and then goes on an introspective search for identity. The third game takes most of the new ground blazed in the second game, combines it with the charm and trappings of the first game, and puts as much shine on it as the SNES can muster.

Fusion tries to be a very different kind of a game, and I respect it for that. What’s more, I think it succeeds quite well in its attempts to reinvent Metroid as a tense action-oriented game. I feel the level design is severely lacking, though; I’m not all that fond of some of its lazy logistical constructs. The game comes off almost feeling like Super Mario World in terms of how special moves and blocks are used.

Prime, I really like a lot so far. I didn’t honestly expect it to be as good as it is. I can’t comment very well on it until I’ve finished the game, though — as it seems there’s still a lot of odd stuff coming up that could effect my evaluation.

I think it could be interesting if the next game were set somewhere after Fusion. That game sets up a ton of change for the Metroid universe, and it would be intersting to see how Retro might follow through on it.

On the other hand, I tend to see the main linear series as Intelligent Systems’ duty. If there’s to be an out-and-out Metroid 5, it would make more sense to me if it came from the original Metroid team.

What seems to be Retro’s duty is to fill in the cracks and to attempt to explain all of the peculiarities introduced in the main series. To dig deeper into the groundwork set by Intelligent Systems.

And on that note, I think a Metroid Zero of sorts (as someone mentioned above) would make a lot of sense.

In early interviews, it was suggested that Prime was going to be set before the original Metroid. I think they chose wisely, in their decision to instead make it a direct follow-up to the first game — but that still leaves the backstory concept to fulfill.

In terms of bonuses, I agree that it would be keen to include Super Metroid — and for exactly this reason:

That way, every single Metroid game would be playable on the Gamecube.

Metroid 1 is included with Prime.
Metroid 2, you can play with the Gamecube Gameboy Player.
Metroid 3 would be included with this sequel to Prime.
Metroid 4 would again work with the Gameboy Player.

Kind of keen to have everything in one place, y’know?

I would also like to see the ability to turn power-ups on and off, as in Super Metroid.

Honestly, I’d just like to be able to take the Varia suit off every now and then. Those oversized shoulderpads just keey getting more ridiculous with every game; I much prefer how her raw Power Suit looks.

Also, it would be nice to be able to combine the various beam weapons (as in the third and fourth games).

I’d like to see young Samus, somehow. As a child, in a flashback, perhaps.

I want those Chozo statues back again, for holding power-ups.

And I want Retro to feel free to try out some more radical, experimental ideas that I would probably never think of on my own. I want to be surprised, above all else.

* * *

Regarding the spiky, butch hairdo from the concept art: Yes. That impressed the hell out of me. And it seems to match my interpretation of Samus’ personality, really well.

And honestly, doesn’t it make a lot more sense to have short hair if you’re going to be wearing a suit like that? Imagine it getting caught in the helmet. Yowtch.

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.

Confusion in labeling

  • Reading time:1 mins read

After puzzling at its box for a few minutes, I’ve realized that this cereal is the first I’ve seen with a complete sentence for a product name:

Hannaford Cereal-Cholesterol Free Food Provides 10 Essential Vitamins & Minerals With Almonds Oats & More Toasted Multigrain Flakes With Almonds & Honey Clusters.

How curious.

Sagrada Lechuga

  • Reading time:1 mins read

Wak? Apparently a Gaudi design was in the competition for the WTC block on lower Manhattan. It didn’t get too far. But how interesting that would have been!

Gaudi is the architect of the Sagrada Familia cathedreal in Barcelona (which is still being constructed today, over a hundred years later), and is one of the central figures of the Spanish art noveau movement.

The Spanish barb of the art noveau style is distinctly different from what one might find elsewhere. It’s darker, drippier, pointier, more macabre. The Sagrada Familia is typical, if a little exaggerated, in its alien submarinalosity.

If any huge building is gonna’ have to be constructed there, then it might as well add something interesting to the city.

Manhattan already has (if I remember) the largest Gothic cathedreal in the world. (This is also still under construction.) But it’s farther uptown, in the Central Park area. I think the island could stand a little more creepiness. (It’s already got enough catacombs to bury any conceivable horror.)

Cell division

  • Reading time:6 mins read

Legally, I must comment that Metroid Prime has the best music in the world.

Something weird comes over me, just sitting and listening to the theme which plays behind the game options menu (one button-press past the title screen).

Game music has done odd things with my emotions on numerous previous occasions. It has ever since the original Legend of Zelda, where the first time I placed the game into my NES I simply stared at the TV for what might have been half an hour for all I know, listening to Kondo’s lilting title theme and watching the item scroll. It does when I watch the opening FMV to the first Sonic Adventure. The Phantasy Star II score has done mountains for me.

But even in the best game scores — Jet Set Radio, Streets of Rage, Ninja Gaiden II — generally the best that happens is that they impress the hell out of me and then that’s that. And even in the cases where I’ve been struck more deeply (for one reason or another), generally it’s been a single blow — often a manipulative one — in an otherwise so-so score.

Frankly, the reason the intro to Sonic Adventure does a weird job with my chest lies more in the direction of the intro sequence and my own personal share of nostalgia than anything about the music on its own. Heck, I’m not even very fond of half of the music in that game for its own merit. What music I do like well is mostly from Kumatani Fumie’s end of the stick rather than that of Jun Senoue.

Kenji Yamamoto has done something different here. I can’t explain it rationally. But it fucks with my head. The more I listen to it, the more this becomes true.

I’m afraid I’m going to develop a nervous condition, playing this game.

A bigger one, I mean.

I find this interesting, as I’ve honestly never been as impressed with the Super Metroid score as just about everyone else on the planet. It didn’t come near to Hip Tanaka’s original vision, or even the chirpy B-ambience of Return of Samus (a soundtrack which I still contend has never gotten its proper due). Super Metroid‘s music was appropriate, well-written, and… there. It suited the game, and sounded Metroidy.

But this? Ye god.

…

Again, I feel more or less exactly as I felt when I was eight and Zelda was new. And this fact is all the more peculiar just because I’m no longer eight years old. Zelda isn’t new. Metroid isn’t new. I’ve played so many games. I’ve seen so many conventions. Cleverness and skill and joy and wonder are about the best I can expect. That anyone can expect who has been around as long as I have.

There just isn’t a lot out there which feels new anymore. There aren’t any more revelations. There’s no new life to discover.

But perhaps there is.

And perhaps it’s not in Japan?

Who would have thought.

It’s not that this game is anything so totally original that it should — taken as a mass of parts — be as much of a breakthrough as Zelda. We’ve seen most of the elements here in at least some form before, for years on end. Some of the incarnations perhaps aren’t even all that different.

Half-Life was a step away from its FPS roots, and toward a more evolved gaming sensibility — and look at where that got it. Metroid Prime, I suppose, a person could consider the next logical step in this direction. Except that when you pull its laces, this is something else entirely.

I guess the way one could put it is that what this game feels like is something close to a culmination of what we’ve learned over the past thirty years of game design. Someone managed to boil it down and make The Game — or something like it. After all of the struggling since the last checkpoint, suddenly we’ve got progress. And we’re allowed to move on.

I’ve not played Eternal Darkness yet, but it’s worth noting again that this game was developed by an American studio, with aid from Nintendo. I imagine it’s got its flaws, but it still sounds like that game did a hell of a lot more right than most games have been doing lately. And like it had a solid vision to it.

Edit:

Nintendo has been doing a lot for the industry lately. They’ve gone through some pretty huge changes in attitude since the glory days of the NES, and now seem to be pretty much content to be Nintendo. I keep harping on that Q-fund thing of Yamauchi’s, but I feel it’s a lot more important than it looks. It fits right in with the recent “apprenticeship” system of game design that Miyamoto’s been pioneering, and what Nintendo’s been doing with second and third parties.

They’ve got the money and the expertise, so they’re investing it in the next generation. They won’t have it forever. Miyamoto won’t be around forever. Nintendo won’t be. But the art will remain, the skills will flourish. And maybe someone else will march on to victory, birthed from the seeds of that knowledge and support.

Sure, Nintendo is acting in Nintendo’s best interest — but they don’t have to do it in such an enlightened way. The fact that they are, says mountains to me and sets a tremendous example for the rest of the industry.

I think we’re closing in on a new era here. And it’s not going to come from where we expect. The old guard is starting to break down. The entire old infrastructure.

Just look at all of the shit happening in the industry right now. If you’re clinging to the old ways, it’s bad news. And it’s pretty scary. But there’s a new wind in the air, and just about everyone is clueless about it so far. If there’s any time to block one’s sails, I think this is it.

And dammit, I want a copy of this soundtrack.

Brinstone, you say?

  • Reading time:2 mins read

So my GameCube came today, with its complementary copy of Metroid Prime.

My comments so far:

  1. Whoa. Damn.
  2. … I need a memory card.

Is it just me, or do Nintendo really pack their stuff well? Opening each of my GBA and my Gamecube for the first time (in their respective moments), I got a rush of nostalgia. When was the last new device I opened which seemed so lovingly, sturdily boxed? I can’t remember. My Genesis?

Opening this thing, I got the distinct impression that I was unveiling to myself something uncommonly important. Something which would stick with me and last for years.

Not a feeling one gets much from electronic devices these days.

Particularly not Sony devices.

Odd, that.

Wow, that remixed music sounds good.

Why does it make me giggle, the first time I hear Samus’s theme in any new Metroid game?

Or the item power-up theme, for that matter?

Wow, there’s a lot of text in this game. I wonder who thought up all of this background info. Does it say in the credits? I don’t want to walk downstairs for my game case. I’ll look later. Was it someone from Retro? Would NCL have given them such free license? The game does a better join tying together and explaining the Metroid universe in the first half hour than the other four do, put together.

Intelligent Systems, my hindquarters!

Yes.

You just don’t know, I tell you.

I think this is an example of how the third dimension can be used to add more than just spatial depth to a game. It’s a similar phenomenon to what I saw in Sonic Adventure, only… much more so. Much more seamless.

To mention:

This game doesn’t seem to come from anywhere. It doesn’t feel Western. It doesn’t feel distinctly Japanese. It… feels like the love child of Metroid and Myst. Only more so.

Oh god. Oh god. The nose. Must do something.

Juice me up!

Who?

  • Reading time:1 mins read

Through what means I cannot immediately recollect, I — this last day — became far too involved in poring over the ongoing restoration process that Doctor Who has been going through.

Mark Ayers is even involved. You know, the composer for the last several seasons of of the series. (You do, don’t you?)

This is exactly the kind of anal, painstaking process which lights my bulbs of brightness. The more I read, the more curious I become. I really should bother to eat, or just… do something other than stare at the screen. I’m beginning to feel a little strange. But it’s hard to pull myself away.

Now I want to run out and grab all of the available Doctor Who DVDs, to examine the restoration jobs these guys have performed. I am severely inclined to do so. But… no.

I have an orange.

  • Reading time:1 mins read

I got my first issue of Game Developers magazine today. I’ve not really leafed through it in much detail, although I notice an ad for those new Nokia phones that Sega’s planning to support. Actually, there seems to be a pretty big focus on cell phones in this issue. And Lara Croft. Hrm. Tetsuya Mizuguchi appears in a few places with his frosted hair. The cover story is on facial animation and… what appears to be some PC strategy game with which I’m not really familiar.

Also included with this issue was a brochure for the upcoming Game Developers Conference in March. Guh, it’s that soon?

I dreamed in completely non-fluent Japanese, last night. I think I was on a train the whole time.

… I seem to be unusually sensitized right now. Everything feels and sounds and looks about five hundred percent stronger than it should. I hope this calms down, soon. It’s… not very comfortable.

End of report.

Edit: The editor-in-chief of this magazine is female!

Just call me Van. Van DeGraff!

  • Reading time:1 mins read

My hyper-fuzzy pants are also hyper-staticky right now. With the lights off, I can pull or stroke my legs and it’s like a personal light show.

Can you say the same?

Shocking!

“There are no easy answers”

  • Reading time:3 mins read

Adaptation is a movie which it is impossible to say anything intelligent about. You can take that as you will.

Even saying that, I’m probably missing the point.

Nevertheless, I am thoroughly defeated. This is what films can be at the level to which no one ever seems to bother to take them.

I think once this comes out on DVD, I’ll have an interesting tool. Whenever I want a good gauge of how someone’s mind works, I’ll show him or her Adaptation. See what the conclusion is.

I don’t think I’ve had to work that hard in the act of watching a movie, for a very long time (if ever). After a certain point, I had to watch it three or four times at once with separate parts of my brain while simultaneously rewinding and reframing every other element, character, facet of the film from the first words, with every new sentence which was uttered.

And even in doing that, and in realizing that in trying to even find a level to watch it on, or find… anything to speak about, I am shown for the fool that I am — I am! By simply throwing my hands up and saying that the movie intentionally defies concrete understanding and revels in that fact, I’m still narrowing it down to a point which is so inherently ingrained in the movie’s fiber that that’s not it either.

…

So I’ll simply nod. I, personally, can’t hold this one. I’ll just admire it.

Now, how long will it take before videogames reach this level of art? Hmm…

Art and life really are synonymous, aren’t they? Can I ever birth such an immortal being? What’s the point of being here, if not? We are given such a limited chance, and all most people seem to have the ambition to do is to selfishly create more literal life. Life which will wither and wane and be forgotten. A hundred years, and no one will have the chance to know it. It will have no more to say.

I feel I have a responsibility to do more than that, with all of the resources I’m wasting merely by existing in the first place. But can I do it? Will I ever know if I have?

…

All right. I guess I can say that about the movie, without imposing myself upon it. Without suggesting that what I say is the movie, or its point (if it has any one in particular). If I make sure to make this distinction, I suppose I should be okay.

Unrelatedly, The Two Towers didn’t annoy me anywhere near as much on the instance of my second subjection to it. And I can’t get that damned Gollum’s Song, from the ending credits, out of my head of this moment. The flashbacks are still murder, though.

I just flipped the light switch, in attempt to flush the toilet.

The Power Base

  • Reading time:1 mins read

Looking at power base converter…

What is gaming coming to? Used to be such a physical ingenuity to everything…