Elite Beat Agents is a very interesting game. It's a rhythm game in which you tap little circles that appear on the bottom screen of the DS in time with music. It sounds very simple - and to an extent, it really is a very simple game. The gameplay itself could almost be a minigame in another game. But Elite Beat Agents has several different things going for it that make it into a full-fledged - and very fun - game.
1. Humor. While you're busy tapping along with the song, the agents are dancing in the background of the bottom screen, and funny stuff is happening on the top screen depending on how well you're doing. Each level has its own plot - someone (or some animal) needs help, and the agents appear and inspire them with song and dance. The situations, what happens during the level, and what happens at the end of the level all definitely serve to inspire you to beat the level, just to see what hilarious thing happens next.
2. Difficulty. The difficulty curve in this game is very good. Levels range from quite easy to nigh-impossible, and there are rewards for high scores (which often require nigh-perfection) on top of that. The curve itself, like I said, is also very good - the levels start easy and ramp up, and as you learn the mechanics of the game and just generally get more skilled, you become able to handle the harder levels that you get access too. Moreover, the rewards for doing well are good enough to keep you coming back - two harder difficulty levels, 3 hidden levels, and assorted useless but cool features, such as viewing brief cinema scenes again or watching the credits.
3. The Songs. The songs themselves are usually pretty good, and they help to keep you interested. They are, above all, catchy (expect to have them stuck in your head for days to come, especially when you have to spend a fair bit of time to beat them on higher difficulties), and though I personally disagree with some of the choices (Skater Boy...), I think that they certainly serve their purpose, and none of them are especially painful to listen to. Plus, if you already know a song going in, you can expect to do a lot better on the song than you would otherwise - I personally always found Material Girl to be easier than other songs of supposedly equal difficulty, for instance. Seeing a song you know show up is a always a pleasant surprise, though be careful - you may think you know a song, only to realize you only know the chorus - this happened to me on ABC, Canned Heat, and others.
4. General Addictive qualities. The game just keeps you coming back for more - if you keep playing over and over, you can beat basically any level, and like I said above, the songs are catchy, the humor is fantastic, and when you finally do beat a level, the sense of accomplishment is great. So basically it comes back, once again, to pacing.
Things I can learn from Elite Beat Agents:
If you infuse the game with enough other positive qualities (music, humor), the basic gameplay of a game can be quite simple and the game itself will still be great.
A good difficulty curve is key in all games, but especially rhythm games, since the only major change in gameplay in rhythm games tends to be the difficulty.
Saturday, September 12, 2009
Wednesday, July 1, 2009
Review: Kingdom Hearts 2
And here, after a long break, is my review for Kingdom Hearts 2.
KH2 is, unsurprisingly, very similar to KH1. The main character is (usually) the same, the supporting characters are the same, the gameplay is quite similar. The story is fairly similar as well, as least in terms of traveling from one disney world to another in order to defeat the heartless (or nobodies now, occasionally).
However, KH2 is, by and large, much more polished than the first game. First, and most obviously, the Gummi Ship levels - transition levels between larger disney worlds - are leaps and bounds above the gummi ship levels in KH1. They are no longer all drug-trip themed, the enemies you face are diverse, the gummi ship builder is more helpful and intuitive, and the rewards for doing the levels are much more... rewarding. The levels themselves are all very pretty, and very fast-paced - as it should be with a space-shooter, at least usually. All in all, the whole gummi ship system was revamped, and it shows. It's very, very fun in ways that the original wasn't - it now feels like something that design and testing time went into, and they didn't just shove it onto the main game to have something different in the main game - it is now fun, and not just different.
There are many changes within the main game as well. The combat is still largely the same (mash attack until the bad guy dies), but it has several new and shiny features. First among them is probably the "reaction command" system. Basically, every now and then, a "reaction command" will pop up - the game gives you an interesting combat option if you press triangle. These vary greatly, as anything from 'dodge' to 'grab the axe he dropped and smack him with it.' They do add depth to the system, but they can be ignored most of the time - they do make life easier for you if you do use them, though. I'm not in love with the system, though - it feels kind of limited, like they could've done some of these commands without sticking them onto a whole seperate system.
Secondarily, the magic system has been revamped. All spells other than cure cost a fixed amount of mana, and cure immediately drains all of your mana. Once your mana bar is empty, it automatically refills over a period of time. The end result of this is the opposite of what is the case in KH1 - there, every spell you cast that wasn't cure was largely a waste of mana. Here, spamming other spells is encouraged, because cure, while still the most useful spell in your arsenal, does not have a fixed cost, but simply drains all your mana. Thus, it doesn't matter how much mana you have left when you do finally cast it. It's quite a good system, I think - far better than KH1's system, anyway. The best spell is no longer the only spell you should ever cast.
A few more improvements have been made to the gameplay - one major one is the idea of forms. You can combine Sora with one or both of your party members in order gain a temporary power boost. It's quite nifty, actually - the forms are very fun, and a good addition to a varying arsenal of means of killing your enemies. It's like Star Wars: Force Unleashed - having a vast number of ways to kill your enemies makes random encounters much more interesting.
Navigating the worlds themselves is also much easier - they're much more linear, and a useful minimap has been added. Additionally, whenever you go into a zone you've never been to yet, the name displays as ????, making it easy to tell when you're walking in circles.
Additionally, the villains of KH2 are much more interesting. Organization XIII is group of sentient nobodies, each with his or her own elemental theme, bent on universal domination and generally getting in Sora's way. They are far more interesting than Riku and Ansem were in KH1, and far more personally involved in the plot.
That said, it's not all good - while there is much less getting lost in KH2, there's really not much to explore, and I do think that the various worlds do lose something for their linearity. A compromise between the two systems would probably be ideal - though I do think that KH2's system is still overall an improvement.
The actual meta-story in KH2 is also less comprehensible than that of KH1. It's not completely opaque, but certain parts could certainly stand to be clarified. Another issue is the sheer volume of story that happens in the last world - at least to me, something like 50% of the meta-plot happens in the last 3 hours of the game. The sheer volume of plot that is thrown at you, combined with the general confusion in regards to the plot itself means that while the final fight (very epic and very fun) is entertaining, just what Xemnas's (the leader of Organization XIII, and the big bad) ultimate goals were (other than generally taking over the universe) was fairly unclear.
But overall, I think that KH2 is a big step up for KH1. A great game, and if you like games in the genre, I think you should try it out.
Things to learn specifically from KH2:
Put love into parts of sequels that need it. By learning from your mistakes, you can really put polish onto a sequel and make it fantastic. The problem is that sometimes people feel the need to change things simply for change's sake in sequels - and while it's true, a sequel that changes nothing isn't a great idea, changing things that didn't work in one game and adding things onto the things that did work is the way to do it. The way to do it is to examine the previous game (and other games in the same genre, for that matter), see what it did wrong and fix it, see what it did right and put some extra oomph into those areas. I know this sounds obvious, but too many game developers, when they make a sequel, either fail to change something that didn't work in a previous game (and it therefore continues to not work in this game), or change something that did work just fine in a previous game, taking one of the great strengths of the previous game and making it weaker. One example (though admittedly, not a modern one) of the latter is Actraiser to Actraiser 2. Actraiser was a game that had elements of both platforming and sim-city in it. Both were fairly fun, and they combined into an interesting game. Actraiser 2 cut out the sim-city aspect, and it hurt the game by changing something fundamental about it for no adequate reason.
Fun minigames can be great and welcome breaks from the main game. If done well, a recurring minigame should make you look forward to subsequent sections of it for its fun. A minigame should not overwhelm you with its depth, and it CERTAINLY shouldn't force you to dive deeply into it. A minigame has the benifit, compared to the main game, of not having to be very deep, and taking advantage of that to make a quick, fun, but ultimately shallow minigame is not a bad design idea. That said, minigame depth in general can be a tricky issue, and one that I'll look into on a later date. Lufia 2's Ancient Cave is an example of a very deep minigame done well, for example.
KH2 is, unsurprisingly, very similar to KH1. The main character is (usually) the same, the supporting characters are the same, the gameplay is quite similar. The story is fairly similar as well, as least in terms of traveling from one disney world to another in order to defeat the heartless (or nobodies now, occasionally).
However, KH2 is, by and large, much more polished than the first game. First, and most obviously, the Gummi Ship levels - transition levels between larger disney worlds - are leaps and bounds above the gummi ship levels in KH1. They are no longer all drug-trip themed, the enemies you face are diverse, the gummi ship builder is more helpful and intuitive, and the rewards for doing the levels are much more... rewarding. The levels themselves are all very pretty, and very fast-paced - as it should be with a space-shooter, at least usually. All in all, the whole gummi ship system was revamped, and it shows. It's very, very fun in ways that the original wasn't - it now feels like something that design and testing time went into, and they didn't just shove it onto the main game to have something different in the main game - it is now fun, and not just different.
There are many changes within the main game as well. The combat is still largely the same (mash attack until the bad guy dies), but it has several new and shiny features. First among them is probably the "reaction command" system. Basically, every now and then, a "reaction command" will pop up - the game gives you an interesting combat option if you press triangle. These vary greatly, as anything from 'dodge' to 'grab the axe he dropped and smack him with it.' They do add depth to the system, but they can be ignored most of the time - they do make life easier for you if you do use them, though. I'm not in love with the system, though - it feels kind of limited, like they could've done some of these commands without sticking them onto a whole seperate system.
Secondarily, the magic system has been revamped. All spells other than cure cost a fixed amount of mana, and cure immediately drains all of your mana. Once your mana bar is empty, it automatically refills over a period of time. The end result of this is the opposite of what is the case in KH1 - there, every spell you cast that wasn't cure was largely a waste of mana. Here, spamming other spells is encouraged, because cure, while still the most useful spell in your arsenal, does not have a fixed cost, but simply drains all your mana. Thus, it doesn't matter how much mana you have left when you do finally cast it. It's quite a good system, I think - far better than KH1's system, anyway. The best spell is no longer the only spell you should ever cast.
A few more improvements have been made to the gameplay - one major one is the idea of forms. You can combine Sora with one or both of your party members in order gain a temporary power boost. It's quite nifty, actually - the forms are very fun, and a good addition to a varying arsenal of means of killing your enemies. It's like Star Wars: Force Unleashed - having a vast number of ways to kill your enemies makes random encounters much more interesting.
Navigating the worlds themselves is also much easier - they're much more linear, and a useful minimap has been added. Additionally, whenever you go into a zone you've never been to yet, the name displays as ????, making it easy to tell when you're walking in circles.
Additionally, the villains of KH2 are much more interesting. Organization XIII is group of sentient nobodies, each with his or her own elemental theme, bent on universal domination and generally getting in Sora's way. They are far more interesting than Riku and Ansem were in KH1, and far more personally involved in the plot.
That said, it's not all good - while there is much less getting lost in KH2, there's really not much to explore, and I do think that the various worlds do lose something for their linearity. A compromise between the two systems would probably be ideal - though I do think that KH2's system is still overall an improvement.
The actual meta-story in KH2 is also less comprehensible than that of KH1. It's not completely opaque, but certain parts could certainly stand to be clarified. Another issue is the sheer volume of story that happens in the last world - at least to me, something like 50% of the meta-plot happens in the last 3 hours of the game. The sheer volume of plot that is thrown at you, combined with the general confusion in regards to the plot itself means that while the final fight (very epic and very fun) is entertaining, just what Xemnas's (the leader of Organization XIII, and the big bad) ultimate goals were (other than generally taking over the universe) was fairly unclear.
But overall, I think that KH2 is a big step up for KH1. A great game, and if you like games in the genre, I think you should try it out.
Things to learn specifically from KH2:
Put love into parts of sequels that need it. By learning from your mistakes, you can really put polish onto a sequel and make it fantastic. The problem is that sometimes people feel the need to change things simply for change's sake in sequels - and while it's true, a sequel that changes nothing isn't a great idea, changing things that didn't work in one game and adding things onto the things that did work is the way to do it. The way to do it is to examine the previous game (and other games in the same genre, for that matter), see what it did wrong and fix it, see what it did right and put some extra oomph into those areas. I know this sounds obvious, but too many game developers, when they make a sequel, either fail to change something that didn't work in a previous game (and it therefore continues to not work in this game), or change something that did work just fine in a previous game, taking one of the great strengths of the previous game and making it weaker. One example (though admittedly, not a modern one) of the latter is Actraiser to Actraiser 2. Actraiser was a game that had elements of both platforming and sim-city in it. Both were fairly fun, and they combined into an interesting game. Actraiser 2 cut out the sim-city aspect, and it hurt the game by changing something fundamental about it for no adequate reason.
Fun minigames can be great and welcome breaks from the main game. If done well, a recurring minigame should make you look forward to subsequent sections of it for its fun. A minigame should not overwhelm you with its depth, and it CERTAINLY shouldn't force you to dive deeply into it. A minigame has the benifit, compared to the main game, of not having to be very deep, and taking advantage of that to make a quick, fun, but ultimately shallow minigame is not a bad design idea. That said, minigame depth in general can be a tricky issue, and one that I'll look into on a later date. Lufia 2's Ancient Cave is an example of a very deep minigame done well, for example.
Saturday, March 28, 2009
Review: Kingdom Hearts
Kingdom Hearts
Kingdom Hearts is a fun action-RPG made by Square and Disney. It has, at its, core, the rather bizarre pairing of a typical Square hero with various Disney characters in a meta-plot that is typical Square that abounds with subplots that are straight out of Disney movies.
To clarify, you (Sora, the main character) and your two partners (Donald Duck and Goofy) go from one disney world to another (for example, Wonderland, Halloween Town, and Neverland), meeting up with characters from those movies, and defeating the enemies in those worlds. Meanwhile, you've got the meta-plot of trying to find your friends and save the universe. It sounds silly, and odd, but works amazingly well.
As for the gameplay, it's a third-person action game, along the lines of the Destroy All Humans! franchise, or, say, God of War. You directly control Sora, and Donald and Goofy (or whoever happens to be your allies at the time) tag along with you, acting on their own - though you can give them basic instructions as to when to use items, how often to use special attacks, etc. It's pretty good, though fairly one-dimensional - mashing x to hit people with your keyblade is often all you need to do to beat enemies, even bosses. There is magic, and it is useful, but the limited nature of it usually means that the spell you're going to be casting far more than any other is Cure, since the other magic, while useful, can simply be replaced by hitting people with your Keyblade.
You also have abilities that you can assign to your party members - special keyblade attacks, for example, or simple status or spell boosts, or new abilities like high-jumping or gliding. The customization aspect here is nice, but didn't really feel like it was all that it could be. Your choices never felt like they made that much of a difference. Still, it's something.
The enviroments also are worth noting - they are very pretty, and quite true to the movies that they are based on. However, they are huge, and often labyrinthine - you spend lots and lots of time wandering around the worlds, looking for that next place to go. Some people applaud the world design of Kingdom Hearts (at least compared to Kingdom Hearts 2), saying that the exploration of the Disney worlds was fun and cool - however, I like having a more set path to follow in my games. Exploration is all well and good, but getting lost and wandering around until you find what you need to do should be a gaming trope that no longer exists.
There's also the Gummi ship levels - levels that happen between worlds that are reminiscent of Star Fox. They're all right, but not really all that fun, at least to me. All the gummi levels felt the same, and I never really felt any incentive to play them over again. There's also gummi ship customization, which is nice, but I never really saw the draw of it, as there were no real objectives to gummi-shipping other than to get from point A to point B. The levels themselves all were very similar graphics-wise (a technicolor background with occasional rocks, rings, or other obstacles) and didn't really vary gameplay-wise either.
There's not that much more to talk about - the story is good, and very true to its sources, and the gameplay is fun, if frustrating or one-dimensional at times. Overall, a solid, fun game with a few moderately-sized flaws.
Things to learn:
Mixing atmospheres (Square and Disney) can work surprisingly well! As with Paper Mario, the idea to take away from this is that anything can work if it's done well, no matter how crazy it might sound.
Making your gameplay fast-paced is often a good thing. Fast combat is fun, more often than not, in my opinion.
Providing multiple viable options in combat makes combat more fun. Kingdom Hearts doesn't offer enough options - compare this to, say, The Force Unleashed, where you have many different viable options to kill mooks. The latter really gets quite a bit of milage out of its gameplay, whereas Kingdom Hearts really does start to wear thin towards the end in its "press x until the bad guy dies" style of gameplay.
If you're going to make transitionary levels (such as gummi ship levels), make them interesting. Don't just slap something in there to make your gameplay more diverse. You want them to be fun, good breaks that don't necessesarily need to be as deep as the main gameplay. What I'm trying to say is that these sorts of levels (and mini-games in general) should be both fun and different, not just different. It sounds obvious, but too many mini-game type things try to make things just different and forget to make them fun.
Kingdom Hearts is a fun action-RPG made by Square and Disney. It has, at its, core, the rather bizarre pairing of a typical Square hero with various Disney characters in a meta-plot that is typical Square that abounds with subplots that are straight out of Disney movies.
To clarify, you (Sora, the main character) and your two partners (Donald Duck and Goofy) go from one disney world to another (for example, Wonderland, Halloween Town, and Neverland), meeting up with characters from those movies, and defeating the enemies in those worlds. Meanwhile, you've got the meta-plot of trying to find your friends and save the universe. It sounds silly, and odd, but works amazingly well.
As for the gameplay, it's a third-person action game, along the lines of the Destroy All Humans! franchise, or, say, God of War. You directly control Sora, and Donald and Goofy (or whoever happens to be your allies at the time) tag along with you, acting on their own - though you can give them basic instructions as to when to use items, how often to use special attacks, etc. It's pretty good, though fairly one-dimensional - mashing x to hit people with your keyblade is often all you need to do to beat enemies, even bosses. There is magic, and it is useful, but the limited nature of it usually means that the spell you're going to be casting far more than any other is Cure, since the other magic, while useful, can simply be replaced by hitting people with your Keyblade.
You also have abilities that you can assign to your party members - special keyblade attacks, for example, or simple status or spell boosts, or new abilities like high-jumping or gliding. The customization aspect here is nice, but didn't really feel like it was all that it could be. Your choices never felt like they made that much of a difference. Still, it's something.
The enviroments also are worth noting - they are very pretty, and quite true to the movies that they are based on. However, they are huge, and often labyrinthine - you spend lots and lots of time wandering around the worlds, looking for that next place to go. Some people applaud the world design of Kingdom Hearts (at least compared to Kingdom Hearts 2), saying that the exploration of the Disney worlds was fun and cool - however, I like having a more set path to follow in my games. Exploration is all well and good, but getting lost and wandering around until you find what you need to do should be a gaming trope that no longer exists.
There's also the Gummi ship levels - levels that happen between worlds that are reminiscent of Star Fox. They're all right, but not really all that fun, at least to me. All the gummi levels felt the same, and I never really felt any incentive to play them over again. There's also gummi ship customization, which is nice, but I never really saw the draw of it, as there were no real objectives to gummi-shipping other than to get from point A to point B. The levels themselves all were very similar graphics-wise (a technicolor background with occasional rocks, rings, or other obstacles) and didn't really vary gameplay-wise either.
There's not that much more to talk about - the story is good, and very true to its sources, and the gameplay is fun, if frustrating or one-dimensional at times. Overall, a solid, fun game with a few moderately-sized flaws.
Things to learn:
Mixing atmospheres (Square and Disney) can work surprisingly well! As with Paper Mario, the idea to take away from this is that anything can work if it's done well, no matter how crazy it might sound.
Making your gameplay fast-paced is often a good thing. Fast combat is fun, more often than not, in my opinion.
Providing multiple viable options in combat makes combat more fun. Kingdom Hearts doesn't offer enough options - compare this to, say, The Force Unleashed, where you have many different viable options to kill mooks. The latter really gets quite a bit of milage out of its gameplay, whereas Kingdom Hearts really does start to wear thin towards the end in its "press x until the bad guy dies" style of gameplay.
If you're going to make transitionary levels (such as gummi ship levels), make them interesting. Don't just slap something in there to make your gameplay more diverse. You want them to be fun, good breaks that don't necessesarily need to be as deep as the main gameplay. What I'm trying to say is that these sorts of levels (and mini-games in general) should be both fun and different, not just different. It sounds obvious, but too many mini-game type things try to make things just different and forget to make them fun.
Monday, March 16, 2009
Review: Paper Mario and the Thousand-Year Door
Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door
A great RPG, Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door has you playing as Mario, as well as guest-starring Peach and Bowser. Mario faces, by and large, the X-Nauts, a group of pretty generic evil people, and their leader Grodus, who has kidnapped Peach for reasons initially unknown. Your quest is to find the seven "crystal stars," as well as rescue Princess Peach - and solve other people's problems in the meantime, too.
The story is pretty generic, but the characters really make it spring to life. Mario himself is a silent protaganist, but the other characters are fantastic - from the sexy mouse ninja Ms. Mowz to the depressed Koopa Koops, they are quite entertaining. The subplots are also quite entertaining, and often fairly original, such as when Mario looses his identity (quite literally, his name and appearance are stolen) - it's certainly enjoyable.
I feel the need to mention pacing here - most of the time, it's quite good. Dungeons and cities are laid out well (in terms of how long you spend in each), and the subplots usually last just long enough. Also, the train level towards the end was one of my favorites, and it was just a mystery with only minimal fighting for the most part. Very well done. Occasionally, however, it does falter - for example, there's one part where you have to go back and forth between the a few different areas several times - quite annoying.
Badges are how you customize Mario - you have a set number of points (that goes up as you level) to spend on badges that can give you different attacks, more health/magic, upgrade Mario's abilities... whatever you feel like. The badge system is quite well done, and an entertaining exercise in customization.
As for the combat itself, it's very entertaining. You have Mario, and his partners, one of which can be assisting you at any given time. You can switch between them on the fly (assuming you use the right badge, which I think pretty much everyone does), giving you quite a few choices for attacks. Additionally, Mario has a decent variety of attacks to choose from, depending on which badges you give him. You also have a timing element with every attack - press A when Mario lands on someone, hold left to charge the hammer - whatever. They keep combat interesting. And combat is interesting - the wide variety of things you can do with your partners and Mario, as well as the timed effects for each ability keep combat fresh and fun.
Of course, I should mention the art style - everything looks like it's made of paper. And so it is - many of the puzzles of the game involve abusing the fact that Mario is, in fact made of paper - such as folding him into a paper airplane or turning sideways to fit through a crack. Honestly, once you get used to it, the paper art style is just another part of the world. Sure, it gets used in puzzles, but really, it's just a fanciful art style that compliments the mood of the game. It never feels like it gets in the way of the game. So really, I suppose that it's done very well - it compliments the gameplay and the tone of the game, and never feels like it should have been done some other way. And this doesn't just apply to the paper-ness of everything - twilight town (or whatever it's called) and the black and white forest are both fantastic, as well as all the other locations in the game.
All in all, this is just a solid game. There are a few things I'd change, but they are only very minor points. This game deserves the high praise it gets, as it's one of the best RPG's I've played in quite some time.
Things to learn:
Adding some sort of timing to otherwise turn-based combat is a good way to keep combat interesting.
Interesting and fun characters are key. A good story is great as well, but always looking forward to what the characters will do next makes a game interesting.
Sometimes, just doing something very well without being especially innovative is excellent.
Feel free to use a seemingly bizarre art style! If you do it well, and it compliments the game, it'll work, no matter how initially crazy it may sound.
Also, some housekeeping - I've basically run out of pre-made reviews and design from my archives, so I'm shifting to a once-per-week update schedule (at least - I may update more than that), and ditching having any select day to update on - though Tuesday and/or Thursday will still be likely. Also, this is really last weeks post, so expect another later in the week.
A great RPG, Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door has you playing as Mario, as well as guest-starring Peach and Bowser. Mario faces, by and large, the X-Nauts, a group of pretty generic evil people, and their leader Grodus, who has kidnapped Peach for reasons initially unknown. Your quest is to find the seven "crystal stars," as well as rescue Princess Peach - and solve other people's problems in the meantime, too.
The story is pretty generic, but the characters really make it spring to life. Mario himself is a silent protaganist, but the other characters are fantastic - from the sexy mouse ninja Ms. Mowz to the depressed Koopa Koops, they are quite entertaining. The subplots are also quite entertaining, and often fairly original, such as when Mario looses his identity (quite literally, his name and appearance are stolen) - it's certainly enjoyable.
I feel the need to mention pacing here - most of the time, it's quite good. Dungeons and cities are laid out well (in terms of how long you spend in each), and the subplots usually last just long enough. Also, the train level towards the end was one of my favorites, and it was just a mystery with only minimal fighting for the most part. Very well done. Occasionally, however, it does falter - for example, there's one part where you have to go back and forth between the a few different areas several times - quite annoying.
Badges are how you customize Mario - you have a set number of points (that goes up as you level) to spend on badges that can give you different attacks, more health/magic, upgrade Mario's abilities... whatever you feel like. The badge system is quite well done, and an entertaining exercise in customization.
As for the combat itself, it's very entertaining. You have Mario, and his partners, one of which can be assisting you at any given time. You can switch between them on the fly (assuming you use the right badge, which I think pretty much everyone does), giving you quite a few choices for attacks. Additionally, Mario has a decent variety of attacks to choose from, depending on which badges you give him. You also have a timing element with every attack - press A when Mario lands on someone, hold left to charge the hammer - whatever. They keep combat interesting. And combat is interesting - the wide variety of things you can do with your partners and Mario, as well as the timed effects for each ability keep combat fresh and fun.
Of course, I should mention the art style - everything looks like it's made of paper. And so it is - many of the puzzles of the game involve abusing the fact that Mario is, in fact made of paper - such as folding him into a paper airplane or turning sideways to fit through a crack. Honestly, once you get used to it, the paper art style is just another part of the world. Sure, it gets used in puzzles, but really, it's just a fanciful art style that compliments the mood of the game. It never feels like it gets in the way of the game. So really, I suppose that it's done very well - it compliments the gameplay and the tone of the game, and never feels like it should have been done some other way. And this doesn't just apply to the paper-ness of everything - twilight town (or whatever it's called) and the black and white forest are both fantastic, as well as all the other locations in the game.
All in all, this is just a solid game. There are a few things I'd change, but they are only very minor points. This game deserves the high praise it gets, as it's one of the best RPG's I've played in quite some time.
Things to learn:
Adding some sort of timing to otherwise turn-based combat is a good way to keep combat interesting.
Interesting and fun characters are key. A good story is great as well, but always looking forward to what the characters will do next makes a game interesting.
Sometimes, just doing something very well without being especially innovative is excellent.
Feel free to use a seemingly bizarre art style! If you do it well, and it compliments the game, it'll work, no matter how initially crazy it may sound.
Also, some housekeeping - I've basically run out of pre-made reviews and design from my archives, so I'm shifting to a once-per-week update schedule (at least - I may update more than that), and ditching having any select day to update on - though Tuesday and/or Thursday will still be likely. Also, this is really last weeks post, so expect another later in the week.
Friday, March 6, 2009
Review: Star Wars: The Force Unleashed
Star Wars: The Force Unleashed
In this third-person action game (think something like Kingdom Hearts for gameplay, or even Mario 64) You play as the secret apprentice of Darth Vader, set between episodes 3 and 4, a force-slinging badass whose job it is, at least initially, to track down and kill the survivors of the empire's massacre of the Jedi which took place in episode 3. As is only natural for a video game, your character is actually fairly likable, and the character himself develops over time to be more of a hero, though you do have an eventual choice at the very end of the game to be good or evil. (Sort of. It's moderately complicated.) The "good" ending is actually Star Wars canon, apparently, and it's a fairly interesting tale in general.
(As a note, my review of this game comes only from the Wii version. I've never played the other versions, so anything I say here may not apply in the other versions of the game.)
The story is all well and good, and paced fairly well. The characters, as well, are fairly interesting - and of course, it helps that you already know the personalities of The Emperor and Darth Vader. It's not exactly the pinnacle of originality - especially for a Star Wars story - but it certainly gets the job done, and is certainly entertaining. Apparently, some rather important details were left out of the Wii version of this game (the rebel alliance symbol is the main characters family crest? news to me), but it still works. That said, I have no idea why this would be the case - I highly doubt it was a disk space issue, though I suppose that's not impossible. Either way, such important details shouldn't simply be cut.
But why I really love this game isn't for the story, it's for the gameplay. And let me tell you, the gameplay is fantastic. Your various force powers are, by and large, easy enough to use, as well as fairly intuitive - for example, to use "Force Push," you push the nunchuck forward. You also use the main part of the remote as a lightsaber - swinging it back and forth actually makes the main character swing his saber back and forth, in a very similar way to the way you swung the wiimote. It's really cool.
The sheer power of the main character, and the many ways you have to devastate the enemy forces, are what makes the game great. You've got your saber, you've got a few varieties of force lightning, you've got a few varieties of force push, you can throw your lightsaber (among other lightsaber-themed force powers), and you've got telekinesis, to name a few. All of them rapidly dispatch the enemy mooks, and boy is it grand. Wave after wave of enemies are sent against you, and you can dispatch them without too much difficulty in any number of entertaining ways. It's really hard to describe just how the game goes and adequetly convey the sense of fun that playing the game gives. The sheer power of the main character, the way he devastates all in his path - it's just really, really fun.
And yet, you aren't invulnerable - while you do have an innate capacity to reflect blaster shots, plenty will get through if you're not careful, and the bosses can be a pain. The balance of the main character's phenomenal cosmic powers and the game's difficulty manages to work, which is just fantastic. Enough minions (especially spread-out ones) can still do you in, and the bosses can be a pain. Which brings me to my first qualm with this game - the bosses. They all feel (at least, the humanoid ones) fairly identical, and your tactics don't really need to vary from one to another. Swing your saber, shoot some lightning, maybe try some telekinesis, and they'll eventually go down. Maybe you'll need to block from time to time, and maybe you'll have to kill some minions here or there, but the humanoid bosses (which is the majority, by the way - non-humanoid bosses are typically actually minibosses, and fairly easy in their own right) all feel basically the same.
There is also no "hard mode" in this game. Given that if you decide to start the game using your old file's data, you'll probably start with one or two maxed-out force powers, it makes the game incredibly easy until late. Additionally, there's no level select mode, which is particularly annoying given what I just said about difficulty, as well as the fact that there are many collectibles to grab throughout the levels. Trying to get all of the collectibles is quite an annoying task without any sort of level select feature. The camera could use some work as well, but it's not as bad as some I've seen.
I haven't played the multiplayer mode for this game, but I hear it's alright - though there is no online, nor are there bots you can play against. Frustrating.
The penalty for death in this game is minimal - you just lose a small amount of force points (experience used to power up your force powers), and if you're facing a boss, the boss regains a bit of health. You respawn at basically the exact same point you died at. Frankly, I think this isn't severe enough - you should get kicked back to the last checkpoint, pure and simple, and you should have a limited amount of lives before you have to restart the level. Of course, there's something to be said for being able to truck through levels, but I think with checkpoints and a fairly decent amount of lives per level, it would be a better game, since there would actually be some sense that the main character was in serious danger. Like I said earlier, the balance is good - staying alive is fairly challenging, but if you actually die, it's not that bad at all. So I suppose game balance "feels" good, but in reality, with the lack of penalty for death, it makes it a really easy game. Whenever I died in this game, I honestly felt a bit of disappointment - my thoughts were basically "Huh. Well, uh, I guess I'll go kill the dudes that killed me and move on now. And now I've got full health." Not exactly the sentiments I feel should accompany death, in pretty much any game. At the very least, the game should keep track of how many times you died, in order to make you feel bad if you die too much, and give you a "0 death run" goal to shoot for.
But all in all, this is a really great game. The gameplay is some of the funnest I've ever played, and the story is pretty good as well. I wish it was longer (it was quite easy to rent it once and beat it), but with this sort of action game, a long game isn't the standard.
Things to be learned:
Giving the main character a really high level power and tossing wave after wave of mooks at him is really, really fun if done right. Indeed, making the main character have a TON of power in general, and yet still making the game balanced, can be great fun. It's always fun to have power, and it's even better if you have incredible power and the game is still balanced. I've never encountered a game that does it as well as this one. (PS: Dear Psi-Ops, please take a look at this game. It proves that you don't have to make everything immune to your psychic powers late game in order to still have a challenge. Please take this to heart if you ever get a sequel. Love, Adam.)
Differentiate bosses. Fighting one shouldn't be the exact same thing as fight every other one.
Difficulty levels - have them. I believe this is on my "list of things games should always have." Blasting through a game with no challenge is much less fun than blasting through a game while you are being challenged.
Level select - have it. For a game like this - a game that consists of very little but one level following another following another, it's a really good feature to have.
If you can, make your multiplayer have online and computer bot capabilities. It may be some extra work, but it makes multiplayer a heck of a lot more fun.
Death should have some sort of penalty, I think. Obviously, given current games like Bioshock (or so I hear) and Destroy All Humans! that don't have a severe penalty for death, some good game designers disagree with me, and I certainly can see the reasons they choose to have a minimal penalty for death. But my (current, anyway) opinion is that there should be a decent, though certainly not unreasonable, penalty for death. I feel that this game falls into the "too small penalty for death" category.
In this third-person action game (think something like Kingdom Hearts for gameplay, or even Mario 64) You play as the secret apprentice of Darth Vader, set between episodes 3 and 4, a force-slinging badass whose job it is, at least initially, to track down and kill the survivors of the empire's massacre of the Jedi which took place in episode 3. As is only natural for a video game, your character is actually fairly likable, and the character himself develops over time to be more of a hero, though you do have an eventual choice at the very end of the game to be good or evil. (Sort of. It's moderately complicated.) The "good" ending is actually Star Wars canon, apparently, and it's a fairly interesting tale in general.
(As a note, my review of this game comes only from the Wii version. I've never played the other versions, so anything I say here may not apply in the other versions of the game.)
The story is all well and good, and paced fairly well. The characters, as well, are fairly interesting - and of course, it helps that you already know the personalities of The Emperor and Darth Vader. It's not exactly the pinnacle of originality - especially for a Star Wars story - but it certainly gets the job done, and is certainly entertaining. Apparently, some rather important details were left out of the Wii version of this game (the rebel alliance symbol is the main characters family crest? news to me), but it still works. That said, I have no idea why this would be the case - I highly doubt it was a disk space issue, though I suppose that's not impossible. Either way, such important details shouldn't simply be cut.
But why I really love this game isn't for the story, it's for the gameplay. And let me tell you, the gameplay is fantastic. Your various force powers are, by and large, easy enough to use, as well as fairly intuitive - for example, to use "Force Push," you push the nunchuck forward. You also use the main part of the remote as a lightsaber - swinging it back and forth actually makes the main character swing his saber back and forth, in a very similar way to the way you swung the wiimote. It's really cool.
The sheer power of the main character, and the many ways you have to devastate the enemy forces, are what makes the game great. You've got your saber, you've got a few varieties of force lightning, you've got a few varieties of force push, you can throw your lightsaber (among other lightsaber-themed force powers), and you've got telekinesis, to name a few. All of them rapidly dispatch the enemy mooks, and boy is it grand. Wave after wave of enemies are sent against you, and you can dispatch them without too much difficulty in any number of entertaining ways. It's really hard to describe just how the game goes and adequetly convey the sense of fun that playing the game gives. The sheer power of the main character, the way he devastates all in his path - it's just really, really fun.
And yet, you aren't invulnerable - while you do have an innate capacity to reflect blaster shots, plenty will get through if you're not careful, and the bosses can be a pain. The balance of the main character's phenomenal cosmic powers and the game's difficulty manages to work, which is just fantastic. Enough minions (especially spread-out ones) can still do you in, and the bosses can be a pain. Which brings me to my first qualm with this game - the bosses. They all feel (at least, the humanoid ones) fairly identical, and your tactics don't really need to vary from one to another. Swing your saber, shoot some lightning, maybe try some telekinesis, and they'll eventually go down. Maybe you'll need to block from time to time, and maybe you'll have to kill some minions here or there, but the humanoid bosses (which is the majority, by the way - non-humanoid bosses are typically actually minibosses, and fairly easy in their own right) all feel basically the same.
There is also no "hard mode" in this game. Given that if you decide to start the game using your old file's data, you'll probably start with one or two maxed-out force powers, it makes the game incredibly easy until late. Additionally, there's no level select mode, which is particularly annoying given what I just said about difficulty, as well as the fact that there are many collectibles to grab throughout the levels. Trying to get all of the collectibles is quite an annoying task without any sort of level select feature. The camera could use some work as well, but it's not as bad as some I've seen.
I haven't played the multiplayer mode for this game, but I hear it's alright - though there is no online, nor are there bots you can play against. Frustrating.
The penalty for death in this game is minimal - you just lose a small amount of force points (experience used to power up your force powers), and if you're facing a boss, the boss regains a bit of health. You respawn at basically the exact same point you died at. Frankly, I think this isn't severe enough - you should get kicked back to the last checkpoint, pure and simple, and you should have a limited amount of lives before you have to restart the level. Of course, there's something to be said for being able to truck through levels, but I think with checkpoints and a fairly decent amount of lives per level, it would be a better game, since there would actually be some sense that the main character was in serious danger. Like I said earlier, the balance is good - staying alive is fairly challenging, but if you actually die, it's not that bad at all. So I suppose game balance "feels" good, but in reality, with the lack of penalty for death, it makes it a really easy game. Whenever I died in this game, I honestly felt a bit of disappointment - my thoughts were basically "Huh. Well, uh, I guess I'll go kill the dudes that killed me and move on now. And now I've got full health." Not exactly the sentiments I feel should accompany death, in pretty much any game. At the very least, the game should keep track of how many times you died, in order to make you feel bad if you die too much, and give you a "0 death run" goal to shoot for.
But all in all, this is a really great game. The gameplay is some of the funnest I've ever played, and the story is pretty good as well. I wish it was longer (it was quite easy to rent it once and beat it), but with this sort of action game, a long game isn't the standard.
Things to be learned:
Giving the main character a really high level power and tossing wave after wave of mooks at him is really, really fun if done right. Indeed, making the main character have a TON of power in general, and yet still making the game balanced, can be great fun. It's always fun to have power, and it's even better if you have incredible power and the game is still balanced. I've never encountered a game that does it as well as this one. (PS: Dear Psi-Ops, please take a look at this game. It proves that you don't have to make everything immune to your psychic powers late game in order to still have a challenge. Please take this to heart if you ever get a sequel. Love, Adam.)
Differentiate bosses. Fighting one shouldn't be the exact same thing as fight every other one.
Difficulty levels - have them. I believe this is on my "list of things games should always have." Blasting through a game with no challenge is much less fun than blasting through a game while you are being challenged.
Level select - have it. For a game like this - a game that consists of very little but one level following another following another, it's a really good feature to have.
If you can, make your multiplayer have online and computer bot capabilities. It may be some extra work, but it makes multiplayer a heck of a lot more fun.
Death should have some sort of penalty, I think. Obviously, given current games like Bioshock (or so I hear) and Destroy All Humans! that don't have a severe penalty for death, some good game designers disagree with me, and I certainly can see the reasons they choose to have a minimal penalty for death. But my (current, anyway) opinion is that there should be a decent, though certainly not unreasonable, penalty for death. I feel that this game falls into the "too small penalty for death" category.
Friday, February 27, 2009
Design: Awakenings (2)
Story thoughts:
-Before the game starts, you kill yourself for some reason, or die because of something you did. My current thought is that you get involved in a cult in life, but as you learn more about it, you disagree with their nihilist ideals. However, something happens to change your mind – perhaps your family gets killed, or something roughly as traumatic. Basically, enough to turn you initially to the dark side, but still have a believable possibility of light inside. You then decide to go through with an elaborate cult ritual which ends in your death.
-You are then, as expected, raised by your cosmic horror master, and your latent necromantic powers are awakened by him. You are told by him that you are now bound to his will, and will be his agent on earth. He needs you to free him from his bonds that keep him trapped beneath the earth, as he only has very limited influence on the events on earth from his current situation.
-Your form is that of a being made of magic. Your body and soul have been absorbed and merged by magic, rather than being any conventional sort of undead. Your appearance would be something like a multicolored (mostly dark colors), pseudocorporeal human.
-You are told by your cosmic horror master that you are simply one of many that have taken the ritual – however, this isn’t true. You are special. He only awakened your untapped necromancy potential – usually, he has to imbue the victim with some of his own power – and having done that, your power can grow greatly on its own.
-You make choose to make different moral choices as you progress, controlled by how you have your undead defeat people. Sure, at first you think that the world should be destroyed by your master, but how much pain do you need to inflict on people in the meantime? As the story progresses, you begin to question your feelings more and more as you see some goodness in humanity (at least if you are leaning towards good), and you begin to doubt your mission. Ultimately, you could choose to continue to do his will, because you like the power and like the mayhem. Or, you could choose to defy him, and make him your enemy, and ultimately redeem yourself.
-You master cannot directly see what you’re doing, but you report to him, and other, loyal cultists also report to him behind your back – thus, he can get some sense of whether you’re lying to him or not, but can’t know for sure.
-The gameplay is changed somewhat by how you choose to play morally. First, you can still have your undead fight with you, but you have to tell them to disable, not kill, your enemies – they deal slightly less damage this way, and you don’t get very many resources from the bodies, however, you also attract less attention from other enemies (For example, if this was GTA, your star rating would go up less) – and thus you have to fight less enemies. Certain undead might have certain moves that make this easier than others – creatures that can shock enemies into unconsciousness, for example. You also have undead that can be stealthy, and favoring them could make going “good” easier.
-As you progress in the story, in addition to changing the way that you play the game somewhat, the story also begins to change as you make your choices. You do missions in different ways, obviously, but you can also choose to do different missions – if you want to destroy your master, you can do a quest to get more information from a former cult site in some mountains, for example, which in turn leads to a hunt for an artifact to destroy him. If you want to simply release him, as he’d like, you have to collect a different artifact to complete the relic that could free him. If you want to destroy him and absorb his power, then you could do a mix of the two, but neither would require quite as much effort – the idea is for all four paths to be roughly the same difficulty. If you want to prevent his raising but not take the risk of trying to destroy him, then you hunt down what would be used to raise him and hide it better or try to destroy it.
-Obviously, you can harvest your resources from people, but you can also get corpses and souls from graveyards and the like (morgues?) The alternate resources, such as plants and magical stone, could also be harvested in other, murder-neutral ways.
-Using souls isn’t as evil as it initially sounds. Souls outside of bodies can’t be destroyed, and are by default unconscious in this world – they usually only remain in the world for a short time after their body’s death by default, though they can persist for some time, especially near graveyards and the like. Thus, while you do keep them from going on to the afterlife with your magic, they are not conscious for it, and if they “fall” in your service, the magic binding them releases, and they depart to the afterlife.
-You have to recover some mysterious artifact in order to free your master, the pieces to which are scattered around the world.
-A mysterious (and ultimately very powerful, though that part is hidden) counter/foil to the cosmic horror appears (perhaps a love-interestish female?), and tries to draw you back into the light, or at least, to deny your master. He or she probably appears at the end of certain missions, at least to start with, and just points out the goodness of humanity to you and the like. S/he is the agent of some other force, and in the end, you accept that person’s ideas, or you kill (or at least reject) him or her.
Possible endings:
- You summon forth your horror master to take over the world, as its servant. You become absorbed into its being, and it does its stuff. World ends, everyone dies – or something like that. Final Boss: Mysterious other character.
- You summon forth your master, in order to destroy it. You do so, and save the world. Possibly involving a heroic sacrifice. Final Boss: Cosmic Horror
- You re-seal (or don’t unseal, and perhaps make it harder for the next guy to try to unseal) the monster, so it remains, but so do you, at least in theory. Final Boss: Mysterious other character
- You summon forth your master in order to destroy it, and take its place. Final Boss: Cosmic Horror
-Before the game starts, you kill yourself for some reason, or die because of something you did. My current thought is that you get involved in a cult in life, but as you learn more about it, you disagree with their nihilist ideals. However, something happens to change your mind – perhaps your family gets killed, or something roughly as traumatic. Basically, enough to turn you initially to the dark side, but still have a believable possibility of light inside. You then decide to go through with an elaborate cult ritual which ends in your death.
-You are then, as expected, raised by your cosmic horror master, and your latent necromantic powers are awakened by him. You are told by him that you are now bound to his will, and will be his agent on earth. He needs you to free him from his bonds that keep him trapped beneath the earth, as he only has very limited influence on the events on earth from his current situation.
-Your form is that of a being made of magic. Your body and soul have been absorbed and merged by magic, rather than being any conventional sort of undead. Your appearance would be something like a multicolored (mostly dark colors), pseudocorporeal human.
-You are told by your cosmic horror master that you are simply one of many that have taken the ritual – however, this isn’t true. You are special. He only awakened your untapped necromancy potential – usually, he has to imbue the victim with some of his own power – and having done that, your power can grow greatly on its own.
-You make choose to make different moral choices as you progress, controlled by how you have your undead defeat people. Sure, at first you think that the world should be destroyed by your master, but how much pain do you need to inflict on people in the meantime? As the story progresses, you begin to question your feelings more and more as you see some goodness in humanity (at least if you are leaning towards good), and you begin to doubt your mission. Ultimately, you could choose to continue to do his will, because you like the power and like the mayhem. Or, you could choose to defy him, and make him your enemy, and ultimately redeem yourself.
-You master cannot directly see what you’re doing, but you report to him, and other, loyal cultists also report to him behind your back – thus, he can get some sense of whether you’re lying to him or not, but can’t know for sure.
-The gameplay is changed somewhat by how you choose to play morally. First, you can still have your undead fight with you, but you have to tell them to disable, not kill, your enemies – they deal slightly less damage this way, and you don’t get very many resources from the bodies, however, you also attract less attention from other enemies (For example, if this was GTA, your star rating would go up less) – and thus you have to fight less enemies. Certain undead might have certain moves that make this easier than others – creatures that can shock enemies into unconsciousness, for example. You also have undead that can be stealthy, and favoring them could make going “good” easier.
-As you progress in the story, in addition to changing the way that you play the game somewhat, the story also begins to change as you make your choices. You do missions in different ways, obviously, but you can also choose to do different missions – if you want to destroy your master, you can do a quest to get more information from a former cult site in some mountains, for example, which in turn leads to a hunt for an artifact to destroy him. If you want to simply release him, as he’d like, you have to collect a different artifact to complete the relic that could free him. If you want to destroy him and absorb his power, then you could do a mix of the two, but neither would require quite as much effort – the idea is for all four paths to be roughly the same difficulty. If you want to prevent his raising but not take the risk of trying to destroy him, then you hunt down what would be used to raise him and hide it better or try to destroy it.
-Obviously, you can harvest your resources from people, but you can also get corpses and souls from graveyards and the like (morgues?) The alternate resources, such as plants and magical stone, could also be harvested in other, murder-neutral ways.
-Using souls isn’t as evil as it initially sounds. Souls outside of bodies can’t be destroyed, and are by default unconscious in this world – they usually only remain in the world for a short time after their body’s death by default, though they can persist for some time, especially near graveyards and the like. Thus, while you do keep them from going on to the afterlife with your magic, they are not conscious for it, and if they “fall” in your service, the magic binding them releases, and they depart to the afterlife.
-You have to recover some mysterious artifact in order to free your master, the pieces to which are scattered around the world.
-A mysterious (and ultimately very powerful, though that part is hidden) counter/foil to the cosmic horror appears (perhaps a love-interestish female?), and tries to draw you back into the light, or at least, to deny your master. He or she probably appears at the end of certain missions, at least to start with, and just points out the goodness of humanity to you and the like. S/he is the agent of some other force, and in the end, you accept that person’s ideas, or you kill (or at least reject) him or her.
Possible endings:
- You summon forth your horror master to take over the world, as its servant. You become absorbed into its being, and it does its stuff. World ends, everyone dies – or something like that. Final Boss: Mysterious other character.
- You summon forth your master, in order to destroy it. You do so, and save the world. Possibly involving a heroic sacrifice. Final Boss: Cosmic Horror
- You re-seal (or don’t unseal, and perhaps make it harder for the next guy to try to unseal) the monster, so it remains, but so do you, at least in theory. Final Boss: Mysterious other character
- You summon forth your master in order to destroy it, and take its place. Final Boss: Cosmic Horror
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
Design: Awakenings
This week I'm going to be featuring a game that I wrote up a relatively basic design for last semester.
Title: Awakenings
Premise: You play as a necromancer spirit of some variety, raised and granted power by a horror trapped within the earth. Your initial goal is to free him, but you can choose to disobey.
Gameplay Style:
General style is a third-person action game, with you controlling one person directly, a few people indirectly, and more allies that you can summon but cannot control.
Undead controlling system:
You can possess a single undead at a time. As you do, that undead gains additional health, speed, and power, and you would also have access to certain special abilities that that type of undead can’t usually use.
You summon undead from your reserves of resources (corpses, souls, and other things). When you kill someone and they aren’t auto-raised by whatever you killed them with, you get a certain amount of corpses and souls.
While you do directly control one undead at a time, you also have a party of undead that you can indirectly control by giving them orders, a la Spore or Kingdom Hearts. This posse can only be so big, however, and any more undead that you make are under their own control – a basic ai that kills every enemy in sight. Also, the ones that are directly in your party gain a bit of power, speed, and maybe an extra ability compared to the ai ones, to make being in your party feel meaningful.
Some undead have abilities that instantly raise slain enemies as undead. For example, Vampires that kill enemies with their bite attack raise the enemy as a vampire. These would automatically become basic ai-controlled undead that help you out, but you can’t control.
You can also be outside an undead, but you don’t have a whole lot of powers in that form.
Undead Stuff:
As you progress, perhaps you can upgrade your undeads’ abilities, or grant them new ones, as well as unlock more types of undead. I was thinking that you could start with 2 types of undead for each corporeal and incorporeal, for a total of 4 total. Zombie, Skeleton, Ghost, and Wraith seem good to start with, and unlockables could include (corporeal) Vampire, Patchwork Monster, and Lich, and (incorporeal) Banshee, Shade, and Poultergeist. You can spend experience (gained from, at least, completing quests and beating people up) to upgrade existing undead’s abilities, and to get new types of undead if you’ve upgraded previous ones enough, though the previous ones will still be useful. You could also have more undead in your party as you level up.
Two Main Resources: Corpses and Souls. Corpses are mostly used for corporeal undead (skeletons, zombies) and souls mostly used for incorporeal undead (ghosts, wraiths). These can be harvested from people, obviously, but can also be taken from graveyards. There’s also some specialty resources that can be taken from other places to get special creatures – Magical stone for Gargoyles, certain plants to make into shambling mounds, that sort of thing – perhaps obtainable by side quest. (Rough Example: As you explore a pyramid in Egypt as part of a plot-driven mission, you could also go further down a different, more dangerous part of the pyramid (or a different pyramid entirely), and at the end find the ritual to raise a new type of monster.)
There’s also a final resource, magic, that is needed for everything. Perhaps it slowly recharges over time?
Setting:
Modern. You’d be running around in largely metropolitan areas, GTA style – killing, raising, and completing missions. You’d probably have a home base of some sort.
I'll post the plot Thursday. And yes, I realized that I missed Thursday last week, and that my one post wasn't about genres at all. I'll get there.
Title: Awakenings
Premise: You play as a necromancer spirit of some variety, raised and granted power by a horror trapped within the earth. Your initial goal is to free him, but you can choose to disobey.
Gameplay Style:
General style is a third-person action game, with you controlling one person directly, a few people indirectly, and more allies that you can summon but cannot control.
Undead controlling system:
You can possess a single undead at a time. As you do, that undead gains additional health, speed, and power, and you would also have access to certain special abilities that that type of undead can’t usually use.
You summon undead from your reserves of resources (corpses, souls, and other things). When you kill someone and they aren’t auto-raised by whatever you killed them with, you get a certain amount of corpses and souls.
While you do directly control one undead at a time, you also have a party of undead that you can indirectly control by giving them orders, a la Spore or Kingdom Hearts. This posse can only be so big, however, and any more undead that you make are under their own control – a basic ai that kills every enemy in sight. Also, the ones that are directly in your party gain a bit of power, speed, and maybe an extra ability compared to the ai ones, to make being in your party feel meaningful.
Some undead have abilities that instantly raise slain enemies as undead. For example, Vampires that kill enemies with their bite attack raise the enemy as a vampire. These would automatically become basic ai-controlled undead that help you out, but you can’t control.
You can also be outside an undead, but you don’t have a whole lot of powers in that form.
Undead Stuff:
As you progress, perhaps you can upgrade your undeads’ abilities, or grant them new ones, as well as unlock more types of undead. I was thinking that you could start with 2 types of undead for each corporeal and incorporeal, for a total of 4 total. Zombie, Skeleton, Ghost, and Wraith seem good to start with, and unlockables could include (corporeal) Vampire, Patchwork Monster, and Lich, and (incorporeal) Banshee, Shade, and Poultergeist. You can spend experience (gained from, at least, completing quests and beating people up) to upgrade existing undead’s abilities, and to get new types of undead if you’ve upgraded previous ones enough, though the previous ones will still be useful. You could also have more undead in your party as you level up.
Two Main Resources: Corpses and Souls. Corpses are mostly used for corporeal undead (skeletons, zombies) and souls mostly used for incorporeal undead (ghosts, wraiths). These can be harvested from people, obviously, but can also be taken from graveyards. There’s also some specialty resources that can be taken from other places to get special creatures – Magical stone for Gargoyles, certain plants to make into shambling mounds, that sort of thing – perhaps obtainable by side quest. (Rough Example: As you explore a pyramid in Egypt as part of a plot-driven mission, you could also go further down a different, more dangerous part of the pyramid (or a different pyramid entirely), and at the end find the ritual to raise a new type of monster.)
There’s also a final resource, magic, that is needed for everything. Perhaps it slowly recharges over time?
Setting:
Modern. You’d be running around in largely metropolitan areas, GTA style – killing, raising, and completing missions. You’d probably have a home base of some sort.
I'll post the plot Thursday. And yes, I realized that I missed Thursday last week, and that my one post wasn't about genres at all. I'll get there.
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
Review: World of Warcraft Karazhan Boss Reviews
I did some reviews of Karazhan bosses in WoW, a while back. Just to note some things about MMO boss design, MMO design, and game design in general. Here's what I wrote:
Romulo and Julienne
Summary: One of three possible bosses summoned during the Opera event in Karazhan. Julienne comes out first, followed by Romulo, then both. Both have self-buffs that must be dispelled. Julienne is primarily a caster, Romulo is physical. When you fight both at once, they must be killed within 10 seconds of each other.
Good Points: The ability to spellsteal Julienne’s buff for great effect is nice, as opposed to simply dispelling it. Also, Julienne and Romulo are well designed in that only one of them screws up melee, so it naturally divides the raid into who’s attacking who.
Bad Points:
Neutral Points: The progressive nature of the fight.
Tank: Tank one, and/or the other. Quite basic, really.
Ranged DPS: DPS one or the other. Spellsteal Julienne’s buff.
Melee DPS: DPS primarily Julienne.
Healers: Heal tanks and whoever’s getting hit by Julienne’s spells. Dispel their buffs.
Raid Leader: Coordinate DPS between Romulo and Julienne.
Lessons Learned: Again, pulling out pseudo-obscure abilities is good. Makes people remember every spell they have. Dividing the raid can also prove entertaining.
How I would change the fight: Make them both somewhat harder individually. Make them both rez at less than 100% health during the final part of the fight, and whenever you kill one of them, the other one kills him/herself. Shakespeare at its finest.
The Wizard of Oz
Summary: One of three possible bosses summoned during the Opera event in Karazhan. The fight starts by introducing, one by one, the members of the fight: Dorothee (who summons Tito), Strawman, Tinhead, and Roar. Strawman, Tinhead, and Roar each have a weakness based on the movie: Strawman is disoriented by fire, Tinhead becomes slower and slower, and Roar can be feared. After this, you fight the Crone.
Good Points: The fight is very funny. The weaknesses of Dorothee’s companions are quite amusing, and logical. Also the fight demands things of people outside their standard roles.
Bad Points:
Neutral Points: The Crone is very easy. If you get to her, you’ve basically won.
Tank: Tank/kite Tinhead, distract Strawman and/or Roar, and offtank Tito.
Ranged DPS: DPS them in order, while fearing Roar and using fire on Strawman, and avoiding Tinhead.
Melee DPS: DPS them in order, avoiding Tinhead.
Healers: Healing on whoever needs it.
Raid Leader: Decide the order in which to DPS them down, and who should control who.
Lessons Learned: Cluster fights can work, and can be quite entertaining. Quirky but logical weaknesses are also fun.
How I’d change the fight: Make the Crone a little harder.
The Curator
Summary: The first fight of the “second half” of Karazhan (or perhaps the last fight of the first half), the curator has several abilities. The first is his sparks, which are summoned every 10 seconds, and must be killed, ideally before the next one is summoned. The second is Hateful Bolt, an arcane bolt that he shoots at whoever is second on his threat list. Last is his evocation, which he does after every tenth spark. He stops doing anything and regains the mana he lost summoning the sparks. While doing this for twenty seconds, he takes triple damage.
Good Points: Tank and Spank with a very interesting twist. The sparks force the DPS to do something other than just sit there and throw spells/attacks at the curator, and the evocations are a natural time to switch to the curator. Also, there’s several ways to deal with the Hateful Bolts.
Bad Points:
Neutral Points: Tank does very little.
Tank: Just tank the Curator. One tank may also be attempting to corral the sparks.
Ranged DPS: DPS the sparks, and then the Curator. One ranged DPS may be “tanking” the Hateful Bolts.
Melee DPS: DPS the sparks and Curator. One may be attempting to corral the sparks.
Healers: Heal the tank, the hateful bolt tank, and whoever gets hit by the sparks.
Raid Leader: Figure out how to deal with the bolts and the sparks.
Lessons Learned: While somewhat complicated, the curator is very much the bridge between the first and second halves of Karazhan. He is a well-designed fight for this, testing all aspects of your raid (save for the main tank, unfortunately).
How I would change the fight: Make it test the main tank somehow. I’d say some sort of spell reflection timing, but that would make it warrior-exclusive. Perhaps making the tank move him constantly, or move him only at certain times. At 50% mana, perhaps, the tank has to move out. Something.
Just three sample reviews. I do like the fights, obviously: I think WoW is a very well designed game, and the bosses are great. I do have some small quibbles with choices made by the designers occasionally, and sometimes larger quibbles - but the progress made over the expansions is great, and by and large everything is really good - as you can tell. My boss reviews (these, anyway) don't have any "bad points" listed, because I really think that all the fights are well done - I do have some quibbles with them, but they're more "things i would do" rather than "things that SHOULD have been done."
Romulo and Julienne
Summary: One of three possible bosses summoned during the Opera event in Karazhan. Julienne comes out first, followed by Romulo, then both. Both have self-buffs that must be dispelled. Julienne is primarily a caster, Romulo is physical. When you fight both at once, they must be killed within 10 seconds of each other.
Good Points: The ability to spellsteal Julienne’s buff for great effect is nice, as opposed to simply dispelling it. Also, Julienne and Romulo are well designed in that only one of them screws up melee, so it naturally divides the raid into who’s attacking who.
Bad Points:
Neutral Points: The progressive nature of the fight.
Tank: Tank one, and/or the other. Quite basic, really.
Ranged DPS: DPS one or the other. Spellsteal Julienne’s buff.
Melee DPS: DPS primarily Julienne.
Healers: Heal tanks and whoever’s getting hit by Julienne’s spells. Dispel their buffs.
Raid Leader: Coordinate DPS between Romulo and Julienne.
Lessons Learned: Again, pulling out pseudo-obscure abilities is good. Makes people remember every spell they have. Dividing the raid can also prove entertaining.
How I would change the fight: Make them both somewhat harder individually. Make them both rez at less than 100% health during the final part of the fight, and whenever you kill one of them, the other one kills him/herself. Shakespeare at its finest.
The Wizard of Oz
Summary: One of three possible bosses summoned during the Opera event in Karazhan. The fight starts by introducing, one by one, the members of the fight: Dorothee (who summons Tito), Strawman, Tinhead, and Roar. Strawman, Tinhead, and Roar each have a weakness based on the movie: Strawman is disoriented by fire, Tinhead becomes slower and slower, and Roar can be feared. After this, you fight the Crone.
Good Points: The fight is very funny. The weaknesses of Dorothee’s companions are quite amusing, and logical. Also the fight demands things of people outside their standard roles.
Bad Points:
Neutral Points: The Crone is very easy. If you get to her, you’ve basically won.
Tank: Tank/kite Tinhead, distract Strawman and/or Roar, and offtank Tito.
Ranged DPS: DPS them in order, while fearing Roar and using fire on Strawman, and avoiding Tinhead.
Melee DPS: DPS them in order, avoiding Tinhead.
Healers: Healing on whoever needs it.
Raid Leader: Decide the order in which to DPS them down, and who should control who.
Lessons Learned: Cluster fights can work, and can be quite entertaining. Quirky but logical weaknesses are also fun.
How I’d change the fight: Make the Crone a little harder.
The Curator
Summary: The first fight of the “second half” of Karazhan (or perhaps the last fight of the first half), the curator has several abilities. The first is his sparks, which are summoned every 10 seconds, and must be killed, ideally before the next one is summoned. The second is Hateful Bolt, an arcane bolt that he shoots at whoever is second on his threat list. Last is his evocation, which he does after every tenth spark. He stops doing anything and regains the mana he lost summoning the sparks. While doing this for twenty seconds, he takes triple damage.
Good Points: Tank and Spank with a very interesting twist. The sparks force the DPS to do something other than just sit there and throw spells/attacks at the curator, and the evocations are a natural time to switch to the curator. Also, there’s several ways to deal with the Hateful Bolts.
Bad Points:
Neutral Points: Tank does very little.
Tank: Just tank the Curator. One tank may also be attempting to corral the sparks.
Ranged DPS: DPS the sparks, and then the Curator. One ranged DPS may be “tanking” the Hateful Bolts.
Melee DPS: DPS the sparks and Curator. One may be attempting to corral the sparks.
Healers: Heal the tank, the hateful bolt tank, and whoever gets hit by the sparks.
Raid Leader: Figure out how to deal with the bolts and the sparks.
Lessons Learned: While somewhat complicated, the curator is very much the bridge between the first and second halves of Karazhan. He is a well-designed fight for this, testing all aspects of your raid (save for the main tank, unfortunately).
How I would change the fight: Make it test the main tank somehow. I’d say some sort of spell reflection timing, but that would make it warrior-exclusive. Perhaps making the tank move him constantly, or move him only at certain times. At 50% mana, perhaps, the tank has to move out. Something.
Just three sample reviews. I do like the fights, obviously: I think WoW is a very well designed game, and the bosses are great. I do have some small quibbles with choices made by the designers occasionally, and sometimes larger quibbles - but the progress made over the expansions is great, and by and large everything is really good - as you can tell. My boss reviews (these, anyway) don't have any "bad points" listed, because I really think that all the fights are well done - I do have some quibbles with them, but they're more "things i would do" rather than "things that SHOULD have been done."
Friday, February 13, 2009
Review: Lufia 2: Rise of the Sinistrals
And here's the second part of this series, if a little late.
Lufia 2: Rise of the Sinistrals
Lufia 2 is a really solid SNES RPG. It's a fairly typical sword-and-sorcery RPG set in a pretty typical world. First of all, the targetting system from Lufia was ditched (thankfully), using instead the more typical "target anyone you want with anything" system that most RPG's use. A good choice - like I said earlier, just because something is unique doesn't mean that it's good, or even interesting.
Perhaps the most noticable change between Lufia and Lufia 2 (after the targetting system) is the dungeons. Namely, Lufia 2's dungeons are actually interesting and engaging. They accomplish this by (at least to me, and other people that have played it around me) very well-tuned puzzles. Their solutions aren't usually so obvious as to jump out at you, but also not too hard as to keep you trapped in a dungeon until you look up the solution online. These puzzles are really what makes Lufia 2 a great game - it keeps you thinking, and keeps you interested.
Beyond the well-tuned puzzles to keep dungeons interesting, combat was also made much more interesting with the addition of IP's and capsule monsters. IP's are powers that you can use based on the items you have currently equipped - you use a certain amount of your IP bar (which refills as you get hit) to use an ability that one of your items has - which can range from dealing damage to healing to buffing and pretty much anything else. This makes equipment choice more interesting than in many RPG's, as you have to take into account the item's power rather than just its raw stats. Obviously, however, the main advantage is to give physical characters something to do when they're not just using a basic attack - and it gives casters another option as well.
Capsule monsters, while less important than the IP system, also help to spice up combat, as well as provide you with another thing to do outside of combat. Capsule monsters, in combat, are basically just another party member, with a few restrictions - they can't be directly controlled, and you can't heal them. They are automatically resurrected after battle and healed to full. They provide a source of interesting occurances in battle - you go "yay!" when either the monster wastes a powerful attack hitting the capsule monster, or when the capsule monster does something especially awesome - for example, busting out his most powerful attack and owning an enemy. You collect capsule monsters by finding them throughout the world - in dungeons is a typical place to find them, as a reward for exploring an extra corner of the dungeon. A few are also tucked in different parts of the world that you wouldn't otherwise go to, like an underground cave or a shrine on an obscure island.
Out of combat, capsule monsters are an interesting diversion. You can feed them, and they can evolve to higher forms. You feed them your leftover items. Once they are fed enough, they'll evolve. It seems pretty basic, but it really is an interesting diversion, and something to look forward too when your capsule monster is about to evolve. And seeing their fancy new powers after they've evolved is always fun too.
(This game came out quite a bit pre-pokemon, in case you were wondering and hadn't looked it up.)
Another thing that this game fixed over Lufia 1 is the random battles. No longer are they truly random - you can see (and avoid) the enemy sprites in the dungeon, and actually sneak up on some of them if you're careful. Getting in first on enemies in this game is determined by how your sprites are positioned pre-battle - if you get behind them, you get a free round at the beginning of combat, if they're behind you, they get one. If you are facing their side, then there's something like a 50% chance you'll get in first, and the same thing if they are facing your side. Additionally, you can stun the enemy sprites by shooting them with arrows - a nice feature, and one that can allow you to sneak up on enemies more easily, or simply avoid them if you're not interested. Different enemy types also have different movement patterns in the dungeons - for example, bulls will rush at you, but undead might wander aimlessly. This is yet another thing that really helps bring the dungeons to life in this game.
One interesting thing - while in dungeons you can see the random encounters coming, on the overworld they are truly random. I don't think that the game really suffers for this - the overworld encounters are neither too common nor too hard. The only time that this might be considered annoying is when you're sailing, but even then it's quite reasonable. It's actually kind of nice, if you want to gain a bit of xp or gold that you don't have to track down the enemies, but just wander around on the overworld for a bit.
Also, random encounter difficulty was toned way down, thankfully, as was boss difficulty. One of my few complaints about this game might be that the final bosses are too easy, but all in all, this game's difficulty is far more reasonable and fun than Lufia 1's.
The side quests in Lufia 2 are also much more interesting (and, you know, there) - Lufia 1 had a couple, but generally they just weren't interesting. Lufia 2, however, has a very good casino, collectable dragon eggs, collectable capsule monsters, and the Ancient Cave. I won't get into the details of these, but suffice to say that they're all, especially the Ancient Cave, quite interesting.
Last but certainly not least is the plot. Lufia 2's plot is leaps and bounds above Lufia 1's, and the characters are even better. The plot keeps you engaged, rather than being a snoozefest like Lufia 1's There's not really much more to say about that - it's not exactly the best plot ever, but it does its job just fine, and keeps the players engaged to the end. I will say, however, that the characters are really what keeps you watching - they're just fantastically written, even by today's standards.
That said, Lufia 2 is by no means the perfect game. You still can't see a numerical amount of HP in combat, you just get equal length bars for everyone. The monster translation is still bizzarely terrible compared to the main game's translation - "gorem" instead of "golem" is a common one, and there's many others as well. The battle system, while much more interesting that Lufia 1's, could probably use some work - it's still fairly simplistic, if passable, by today's standards.
Lessons to be learned:
The main thing to learn from Lufia 2 over any other RPG (including Lufia 1) is to learn from the mistakes of the past - see what went wrong with previous games, and correct them. See what previous games did right, and emulate them. Don't just make the same mistakes over and over, and don't abandon what worked in the past.
Capsule monsters are an interesting thing – they are collectible monsters that fight along side you, but they are a relatively minor part of the game. Very few games have monster collection as part of the game and yet minor – I like it. It’s a good way to add pseudo party members with an elemental theme and little to no backstory. Plus, they can serve as good and interesting rewards for particularly challenging puzzles or fights off the beaten path.
An interesting combat system and interesting dungeon design are key. Level designers should be given more credit by players than they are.
A game’s characters and good writing can make up for a relatively formulaic plot and gameplay. City, dungeon, city, dungeon… it’s most of what Lufia is, but it works nonetheless. Indeed, you may fail to even notice it (at least in a bad way) until after you beat the game.
In closing, Lufia 2 is just really a great game that took pretty much everything that was wrong with Lufia 1 and made it awesome, keeping the few good things from Lufia 1. If you can, you should really consider picking this game up. It's a pity that Lufia 3 and 4 aren't more like this game - Lufia 3 borks up the combat system to an extreme degree, and has too many party members. Maybe I'll talk about it sometime, but Lufia 3 seems to have forgotten that just because something is unique doesn't make it good. While its combat system is better than Lufia 1's, it tries to be too interesting and just ends up being less good than the admittedly relatively formulaic Lufia 2's. Additionally, its characters (perhaps because there are so many PC's) just aren't as fun or interesting as Lufia 2's, nor is its plot as good. I've never personally played Lufia 4, but I've heard that it's little more than a mediocre Pokemon clone with a Lufia name and a few characters from Lufia 2.
Next week, I think I'll talk about a couple of genres of games in detail.
Lufia 2: Rise of the Sinistrals
Lufia 2 is a really solid SNES RPG. It's a fairly typical sword-and-sorcery RPG set in a pretty typical world. First of all, the targetting system from Lufia was ditched (thankfully), using instead the more typical "target anyone you want with anything" system that most RPG's use. A good choice - like I said earlier, just because something is unique doesn't mean that it's good, or even interesting.
Perhaps the most noticable change between Lufia and Lufia 2 (after the targetting system) is the dungeons. Namely, Lufia 2's dungeons are actually interesting and engaging. They accomplish this by (at least to me, and other people that have played it around me) very well-tuned puzzles. Their solutions aren't usually so obvious as to jump out at you, but also not too hard as to keep you trapped in a dungeon until you look up the solution online. These puzzles are really what makes Lufia 2 a great game - it keeps you thinking, and keeps you interested.
Beyond the well-tuned puzzles to keep dungeons interesting, combat was also made much more interesting with the addition of IP's and capsule monsters. IP's are powers that you can use based on the items you have currently equipped - you use a certain amount of your IP bar (which refills as you get hit) to use an ability that one of your items has - which can range from dealing damage to healing to buffing and pretty much anything else. This makes equipment choice more interesting than in many RPG's, as you have to take into account the item's power rather than just its raw stats. Obviously, however, the main advantage is to give physical characters something to do when they're not just using a basic attack - and it gives casters another option as well.
Capsule monsters, while less important than the IP system, also help to spice up combat, as well as provide you with another thing to do outside of combat. Capsule monsters, in combat, are basically just another party member, with a few restrictions - they can't be directly controlled, and you can't heal them. They are automatically resurrected after battle and healed to full. They provide a source of interesting occurances in battle - you go "yay!" when either the monster wastes a powerful attack hitting the capsule monster, or when the capsule monster does something especially awesome - for example, busting out his most powerful attack and owning an enemy. You collect capsule monsters by finding them throughout the world - in dungeons is a typical place to find them, as a reward for exploring an extra corner of the dungeon. A few are also tucked in different parts of the world that you wouldn't otherwise go to, like an underground cave or a shrine on an obscure island.
Out of combat, capsule monsters are an interesting diversion. You can feed them, and they can evolve to higher forms. You feed them your leftover items. Once they are fed enough, they'll evolve. It seems pretty basic, but it really is an interesting diversion, and something to look forward too when your capsule monster is about to evolve. And seeing their fancy new powers after they've evolved is always fun too.
(This game came out quite a bit pre-pokemon, in case you were wondering and hadn't looked it up.)
Another thing that this game fixed over Lufia 1 is the random battles. No longer are they truly random - you can see (and avoid) the enemy sprites in the dungeon, and actually sneak up on some of them if you're careful. Getting in first on enemies in this game is determined by how your sprites are positioned pre-battle - if you get behind them, you get a free round at the beginning of combat, if they're behind you, they get one. If you are facing their side, then there's something like a 50% chance you'll get in first, and the same thing if they are facing your side. Additionally, you can stun the enemy sprites by shooting them with arrows - a nice feature, and one that can allow you to sneak up on enemies more easily, or simply avoid them if you're not interested. Different enemy types also have different movement patterns in the dungeons - for example, bulls will rush at you, but undead might wander aimlessly. This is yet another thing that really helps bring the dungeons to life in this game.
One interesting thing - while in dungeons you can see the random encounters coming, on the overworld they are truly random. I don't think that the game really suffers for this - the overworld encounters are neither too common nor too hard. The only time that this might be considered annoying is when you're sailing, but even then it's quite reasonable. It's actually kind of nice, if you want to gain a bit of xp or gold that you don't have to track down the enemies, but just wander around on the overworld for a bit.
Also, random encounter difficulty was toned way down, thankfully, as was boss difficulty. One of my few complaints about this game might be that the final bosses are too easy, but all in all, this game's difficulty is far more reasonable and fun than Lufia 1's.
The side quests in Lufia 2 are also much more interesting (and, you know, there) - Lufia 1 had a couple, but generally they just weren't interesting. Lufia 2, however, has a very good casino, collectable dragon eggs, collectable capsule monsters, and the Ancient Cave. I won't get into the details of these, but suffice to say that they're all, especially the Ancient Cave, quite interesting.
Last but certainly not least is the plot. Lufia 2's plot is leaps and bounds above Lufia 1's, and the characters are even better. The plot keeps you engaged, rather than being a snoozefest like Lufia 1's There's not really much more to say about that - it's not exactly the best plot ever, but it does its job just fine, and keeps the players engaged to the end. I will say, however, that the characters are really what keeps you watching - they're just fantastically written, even by today's standards.
That said, Lufia 2 is by no means the perfect game. You still can't see a numerical amount of HP in combat, you just get equal length bars for everyone. The monster translation is still bizzarely terrible compared to the main game's translation - "gorem" instead of "golem" is a common one, and there's many others as well. The battle system, while much more interesting that Lufia 1's, could probably use some work - it's still fairly simplistic, if passable, by today's standards.
Lessons to be learned:
The main thing to learn from Lufia 2 over any other RPG (including Lufia 1) is to learn from the mistakes of the past - see what went wrong with previous games, and correct them. See what previous games did right, and emulate them. Don't just make the same mistakes over and over, and don't abandon what worked in the past.
Capsule monsters are an interesting thing – they are collectible monsters that fight along side you, but they are a relatively minor part of the game. Very few games have monster collection as part of the game and yet minor – I like it. It’s a good way to add pseudo party members with an elemental theme and little to no backstory. Plus, they can serve as good and interesting rewards for particularly challenging puzzles or fights off the beaten path.
An interesting combat system and interesting dungeon design are key. Level designers should be given more credit by players than they are.
A game’s characters and good writing can make up for a relatively formulaic plot and gameplay. City, dungeon, city, dungeon… it’s most of what Lufia is, but it works nonetheless. Indeed, you may fail to even notice it (at least in a bad way) until after you beat the game.
In closing, Lufia 2 is just really a great game that took pretty much everything that was wrong with Lufia 1 and made it awesome, keeping the few good things from Lufia 1. If you can, you should really consider picking this game up. It's a pity that Lufia 3 and 4 aren't more like this game - Lufia 3 borks up the combat system to an extreme degree, and has too many party members. Maybe I'll talk about it sometime, but Lufia 3 seems to have forgotten that just because something is unique doesn't make it good. While its combat system is better than Lufia 1's, it tries to be too interesting and just ends up being less good than the admittedly relatively formulaic Lufia 2's. Additionally, its characters (perhaps because there are so many PC's) just aren't as fun or interesting as Lufia 2's, nor is its plot as good. I've never personally played Lufia 4, but I've heard that it's little more than a mediocre Pokemon clone with a Lufia name and a few characters from Lufia 2.
Next week, I think I'll talk about a couple of genres of games in detail.
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
Review: Lufia and the Fortress of Doom
This week, I'm going to be looking at two games: Lufia and the Fortress of Doom, and its vastly improved sequel, Lufia 2: Rise of the Sinistrals. Lufia 2 is a game that is very near and dear to my heart, and so I thought, why not play the first game in the series? Well, it turns out there are quite a few perfectly valid answers to that question. This is probably going to be an ongoing thing - look at two games that are related, and see just how one of them improves on the other, or doesn't, as the case may be. It's a good way to glean some design knowledge - look at what was dropped from a previous game, and what was added, and think about just why it was done that way.
(For more information about these games, see their wikipedia entry and, perhaps more helpfully, their tvtropes entry.)
Lufia and the Fortress of Doom
An SNES RPG, it embodies everything that has changed about RPG’s since then. First of all, the targeting system in this game was just awful – you could only target groups of enemies, not specific ones, IE if there were three bats and a spider, you could target either the three bats or the spider, and if you targeted the bats and were using a single-target attack, it would hit one of the bats randomly. The only thing I can think that the designers were thinking when they made this was that it would be a unique twist on combat. Well, it was unique, but the lesson to learn here is to actually think whether your “unique twist” is a good/fun idea. This is a lesson many game designers could stand to remember – just because something is unique does not make it fun, or even necessarily interesting.
And it’s not just the dumb targeting system that doesn’t age well about this game. Like so many old RPG’s, it has too many random encounters – and by proxy, it has truly random encounters in general. What I mean by “truly random” is that just walking around triggers them – there’s no way to avoid them, like avoiding their sprite on the dungeon map. Additionally, these random encounters can actually be quite hard – you have to burn a surprisingly high number of spells and items just to make it through a dungeon. And the bosses are harder than that, even – quite a bit of level grinding is required. Fortunately, most modern (but not all – Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Summoner – Raidou Kuzunoha vs. the Soulless Army (what a mouthful) has truly random encounters, and even has them in cities) games have eliminated completely random encounters, and only rarely have ones that are hard enough to be a overbearing tax on your resources.
On a side note, people who remake old games could learn something from new games – there’s a reason very few games have truly random encounters anymore. I’d love to see some older games that, when re-released, didn’t feel the need to keep truly random encounters – Final Fantasies, for example. While I haven’t played the latest release of FF4 for the DS, all the previous remakes of older FF’s I’ve played have kept the truly random encounter system, and it bugs me that they did. Yes, it’s staying true to the original, and yes, it doesn’t require any rebalancing of exp/money gain if you just keep it like it was, but it would improve the game dramatically to fix this.
The translation is actually pretty good, and one of the few saving graces of this game – except for monster names. The team that did the story translation and the team that did the monster translation must have been completely different – the monster names are often completely nonsensical, or simply just strange. For example (while this actually comes from Lufia 2, both games have similar monster naming issues), there is the “Mad Gorem” when the sprite clearly depicts what should be a “Mud Golem.” It’s not that huge of an issue on its own, but it makes you question the quality of the game in general (not that you needed any help doing that for Lufia 1, with its other problems).
The dungeons were also quite boring. There was no spice to the dungeons – you simply walked through all of them until you found the boss, maybe finding some sort of key or other treasure – if you were lucky. There were no puzzles, no random plot events in the middle of dungeons, nothing to really keep you interest. Additionally, their layout was often boring and either too linear or too sprawling – and the aforementioned high frequency and difficulty of random encounters made dungeons in general quite a chore. I had thought this to no longer be the case in any modern RPG, but I recently played Star Ocean: Until the End of Time, and it has a very similar problem. The dungeons in that game are waaaaaaay too big, and frequently have no puzzles or anything to break up their monotony.
It’s not just the targeting system that makes combat in this game annoying. You have “Attack,” “Magic,” “Item,” and “Run” as your only options in battle (and the physical fighters don’t even get Magic). No game has done anything so restrictive in a very long time, and for good reason. You simply have far too few options in combat in this game.
The plot also deserves mentioning. It’s incredibly one-dimensional. I mentioned this in my pacing article, but the meta-plot of this game is always the same. You’re always trying to stop the Sinistrals. Occasionally you vary in exactly how you’re trying to stop them – finding someone who knows about them, finding a powerful weapon to fight them, actually confronting them – but it’s always the same overall goal. There’s also a few subplots, but they’re always very clearly subplots, and frankly, none of them are that interesting.
Lastly, there are a few smaller issues worth mentioning – first of all, you can’t see your numerical max hp/mp in combat, only a bar that was a representation of the percent your characters were at. While that usually sufficed, the difference between the HP of your casters and melee characters was large enough make this annoying. You also couldn’t see what items out of combat (and I forget if you even could in combat) – or maybe it was the other way around. Maybe it was that you only couldn’t see them when you were about to buy them. Regardless, you should always be able to see what the items you have can do. This goes for spells too, as I mentioned in my earlier post, “Things Games Should Never/Always Have.” Again, I thought that this was a thing that only occurred in old games, but Persona 3 had this problem for spells, and it was quite annoying – fortunately, Persona 4 fixed that problem.
So, you might ask me (and justifiably so), did this game do anything right? First of all, there’s something to be said for judging something outside its time. When this game was released, the RPG genre wasn’t was it is today – standards were different. (Excessive) Truly random encounters were the norm, and “Fight/Magic/Item/Run” was pretty typical as well. So in its day, it was probably a passable, but unexceptional, RPG. However, one thing that this game does do right is its characters. They are fairly compelling and deep, especially for their day. Even if the plot itself was fairly uninteresting, the characters still managed to bring it to life. Indeed, the indeed characters are probably the only reason that this game got a sequel. Not that I’m sad that it did – Lufia 2, as I mentioned earlier, is a fantastic SNES-era RPG not to be missed, even now, but after having played this game, it does make me wonder slightly just how it did manage to get a sequel.
Lessons to be learned:
Truly random encounters should be history. Encounters should be avoidable. More generally, make recurring potentially annoying things in games avoidable.
Make sure your gimmick actually works and is fun. (Combat targeting, in this case.)
Max HP – let me see it at all times. In number form, or in bars that are of different sizes. Basically, don't make the player work to see how much HP his party has left, and more generally, don't make the player work for information that he should have. Of course, this brings up a whole different issue of "just how much information should I give the player," but that's an article for a different day - for now, let's just go with: max and current HP values, what different stats do (generally), and what your different items and spells do.
Make your dungeons(and more generally, levels) interesting! Good backdrops, puzzles (mostly this), and some character interaction can go a long way. Something to break the standard pattern.
Let me see descriptions of anything at any time. (Items, Magic, in this case.)
Don’t make random encounters (and more generally, your repetative things that happen in non-boss encounters) too hard! Or if you do, autoheal to full after every fight. See: Baten Kaitos Origins.
Don’t make the meta-plot stale, or if you must, make the subplots interesting.
(For more information about these games, see their wikipedia entry and, perhaps more helpfully, their tvtropes entry.)
Lufia and the Fortress of Doom
An SNES RPG, it embodies everything that has changed about RPG’s since then. First of all, the targeting system in this game was just awful – you could only target groups of enemies, not specific ones, IE if there were three bats and a spider, you could target either the three bats or the spider, and if you targeted the bats and were using a single-target attack, it would hit one of the bats randomly. The only thing I can think that the designers were thinking when they made this was that it would be a unique twist on combat. Well, it was unique, but the lesson to learn here is to actually think whether your “unique twist” is a good/fun idea. This is a lesson many game designers could stand to remember – just because something is unique does not make it fun, or even necessarily interesting.
And it’s not just the dumb targeting system that doesn’t age well about this game. Like so many old RPG’s, it has too many random encounters – and by proxy, it has truly random encounters in general. What I mean by “truly random” is that just walking around triggers them – there’s no way to avoid them, like avoiding their sprite on the dungeon map. Additionally, these random encounters can actually be quite hard – you have to burn a surprisingly high number of spells and items just to make it through a dungeon. And the bosses are harder than that, even – quite a bit of level grinding is required. Fortunately, most modern (but not all – Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Summoner – Raidou Kuzunoha vs. the Soulless Army (what a mouthful) has truly random encounters, and even has them in cities) games have eliminated completely random encounters, and only rarely have ones that are hard enough to be a overbearing tax on your resources.
On a side note, people who remake old games could learn something from new games – there’s a reason very few games have truly random encounters anymore. I’d love to see some older games that, when re-released, didn’t feel the need to keep truly random encounters – Final Fantasies, for example. While I haven’t played the latest release of FF4 for the DS, all the previous remakes of older FF’s I’ve played have kept the truly random encounter system, and it bugs me that they did. Yes, it’s staying true to the original, and yes, it doesn’t require any rebalancing of exp/money gain if you just keep it like it was, but it would improve the game dramatically to fix this.
The translation is actually pretty good, and one of the few saving graces of this game – except for monster names. The team that did the story translation and the team that did the monster translation must have been completely different – the monster names are often completely nonsensical, or simply just strange. For example (while this actually comes from Lufia 2, both games have similar monster naming issues), there is the “Mad Gorem” when the sprite clearly depicts what should be a “Mud Golem.” It’s not that huge of an issue on its own, but it makes you question the quality of the game in general (not that you needed any help doing that for Lufia 1, with its other problems).
The dungeons were also quite boring. There was no spice to the dungeons – you simply walked through all of them until you found the boss, maybe finding some sort of key or other treasure – if you were lucky. There were no puzzles, no random plot events in the middle of dungeons, nothing to really keep you interest. Additionally, their layout was often boring and either too linear or too sprawling – and the aforementioned high frequency and difficulty of random encounters made dungeons in general quite a chore. I had thought this to no longer be the case in any modern RPG, but I recently played Star Ocean: Until the End of Time, and it has a very similar problem. The dungeons in that game are waaaaaaay too big, and frequently have no puzzles or anything to break up their monotony.
It’s not just the targeting system that makes combat in this game annoying. You have “Attack,” “Magic,” “Item,” and “Run” as your only options in battle (and the physical fighters don’t even get Magic). No game has done anything so restrictive in a very long time, and for good reason. You simply have far too few options in combat in this game.
The plot also deserves mentioning. It’s incredibly one-dimensional. I mentioned this in my pacing article, but the meta-plot of this game is always the same. You’re always trying to stop the Sinistrals. Occasionally you vary in exactly how you’re trying to stop them – finding someone who knows about them, finding a powerful weapon to fight them, actually confronting them – but it’s always the same overall goal. There’s also a few subplots, but they’re always very clearly subplots, and frankly, none of them are that interesting.
Lastly, there are a few smaller issues worth mentioning – first of all, you can’t see your numerical max hp/mp in combat, only a bar that was a representation of the percent your characters were at. While that usually sufficed, the difference between the HP of your casters and melee characters was large enough make this annoying. You also couldn’t see what items out of combat (and I forget if you even could in combat) – or maybe it was the other way around. Maybe it was that you only couldn’t see them when you were about to buy them. Regardless, you should always be able to see what the items you have can do. This goes for spells too, as I mentioned in my earlier post, “Things Games Should Never/Always Have.” Again, I thought that this was a thing that only occurred in old games, but Persona 3 had this problem for spells, and it was quite annoying – fortunately, Persona 4 fixed that problem.
So, you might ask me (and justifiably so), did this game do anything right? First of all, there’s something to be said for judging something outside its time. When this game was released, the RPG genre wasn’t was it is today – standards were different. (Excessive) Truly random encounters were the norm, and “Fight/Magic/Item/Run” was pretty typical as well. So in its day, it was probably a passable, but unexceptional, RPG. However, one thing that this game does do right is its characters. They are fairly compelling and deep, especially for their day. Even if the plot itself was fairly uninteresting, the characters still managed to bring it to life. Indeed, the indeed characters are probably the only reason that this game got a sequel. Not that I’m sad that it did – Lufia 2, as I mentioned earlier, is a fantastic SNES-era RPG not to be missed, even now, but after having played this game, it does make me wonder slightly just how it did manage to get a sequel.
Lessons to be learned:
Truly random encounters should be history. Encounters should be avoidable. More generally, make recurring potentially annoying things in games avoidable.
Make sure your gimmick actually works and is fun. (Combat targeting, in this case.)
Max HP – let me see it at all times. In number form, or in bars that are of different sizes. Basically, don't make the player work to see how much HP his party has left, and more generally, don't make the player work for information that he should have. Of course, this brings up a whole different issue of "just how much information should I give the player," but that's an article for a different day - for now, let's just go with: max and current HP values, what different stats do (generally), and what your different items and spells do.
Make your dungeons(and more generally, levels) interesting! Good backdrops, puzzles (mostly this), and some character interaction can go a long way. Something to break the standard pattern.
Let me see descriptions of anything at any time. (Items, Magic, in this case.)
Don’t make random encounters (and more generally, your repetative things that happen in non-boss encounters) too hard! Or if you do, autoheal to full after every fight. See: Baten Kaitos Origins.
Don’t make the meta-plot stale, or if you must, make the subplots interesting.
Tuesday, February 3, 2009
Design: Strategy RPG Create-A-Class
One idea I had for strategy RPG's was to have a system where, instead of your characters' classes being chosen from a group of classes, you could instead choose to create your own classes that had unique combinations of abilities. This is explored somewhat in some systems - final fantasy tactics, for example, has a system where your primary ability is determined by your current class, but your secondary abilities are determined by a class you had previously trained in. But what if you could craft your own classes to choose from?
For example, for each class you wished to create, you could choose from the following abilities:
Magic
-Thunder
-Fire
-Ice
-etc.
-Negative Status-effect causing
White Magic
-Healing
-Negative Status-effect curing
Stealing
Different Weapon Techniques (a la Disgaea?)
-Archery
-Swords
-Axes
-Nunchucks
-Dual-Wielding
-Guns
-etc.
Buff Spells
-only to self option
-only to others option (more expensive than only to self)
Monster Capturing/Transforming
-Monster Magic (Blue Magic)
-Summoners
-Pet Class (a la hunters of WoW)
-Morphing into monsters
For example, you could choose to make a Ice-Centric Mage who also used Nunchucks (perhaps uses spells through his weapons?), and dabbled very slightly in self-buffing spells. Or, instead, you could build the ultimate monster-centric caster - he could learn how to use certain monster-casted spells, learn to summon monsters to aid you on the battlefield, and learn how to straight-up transform into monsters. Obviously, the point system would have to be very complex for a system like this - adding certain abilities to a class would cost more, and stat growths would probably be controlled to some extent by the same pool of points. For example, in addition to abilities, you could buy high critical strike chance, or enhanced mana regeneration. Additionally, you could make very specific choices about certain things - for example, if you wanted to pick up a subset of ice magic, you could, but for an only slightly reduced price - like I said, point balance would be tricky, and definitely not linear. After all, hand-picking your abilities from a vast pool could be extremely powerful to a skilled gamer.
Also, there would be default template classes, such as White Mage, Black Mage, Fighter, etc. that you could either straight-up copy or modify to your own needs. Not too many, though - part of the point is to "force" creativity but still provide an out for those that don't feel like diving too deep into the system. Alternatively, you could have many standard classes, and provide the create-a-class as a nice extra for those who feel like using it.
I'm convinced that this could be an interesting and unique system, if done right. The trick is, like all things, doing it right. There's so many things to consider when you try to innovate, especially in something truly complex like a class system. Sometime later I'll post a larger game design that incorporates this system - try my hand at the task. I could see that spanning several updates, when I get around to it - depending on how much detail I decide to put into it.
Oh, and next week I'm switching to a Tuesday/Thursday update schedule, rather than two posts on Tuesday.
For example, for each class you wished to create, you could choose from the following abilities:
Magic
-Thunder
-Fire
-Ice
-etc.
-Negative Status-effect causing
White Magic
-Healing
-Negative Status-effect curing
Stealing
Different Weapon Techniques (a la Disgaea?)
-Archery
-Swords
-Axes
-Nunchucks
-Dual-Wielding
-Guns
-etc.
Buff Spells
-only to self option
-only to others option (more expensive than only to self)
Monster Capturing/Transforming
-Monster Magic (Blue Magic)
-Summoners
-Pet Class (a la hunters of WoW)
-Morphing into monsters
For example, you could choose to make a Ice-Centric Mage who also used Nunchucks (perhaps uses spells through his weapons?), and dabbled very slightly in self-buffing spells. Or, instead, you could build the ultimate monster-centric caster - he could learn how to use certain monster-casted spells, learn to summon monsters to aid you on the battlefield, and learn how to straight-up transform into monsters. Obviously, the point system would have to be very complex for a system like this - adding certain abilities to a class would cost more, and stat growths would probably be controlled to some extent by the same pool of points. For example, in addition to abilities, you could buy high critical strike chance, or enhanced mana regeneration. Additionally, you could make very specific choices about certain things - for example, if you wanted to pick up a subset of ice magic, you could, but for an only slightly reduced price - like I said, point balance would be tricky, and definitely not linear. After all, hand-picking your abilities from a vast pool could be extremely powerful to a skilled gamer.
Also, there would be default template classes, such as White Mage, Black Mage, Fighter, etc. that you could either straight-up copy or modify to your own needs. Not too many, though - part of the point is to "force" creativity but still provide an out for those that don't feel like diving too deep into the system. Alternatively, you could have many standard classes, and provide the create-a-class as a nice extra for those who feel like using it.
I'm convinced that this could be an interesting and unique system, if done right. The trick is, like all things, doing it right. There's so many things to consider when you try to innovate, especially in something truly complex like a class system. Sometime later I'll post a larger game design that incorporates this system - try my hand at the task. I could see that spanning several updates, when I get around to it - depending on how much detail I decide to put into it.
Oh, and next week I'm switching to a Tuesday/Thursday update schedule, rather than two posts on Tuesday.
Review: Psychonauts
Psychonauts
Psychonauts is a entertaining platformer/action game, along the lines of Banjo-Kazooie. It generally has a rather silly atmosphere – people’s brains get popped out by sneezing powder, the script is generally hilarious, and the worlds themselves are often whimsical. However, the game also has darker moments – people’s brains are getting stolen by the evil drill sergeant, and the final level – the “meat circus” – is very nightmarish.
The gameplay itself is quite good. You have all the basic abilities of most BK-ish games – jump, double-jump, and punch to start with, and over time, you gain new psychic abilities – levitation (which is really just super-jumping combined with gliding), pyrokinesis (nifty, but dangerous – you can set yourself on fire of you hit someone that’s too close), telekinesis (not handled as cool as in Psi-Ops or Destroy All Humans – here, you have to stand still to use telekinesis, and you can only move other objects by tossing them, not walking around with them), Invisibility (quite nifty, even if it isn’t greater invisibility), Clairvoyance (not particularly useful – lets you see through the eyes of others), Blast (basic mind laser), Shield (reflects projectiles, blocks attacks, makes you stand still – handy, but something of a game breaker if used correctly, especially against the final boss – but not too bad of one), and Stun Grenades (pretty handy, I assume – I didn’t use them much). All in all, a pretty decent arsenal for such a game, even if some of the powers are of questionable usability.
The worlds themselves are rather zany – the idea is, you go inside people’s minds and solve their mental problems or pass some sort of test. The worlds, thus, tend to be somewhat kooky – a spy who thinks she should be a TV star has a very bright, colorful party brain, a man with multiple personalities (one of them being Napoleon) is playing a board game in his mind with Napoleon, which you go into and win, and an insane mailman has a conspiracy-filled neighborhood in which you look for “the milkman.” The level design is usually quite good – the platforming is never too easy or too hard, and the bosses are a bit on the easy side, but not too bad – that’s really to be expected, given the genre.
Really, I don't see how this game got a reputation as being wildly original. I suppose its story premise is pretty unique - psychic camp, go inside people's minds as levels, but the gameplay is very little that Banjo-Kazooie didn't already cover. Don't get me wrong, I really liked Psychonauts, but the reputation it's gotten strikes me as odd.
Lessons to be learned:
Zany worlds are fun, if you can do it right. Never knowing exactly what’s going to happen in the next world is quite cool. Of course, the player should never worry about what’s coming next – the levels need to be good in zany ways, not lame in zany ways.
A good array of powers is key. Make people look forward to getting the next power.
Upgrading existing powers in fun ways is also quite nice, and is a good thing for collectibles to grant.
Psychonauts is a entertaining platformer/action game, along the lines of Banjo-Kazooie. It generally has a rather silly atmosphere – people’s brains get popped out by sneezing powder, the script is generally hilarious, and the worlds themselves are often whimsical. However, the game also has darker moments – people’s brains are getting stolen by the evil drill sergeant, and the final level – the “meat circus” – is very nightmarish.
The gameplay itself is quite good. You have all the basic abilities of most BK-ish games – jump, double-jump, and punch to start with, and over time, you gain new psychic abilities – levitation (which is really just super-jumping combined with gliding), pyrokinesis (nifty, but dangerous – you can set yourself on fire of you hit someone that’s too close), telekinesis (not handled as cool as in Psi-Ops or Destroy All Humans – here, you have to stand still to use telekinesis, and you can only move other objects by tossing them, not walking around with them), Invisibility (quite nifty, even if it isn’t greater invisibility), Clairvoyance (not particularly useful – lets you see through the eyes of others), Blast (basic mind laser), Shield (reflects projectiles, blocks attacks, makes you stand still – handy, but something of a game breaker if used correctly, especially against the final boss – but not too bad of one), and Stun Grenades (pretty handy, I assume – I didn’t use them much). All in all, a pretty decent arsenal for such a game, even if some of the powers are of questionable usability.
The worlds themselves are rather zany – the idea is, you go inside people’s minds and solve their mental problems or pass some sort of test. The worlds, thus, tend to be somewhat kooky – a spy who thinks she should be a TV star has a very bright, colorful party brain, a man with multiple personalities (one of them being Napoleon) is playing a board game in his mind with Napoleon, which you go into and win, and an insane mailman has a conspiracy-filled neighborhood in which you look for “the milkman.” The level design is usually quite good – the platforming is never too easy or too hard, and the bosses are a bit on the easy side, but not too bad – that’s really to be expected, given the genre.
Really, I don't see how this game got a reputation as being wildly original. I suppose its story premise is pretty unique - psychic camp, go inside people's minds as levels, but the gameplay is very little that Banjo-Kazooie didn't already cover. Don't get me wrong, I really liked Psychonauts, but the reputation it's gotten strikes me as odd.
Lessons to be learned:
Zany worlds are fun, if you can do it right. Never knowing exactly what’s going to happen in the next world is quite cool. Of course, the player should never worry about what’s coming next – the levels need to be good in zany ways, not lame in zany ways.
A good array of powers is key. Make people look forward to getting the next power.
Upgrading existing powers in fun ways is also quite nice, and is a good thing for collectibles to grant.
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
Design: Pacing
For this post, I'm just going to do some writing about the idea of pacing in video games in general. As a preface, I'm going to point out where I think some video games fall flat in their pacing - but what works for me might not work for you.
Pacing is a powerful force in any medium - movies, books, and video games all rely on it to keep their audiences absorbed and entertained. But in video games, it's an even more powerful force than normal, as there are many ways to influence pacing, and many ways to therefore screw it up. And if it gets screwed up, then you can bet that you're going to lose some people along the way to your fabulous ending, amazing plot twists, incredible dungeons, or what have you.
I just posted my review of an old game that I really enjoy called Turtles in Time. It is a prime example of pacing done right, in many ways. For one thing, the characters move quickly, and thus can get where you want them to quickly. This may seem obvious, but there are certain games (especially RPG's) where the characters just don't move fast enough, and you feel like it takes you ages to get anywhere. For another, the fights are well-interspersed through the levels - you never have to go far to find one, but the levels are more than just one really long fight. Again, I've seen games screw this up - Teen Titans, for the Gamecube, while largely a pretty good beat-em-up, starts to drag towards the end because the fights take too long and there are too many of them in each level. Another way that Turtles in Time paces itself well is in terms of fight differentiation. True, the enemies are largely palette-swaps of other enemies, but you're always finding new types of enemies with new abilities to adapt to. A game that screws this idea up big-time is Alien Syndrome for the Wii. It takes ages to get to a new type of enemy in that game, and while that is one flaw among several for that game, it is quite significant.
But Turtles in Time only has so much it can teach us. In other genres than just the beat-em-up, pacing is huge.
Take, for example, the RPG. It can screw up pacing in a new and unique way - the story. If nothing happens in the story for too long, the players (or at least some of them) lose interest. The story needs to be long enough to satisfy the gamer, yet short enough to not make them feel like they just want it to be over. This is a similar problem to movies and books, but there are unique problems for video games. They have to balance dungeons vs city/exploration time - spend too much time between dungeons, and you begin to feel like you'll never make progress. Spend too much time in a dungeon, and you get the same feeling.
A game that I can think of that largely manages to pace itself well, both story and dungeon-wise, is Tales of Symphonia for the Gamecube. Its dungeons aren't too long or too short, and they're interesting enough to keep you engaged. There are a few points where the plot fails, in my opinion, but by and large the characters always have an objective, and you always feel like you're making progress towards that objective. That objective also changes from time to time, rather than remaining stagnant like the next game I'm going to talk about.
Which is: Lufia and the Fortress of Doom. The vast majority of that plot is spent trying to find things to get to the next person that might help you to accomplish your final goal. There aren't enough twists and turns - the meta-plot is always "go find people who know about stuff that can stop the bad guys," or "go find stuff to stop the bad guys." Once you finally get around to stopping the bad guys, that's it. There's no feeling of an epic struggle, or fighting emissaries of the bad guys, or even finding out who the heck the bad guys are and what they want - it's just trying to build up your power to stop them.
Now, there are standard tactics one can use to pace a game. One obvious and common one is to give you access to new abilities throughout the game. Most games do this (though, interestingly, Turtles in Time does not) - and for good reason. It keeps combat and puzzles interesting. Zelda and other such games give you new equipment - the bow, the bombs, the boomerang, the Ocarina. RPG's frequently give you new spells or abilities. FPS's give you new guns, RTS's give you new units, and so on and so forth. These tools are great when done well - however, you do run the risk of overwhelming your player with too many abilities or items, and if the items begin to become useless, the gamer feels cheated - I mentioned this in my review of Psi-Ops. A great example of this is the Zelda item from Twilight Princess that lets you control statues - it's only useful when there are statues around, whereas something like the bow is useful in many places. It made me, at least, feel cheated in that I didn't feel like I gained any power from the dungeon, at least not compared to the amount I gained from previous dungeons.
You can also, like I said, overwhelm the character with options - one example of this might be Zelda: Majora's Mask. You get a whole bunch of masks, but it's not really obvious when to use which, and many are useless in all but one specific situation. You can get through the game only using the primary masks, but doing some of the side-quests without a guide would be annoying.
Another tactic to pace a game is to formulate it, at least to some extent. Now while this might seem like an odd thing to say, the point is to give you a set point where you can feel like you accomplished something. This is critical in quite a few games - World of Warcraft is probably the best example of this. As you level up, you gain a bit of power after each level. As you go through dungeons and raids at max level, you can always aim for that next piece of equipment. Another example would be Lufia 2: Rise of the Sinistrals. Its dungeons always have the boss key, and some puzzles that make you feel like you make real progress when you solve them. Zelda, obviously, is another great example of this - the dungeons are always "explore, miniboss, new item, use new item to get to new part of the dungeon, miniboss, boss key, boss." And after each of these steps, you feel like you made progress - keeping you interested in the specific dungeon, and interested in the game.
I think I've talked about this enough for today, but I'll probably revisit it later. Pacing is a hugely important idea in video games (as in many media), after all, and one that entire books could be written on.
Pacing is a powerful force in any medium - movies, books, and video games all rely on it to keep their audiences absorbed and entertained. But in video games, it's an even more powerful force than normal, as there are many ways to influence pacing, and many ways to therefore screw it up. And if it gets screwed up, then you can bet that you're going to lose some people along the way to your fabulous ending, amazing plot twists, incredible dungeons, or what have you.
I just posted my review of an old game that I really enjoy called Turtles in Time. It is a prime example of pacing done right, in many ways. For one thing, the characters move quickly, and thus can get where you want them to quickly. This may seem obvious, but there are certain games (especially RPG's) where the characters just don't move fast enough, and you feel like it takes you ages to get anywhere. For another, the fights are well-interspersed through the levels - you never have to go far to find one, but the levels are more than just one really long fight. Again, I've seen games screw this up - Teen Titans, for the Gamecube, while largely a pretty good beat-em-up, starts to drag towards the end because the fights take too long and there are too many of them in each level. Another way that Turtles in Time paces itself well is in terms of fight differentiation. True, the enemies are largely palette-swaps of other enemies, but you're always finding new types of enemies with new abilities to adapt to. A game that screws this idea up big-time is Alien Syndrome for the Wii. It takes ages to get to a new type of enemy in that game, and while that is one flaw among several for that game, it is quite significant.
But Turtles in Time only has so much it can teach us. In other genres than just the beat-em-up, pacing is huge.
Take, for example, the RPG. It can screw up pacing in a new and unique way - the story. If nothing happens in the story for too long, the players (or at least some of them) lose interest. The story needs to be long enough to satisfy the gamer, yet short enough to not make them feel like they just want it to be over. This is a similar problem to movies and books, but there are unique problems for video games. They have to balance dungeons vs city/exploration time - spend too much time between dungeons, and you begin to feel like you'll never make progress. Spend too much time in a dungeon, and you get the same feeling.
A game that I can think of that largely manages to pace itself well, both story and dungeon-wise, is Tales of Symphonia for the Gamecube. Its dungeons aren't too long or too short, and they're interesting enough to keep you engaged. There are a few points where the plot fails, in my opinion, but by and large the characters always have an objective, and you always feel like you're making progress towards that objective. That objective also changes from time to time, rather than remaining stagnant like the next game I'm going to talk about.
Which is: Lufia and the Fortress of Doom. The vast majority of that plot is spent trying to find things to get to the next person that might help you to accomplish your final goal. There aren't enough twists and turns - the meta-plot is always "go find people who know about stuff that can stop the bad guys," or "go find stuff to stop the bad guys." Once you finally get around to stopping the bad guys, that's it. There's no feeling of an epic struggle, or fighting emissaries of the bad guys, or even finding out who the heck the bad guys are and what they want - it's just trying to build up your power to stop them.
Now, there are standard tactics one can use to pace a game. One obvious and common one is to give you access to new abilities throughout the game. Most games do this (though, interestingly, Turtles in Time does not) - and for good reason. It keeps combat and puzzles interesting. Zelda and other such games give you new equipment - the bow, the bombs, the boomerang, the Ocarina. RPG's frequently give you new spells or abilities. FPS's give you new guns, RTS's give you new units, and so on and so forth. These tools are great when done well - however, you do run the risk of overwhelming your player with too many abilities or items, and if the items begin to become useless, the gamer feels cheated - I mentioned this in my review of Psi-Ops. A great example of this is the Zelda item from Twilight Princess that lets you control statues - it's only useful when there are statues around, whereas something like the bow is useful in many places. It made me, at least, feel cheated in that I didn't feel like I gained any power from the dungeon, at least not compared to the amount I gained from previous dungeons.
You can also, like I said, overwhelm the character with options - one example of this might be Zelda: Majora's Mask. You get a whole bunch of masks, but it's not really obvious when to use which, and many are useless in all but one specific situation. You can get through the game only using the primary masks, but doing some of the side-quests without a guide would be annoying.
Another tactic to pace a game is to formulate it, at least to some extent. Now while this might seem like an odd thing to say, the point is to give you a set point where you can feel like you accomplished something. This is critical in quite a few games - World of Warcraft is probably the best example of this. As you level up, you gain a bit of power after each level. As you go through dungeons and raids at max level, you can always aim for that next piece of equipment. Another example would be Lufia 2: Rise of the Sinistrals. Its dungeons always have the boss key, and some puzzles that make you feel like you make real progress when you solve them. Zelda, obviously, is another great example of this - the dungeons are always "explore, miniboss, new item, use new item to get to new part of the dungeon, miniboss, boss key, boss." And after each of these steps, you feel like you made progress - keeping you interested in the specific dungeon, and interested in the game.
I think I've talked about this enough for today, but I'll probably revisit it later. Pacing is a hugely important idea in video games (as in many media), after all, and one that entire books could be written on.
Review: Turtles in Time
Turtles IV: Turtles in Time
One of my all-time favorite co-op games, Turtles in Time is an arcade-port co-op sidescrolling beat-em-up game. You play as one of the four Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, each of whom has slightly different stats – speed, power, range, hp. You are assaulted by enemies of various types – color-coded for your convenience, naturally, followed by a boss at the end of each level. There's a token plot about Shredder stealing the Statue of Liberty, and the later sending you in to a time warp (which he just happened to have lying around?), but the plot is mostly in the background for the course of the game. Of course, these things could describe virtually any co-op beat-em-up. What is important is what sets Turtles in Time apart.
1) Fast pace. This is the number one thing any beat-em-up game needs. Not just hurling enemy after enemy at you (though that’s a start), but making them have different abilities so that you have to think on your feet, and still making it feel like you progress through the level at a speedy pace. This is what a good beat-em-up game needs – diversity among enemies, and a fast pace. Additionally, the characters themselves move quite quickly, which adds to the definite feeling of fast-paced-ness. Slow characters are the devil.
1a) Good pacing, time-wise. Levels do not drag on – they each last a fair amount of time, but you don’t feel cheated, nor do you ever say “ugh will this level just END.” The game itself, as well, is a quick beat - ~45 minutes from start to finish, but it doesn’t feel rushed. It leaves you wanting more, sure, but only in the way that everything good does.
2) Differentiated characters. Of course, most games these days have this in spades, and I have to admit it’s not a huge factor in this game. But it’s there, and that’s important. The four turtles are not carbon copies of each other – each plays slightly differently. Like I say, it’s the little things.
3) Adjustable difficulty. Every game should have this, or virtually every game, anyway. Turtles in Time does it well – there are noticeable differences between difficulties, in bosses and mooks, and not just “damage x2.”
4) Good, customizable controls. You’d think this would be a gimme, but even these days, this sort of thing can be screwed up.
5) Lots of different moves. There were the grabs (2 kinds), normal combos, super attacks, power-ups, aerial attacks, and two kinds of running attacks. And yet, you can pretty much always do the attack that you want at any given time, and the attacks are all useful. Much, much better than punch (into a combo) and jump that some other games have.
6) Sound. From the “Oh, shell-shocked” and “Cowabunga” to the background music, it all fits the atmosphere brilliantly, and keeps the spirit of the cartoon.
7) Good level design. The obstacles all fit the themes of the various levels, and none come off as really annoying. None are too hard to dodge, but they definitely have to be kept in mind while you fight. Plus, the backgrounds are well done, and you get the feeling that you’re moving through an area and making progress.
Lessons to be learned from Turtles in Time:
With arcade-style beat-em-ups, and arcade-style games in general, (and all games!) it’s all about the pacing. Additionally, differentiation among enemy types helps greatly to keep the game going, where other similar games might fail – especially if none of the enemies are super-annoying.
One of my all-time favorite co-op games, Turtles in Time is an arcade-port co-op sidescrolling beat-em-up game. You play as one of the four Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, each of whom has slightly different stats – speed, power, range, hp. You are assaulted by enemies of various types – color-coded for your convenience, naturally, followed by a boss at the end of each level. There's a token plot about Shredder stealing the Statue of Liberty, and the later sending you in to a time warp (which he just happened to have lying around?), but the plot is mostly in the background for the course of the game. Of course, these things could describe virtually any co-op beat-em-up. What is important is what sets Turtles in Time apart.
1) Fast pace. This is the number one thing any beat-em-up game needs. Not just hurling enemy after enemy at you (though that’s a start), but making them have different abilities so that you have to think on your feet, and still making it feel like you progress through the level at a speedy pace. This is what a good beat-em-up game needs – diversity among enemies, and a fast pace. Additionally, the characters themselves move quite quickly, which adds to the definite feeling of fast-paced-ness. Slow characters are the devil.
1a) Good pacing, time-wise. Levels do not drag on – they each last a fair amount of time, but you don’t feel cheated, nor do you ever say “ugh will this level just END.” The game itself, as well, is a quick beat - ~45 minutes from start to finish, but it doesn’t feel rushed. It leaves you wanting more, sure, but only in the way that everything good does.
2) Differentiated characters. Of course, most games these days have this in spades, and I have to admit it’s not a huge factor in this game. But it’s there, and that’s important. The four turtles are not carbon copies of each other – each plays slightly differently. Like I say, it’s the little things.
3) Adjustable difficulty. Every game should have this, or virtually every game, anyway. Turtles in Time does it well – there are noticeable differences between difficulties, in bosses and mooks, and not just “damage x2.”
4) Good, customizable controls. You’d think this would be a gimme, but even these days, this sort of thing can be screwed up.
5) Lots of different moves. There were the grabs (2 kinds), normal combos, super attacks, power-ups, aerial attacks, and two kinds of running attacks. And yet, you can pretty much always do the attack that you want at any given time, and the attacks are all useful. Much, much better than punch (into a combo) and jump that some other games have.
6) Sound. From the “Oh, shell-shocked” and “Cowabunga” to the background music, it all fits the atmosphere brilliantly, and keeps the spirit of the cartoon.
7) Good level design. The obstacles all fit the themes of the various levels, and none come off as really annoying. None are too hard to dodge, but they definitely have to be kept in mind while you fight. Plus, the backgrounds are well done, and you get the feeling that you’re moving through an area and making progress.
Lessons to be learned from Turtles in Time:
With arcade-style beat-em-ups, and arcade-style games in general, (and all games!) it’s all about the pacing. Additionally, differentiation among enemy types helps greatly to keep the game going, where other similar games might fail – especially if none of the enemies are super-annoying.
Sunday, January 25, 2009
Review: Psi-Ops
A review I did of a game some time ago. It's set from my standard perspective of analyzing a game for what makes it fun, and what doesn't. I don't talk about it in the review, but the pacing in this game is quite good. Pacing is a very, very powerful idea, and one that I'll expound more on this Tuesday.
Psi-Ops: The Mindgate Conspiracy
Psi-Ops is a fairly decent Sci-Fi FPS. It’s plot is okay – nothing spectacular, but certainly passable. You infiltrate the bad guy’s base, using your guns and your psi powers to kill bunches of people, recover special moon rocks, and save the world from the evil general. Evil twins and psychically-themed villains abound.
The psi powers, to me, are the highlight of this game. You have telekinesis, remote viewing (AKA astral projection), Mind Control, pyrokinesis, and “sense aura” (a cheesy, puzzle-only power). Pyrokinesis, sadly, is just another gun, effectively, and sense aura could’ve been a handy-dandy infrared-vision, but no, just a lame puzzle-solving power.
The FPS combat is nothing exemplary – it’s a lot like many others, with a minor difference in the auto-aiming dot that aims for a body part and shows you which. Don’t do this. Auto-aiming, if it has to exist, should be largely behind the scenes – plus, this wasn’t done that well – it made it harder at times to aim at heads. Also! Hit detection = terrible. Sniping someone’s head was nigh-impossible. For goodness sake, test your hit detection, people.
I do, however, commend this game for having co-op, difficulty levels, and creative uses of telekinesis (hold them with one hand, shoot with the other; rolly balls of doom) and mind-control (Finally, a “kill yourself” option!). That said, Pyrokinesis should have just lit the target on fire, or pierced/worked around terrain to make it more than just a gun that ran on psi. Aura View should also have been infrared vision, more distinctly than it already was.
Also, rolling balls of telekinetic doom = awesome.
Lessons to be learned:
Don’t give me powers just to make fricking everyone immune to them at the end. Balance your game without resorting to such cheap tricks.
Don’t ever, ever give me a move or item that is only useful when you say it is. Ever! Zelda games could learn from this, as well. I’m looking at you, statue-controlly rod from Twilight Princess. (If you absolutely, positively have to do this, scatter things that I can use it on throughout the game, not just at puzzle-solving points.)
-Actually, the real problem is when one out of a set of useful things is only useful when you say it is. For example, when I go through a Zelda dungeon, I will get a nifty new item. In addition to this item being necessary for me to complete the dungeon, I expect it to be just generally useful. When it isn’t, I am disappointed. However, I’m perfectly willing to accept songs (a la Ocarina of Time or Wind Waker) that are only useful when you say they are, because all songs are like that. It’s only when you break the “useful” mold and give me something that isn’t that I get annoyed.
Auto-aiming needs to be less annoying and blatant.
Dear god, test your hit-detection. Sniping should WORK.
Guns and powers should be separate. Powers should not just be guns that run on Psi.
Creative uses of telekinesis = win.
Psi-Ops: The Mindgate Conspiracy
Psi-Ops is a fairly decent Sci-Fi FPS. It’s plot is okay – nothing spectacular, but certainly passable. You infiltrate the bad guy’s base, using your guns and your psi powers to kill bunches of people, recover special moon rocks, and save the world from the evil general. Evil twins and psychically-themed villains abound.
The psi powers, to me, are the highlight of this game. You have telekinesis, remote viewing (AKA astral projection), Mind Control, pyrokinesis, and “sense aura” (a cheesy, puzzle-only power). Pyrokinesis, sadly, is just another gun, effectively, and sense aura could’ve been a handy-dandy infrared-vision, but no, just a lame puzzle-solving power.
The FPS combat is nothing exemplary – it’s a lot like many others, with a minor difference in the auto-aiming dot that aims for a body part and shows you which. Don’t do this. Auto-aiming, if it has to exist, should be largely behind the scenes – plus, this wasn’t done that well – it made it harder at times to aim at heads. Also! Hit detection = terrible. Sniping someone’s head was nigh-impossible. For goodness sake, test your hit detection, people.
I do, however, commend this game for having co-op, difficulty levels, and creative uses of telekinesis (hold them with one hand, shoot with the other; rolly balls of doom) and mind-control (Finally, a “kill yourself” option!). That said, Pyrokinesis should have just lit the target on fire, or pierced/worked around terrain to make it more than just a gun that ran on psi. Aura View should also have been infrared vision, more distinctly than it already was.
Also, rolling balls of telekinetic doom = awesome.
Lessons to be learned:
Don’t give me powers just to make fricking everyone immune to them at the end. Balance your game without resorting to such cheap tricks.
Don’t ever, ever give me a move or item that is only useful when you say it is. Ever! Zelda games could learn from this, as well. I’m looking at you, statue-controlly rod from Twilight Princess. (If you absolutely, positively have to do this, scatter things that I can use it on throughout the game, not just at puzzle-solving points.)
-Actually, the real problem is when one out of a set of useful things is only useful when you say it is. For example, when I go through a Zelda dungeon, I will get a nifty new item. In addition to this item being necessary for me to complete the dungeon, I expect it to be just generally useful. When it isn’t, I am disappointed. However, I’m perfectly willing to accept songs (a la Ocarina of Time or Wind Waker) that are only useful when you say they are, because all songs are like that. It’s only when you break the “useful” mold and give me something that isn’t that I get annoyed.
Auto-aiming needs to be less annoying and blatant.
Dear god, test your hit-detection. Sniping should WORK.
Guns and powers should be separate. Powers should not just be guns that run on Psi.
Creative uses of telekinesis = win.
Design: Movie-Game
Sorry for the wait, but stuff happened on Tuesday. I really will try to keep a regular schedule to these updates - I'd like this to become a real, solid, ongoing blog by the time people actually start coming here.
Today I'm going to be writing about an idea that I've been tossing around in my head for a while. It's the idea of, effectively, playing a video game that is an interactive movie. Basically, you'd be watching a movie, but you could cut in and adjust things slightly as you progressed. For example, if you just set the controller down and watched the game (pressing A to move through dialogue, perhaps), it would form a cohesive plot - you'd end up getting one of the worst endings, of course, but stuff would happen - unlike most games, where if you don't do anything, nothing at all happens.
To clarify, you'd be able to do things like nudge objects slightly - perhaps hiding or revealing something to the characters. You'd be able to influence a character's decisions - things like deciding dialogue choices in typical games. Or during an action sequence, you could perhaps control a character directly, fighting off bad guys or what not. One potential way to go with the branching paths is that the game goes on regardless - even if you lose, or an important character dies because of your actions, you can continue to see exactly what happens to the rest of the characters. The idea is, after all, that you're controlling a movie - a movie that would go on regardless of what you did. And ideally, you'd be able to cut in and control things at any time - dialogue, action, whatever - you could adjust it as you chose, but as the next paragraph will say, not all the time.
Your ability to cut into the movie/game would be limited - you'd be able to control things here and there, but you would only be able to control bits and pieces, not 100% control 100% of the time. Though it would be interesting to have a game that you could choose just how involved you wanted to be - anywhere from 0% to 100% - but that's a post for a different time. Expect an eventual "automation to the extreme" post - the idea of having only limited control over aspects of a game has always intrigued me, and the idea of letting computers control most of a game is interesting as well. (Sidebar: Reminds me of the game that the Ellimist (of Animorphs) was playing with his friend at the beginning of "The Ellimist Chronicles" - a set of worlds, try to make yours the dominant one by the most subtle means possible.)
So to summarize, the game would have the following qualities:
-Have a plot that would reach a conclusion with no intervention from the player.
-Have the player be able to cut in at any point (though not necessarily for a long period of time) to adjust something - perhaps something physical, like a hidden object, or something mental, like a main character's attitude.
-Have the plot continue even if you made mistakes or "lost" - the show must go on.
-Intricate branchings of possibilities.
Another, slightly easier to justify, perhaps, way to flavor similar powers would be to say that you're a guardian spirit of some sort, sent to safeguard a specific person, or prevent/enable certain events. However, you can only adjust small things or people's attitudes slightly, things like that. This would also allow for a more standard plot progression (assuming that "the show must go on" would be a feature of a movie-flavored thing), in that if you failed in your charge, that would be a game over, and that would be the end of that.
This is just a thought I've been rattling around in my head. Don't be surprised if I come up with more ideas relating to this and post them later.
Today I'm going to be writing about an idea that I've been tossing around in my head for a while. It's the idea of, effectively, playing a video game that is an interactive movie. Basically, you'd be watching a movie, but you could cut in and adjust things slightly as you progressed. For example, if you just set the controller down and watched the game (pressing A to move through dialogue, perhaps), it would form a cohesive plot - you'd end up getting one of the worst endings, of course, but stuff would happen - unlike most games, where if you don't do anything, nothing at all happens.
To clarify, you'd be able to do things like nudge objects slightly - perhaps hiding or revealing something to the characters. You'd be able to influence a character's decisions - things like deciding dialogue choices in typical games. Or during an action sequence, you could perhaps control a character directly, fighting off bad guys or what not. One potential way to go with the branching paths is that the game goes on regardless - even if you lose, or an important character dies because of your actions, you can continue to see exactly what happens to the rest of the characters. The idea is, after all, that you're controlling a movie - a movie that would go on regardless of what you did. And ideally, you'd be able to cut in and control things at any time - dialogue, action, whatever - you could adjust it as you chose, but as the next paragraph will say, not all the time.
Your ability to cut into the movie/game would be limited - you'd be able to control things here and there, but you would only be able to control bits and pieces, not 100% control 100% of the time. Though it would be interesting to have a game that you could choose just how involved you wanted to be - anywhere from 0% to 100% - but that's a post for a different time. Expect an eventual "automation to the extreme" post - the idea of having only limited control over aspects of a game has always intrigued me, and the idea of letting computers control most of a game is interesting as well. (Sidebar: Reminds me of the game that the Ellimist (of Animorphs) was playing with his friend at the beginning of "The Ellimist Chronicles" - a set of worlds, try to make yours the dominant one by the most subtle means possible.)
So to summarize, the game would have the following qualities:
-Have a plot that would reach a conclusion with no intervention from the player.
-Have the player be able to cut in at any point (though not necessarily for a long period of time) to adjust something - perhaps something physical, like a hidden object, or something mental, like a main character's attitude.
-Have the plot continue even if you made mistakes or "lost" - the show must go on.
-Intricate branchings of possibilities.
Another, slightly easier to justify, perhaps, way to flavor similar powers would be to say that you're a guardian spirit of some sort, sent to safeguard a specific person, or prevent/enable certain events. However, you can only adjust small things or people's attitudes slightly, things like that. This would also allow for a more standard plot progression (assuming that "the show must go on" would be a feature of a movie-flavored thing), in that if you failed in your charge, that would be a game over, and that would be the end of that.
This is just a thought I've been rattling around in my head. Don't be surprised if I come up with more ideas relating to this and post them later.
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
Design: List of Things Games Should/Shouldn't Have
Originally posted December 18th, 2008 at adamgameapprentice.blogspot.com:
Older Post - List of things that every game should have
And here's my older post for today, though hopefully just as interesting. I'm going to post my "List of things that should/should never be in a game" - though mostly it's things that should be in every game. Here goes:
In a word: Customization!
In another few words: No Pointless Restrictions!
-Subtitle toggle
-Difficulty levels, ideally some reward for beating it on each. (If absolutely nothing else, some indicator next to the save file.)
-(Very) Customizable Controls, savable to profiles
-Independent volume control for sound effects, music, and voices.
-If you have a tutorial, make it skippable unless it is (and must be) plot relevant.
--Good Solution: Have "do you know how to do x?" 3rd wall-breaking text, a la Fire Emblem for GC and Wii.
-If you have cutscenes, make them skippable. Consider giving a "Do you really want to skip this cutscene?" dialogue.
--Good Solution: Psychonauts lets you re-watch cutscenes.
-Text speed customization.
-Postgame content, if nothing else in the form of collectibles and difficulty levels.
-Invertable (seperate) flight/aiming controls.
-Autosave, especially in very level-based games.
-(Never make me run towards the camera. 99% of the time, this isn't a good way to do it.)
RPGS:
-No truly random encounters (a la FF1, Lufia 1, etc - instead do it like Lufia 2 or Paper Mario)
-Whenever you can see the name of an item, you can see what it does (description, probably by pressing or holding a button). That goes for spells, too.
-Always able to see max and current HP/MP.
-Give the main character a default name.
FPS:
-Different sensitivities on aiming
-Team vs mode (divided however you want)
-Weapon sets/toggles in vs mode, including make-your-own weapon sets.
Fighting:
-Tag mode, if it's reasonable.
-Team mode (both types: standard team fights (2v2) if more than two people can fight at once, and 1v1 with each controlling a group of people one after the other.)
Super Minigame Party:
-Create-your-own minigame groups (IE, only these minigames will show up in this play session, not those)
Strategy/Tactics:
-Vs mode! If it's at all feasible. Preferably with some co-op missions, as well.
Escort Missions:
-A "stay here" command.
-Never, ever should they run headfirst at an enemy that you could otherwise get the jump on or avoid.
-In fact, they should never fight except to protect themselves, you, or attack someone you're attacking. And there should be commands to cancel the second two, and run away in place of the first.
Older Post - List of things that every game should have
And here's my older post for today, though hopefully just as interesting. I'm going to post my "List of things that should/should never be in a game" - though mostly it's things that should be in every game. Here goes:
In a word: Customization!
In another few words: No Pointless Restrictions!
-Subtitle toggle
-Difficulty levels, ideally some reward for beating it on each. (If absolutely nothing else, some indicator next to the save file.)
-(Very) Customizable Controls, savable to profiles
-Independent volume control for sound effects, music, and voices.
-If you have a tutorial, make it skippable unless it is (and must be) plot relevant.
--Good Solution: Have "do you know how to do x?" 3rd wall-breaking text, a la Fire Emblem for GC and Wii.
-If you have cutscenes, make them skippable. Consider giving a "Do you really want to skip this cutscene?" dialogue.
--Good Solution: Psychonauts lets you re-watch cutscenes.
-Text speed customization.
-Postgame content, if nothing else in the form of collectibles and difficulty levels.
-Invertable (seperate) flight/aiming controls.
-Autosave, especially in very level-based games.
-(Never make me run towards the camera. 99% of the time, this isn't a good way to do it.)
RPGS:
-No truly random encounters (a la FF1, Lufia 1, etc - instead do it like Lufia 2 or Paper Mario)
-Whenever you can see the name of an item, you can see what it does (description, probably by pressing or holding a button). That goes for spells, too.
-Always able to see max and current HP/MP.
-Give the main character a default name.
FPS:
-Different sensitivities on aiming
-Team vs mode (divided however you want)
-Weapon sets/toggles in vs mode, including make-your-own weapon sets.
Fighting:
-Tag mode, if it's reasonable.
-Team mode (both types: standard team fights (2v2) if more than two people can fight at once, and 1v1 with each controlling a group of people one after the other.)
Super Minigame Party:
-Create-your-own minigame groups (IE, only these minigames will show up in this play session, not those)
Strategy/Tactics:
-Vs mode! If it's at all feasible. Preferably with some co-op missions, as well.
Escort Missions:
-A "stay here" command.
-Never, ever should they run headfirst at an enemy that you could otherwise get the jump on or avoid.
-In fact, they should never fight except to protect themselves, you, or attack someone you're attacking. And there should be commands to cancel the second two, and run away in place of the first.
Review: Zombies Ate My Neighbors
Originally Posted December 18, 2008 at adamgameapprentice.blogspot.com:
I'd like to start doing two posts a week, roughly - one will contain something that I've already written, and one will be original for that week. My "Original" post for today will be a review of an older game that you may or may not have heard of called "Zombies Ate My Neighbors."
Obviously, with a title like that, it isn't a game that takes itself very seriously. The game an SNES and Genesis arcade-style top-down action game in which you play as one of two functionally-identical kids, a boy or a girl. Armed with a water gun, popsicles, soda cans, crosses, Martian Bubble Guns, and the like, you fight off hordes of undead and other monsters in an attempt to defeat the poorly-developed Dr. Tongue.
Honestly, this game is almost exactly what it tries to be - an enjoyable arcade-style action game that you can pick up, play for a while and have some fun, then come back to it later, or that you can play for a long time and attempt to beat. However, because this game isn't in an arcade, it has several flaws. One thing: It's too hard. The game starts fairly easy, and has health packs that you can pick up and use later, but the difficulty in later levels is over-the-top. The evil dolls, chainsaw murderers, and (oh god) sand worms are especially vicious, not to mention hard-to-avoid. Not only that, but if you continue from a password, you lose all your special items and weapons. Simply put, this game needs a couple of things to make it work - the option of lower difficulty, and save files. Don't get me wrong, I love a good challenging game, but without the option to save effectively, and without the possibility of a lower difficulty, it just isn't fun.
The plot in this game is almost entirely explained in the instruction manual. One change that could be made there would be to have the standard "intro plot" of most arcade games, where if you just leave the controller lying there the plot rolls before you start the game. That would be nice. Additionally, some sort of after-level plot (complete with cheesy narrating?) would be nice, if not after every level, then after every five or so. This game was practically tailor-made for the cheesy plot of a B-movie - the level names and general tone of the game are basically a playable B-movie, after all - so it's a pity that one wasn't included.
Another thing about this game is the length. Again, don't get me wrong, I love a good long game, but the challenge and annoyance of passwords makes this game feel like it drags on. I think that this problem would be mostly fixed by adding in very brief bits of cheesy plot, lower difficulty, and a better save option.
There are several things that this game does do right. The biggest thing that this game gets right that kills many action games is variety. Variety of enemies, variety of weapons, variety of power-ups, variety of level design - this game gets it right. The enemies are many and varied, the power-ups (like the inflatable clown decoys! Brilliant! If annoying-sounding) are fantastic, and the weapons are inspired. The level design is also very well-done (if challenging) - big thumbs-up to whoever did the level design for this game. The neighborhood, warehouse, shopping mall, hedge maze, and all the other levels all feel different and great. The pacing, similarly, is well done, largely because of the variety of things - though interjecting bits of plot between levels would add to it.
One other thing to complain about is having to wander around to find the last hostage. The radar is nice, but the levels are annoyingly large at times, and it's often very difficult to get to the hostages before the undead do. It's hard to find a solution here - making it less linear would be one way to do it, but I love the large stages. One solution might be to let you leave a level after you rescue, say half or three-quarters of the hostages - you can progress without having to scour the level for the path to get to the last hostage, but you lose some points that you would have gotten. Or at least giving you an item that lets you do this - maybe once every couple of levels you get another "get out of this level free" item? I think making the levels at least a bit more linear would help, or have the radar be more helpful (when there's tons of obstacles in my way, knowing which general direction to go isn't a great help).
There's not much to say about the graphics - they are pretty good for the SNES/Genesis, and fit the atmosphere.
The sound is also quite good - though there are effects that are annoying, and BGM's that really get on my nerves. That said, everything fits the tone of the game, so that's something. Slightly less annoying music and sound effects would be great, or at least the ability to change their relative volume.
Basically, this game needs a bit polish for it to shine, but it is already quite a good game, considering when it was made. An update would include difficulty levels, save files, some sort of option to get out of a level without wandering around it, slightly more linear levels - or at least some better way to tell where to go, slightly different sound, and bits of plot here and there. Then it would be the game that it tried to be, pretty much perfectly, at least to me - a quirky, retro-feeling fun little action game with an undead theme. It still wouldn't make anyone's "best games of all time" list, probably, but it would be fun for those who like the genre, and a solid little game - maybe an 8. Not especially outstanding, but certainly worth playing, and worth beating if you get some solid enjoyment out of it.
I'd like to start doing two posts a week, roughly - one will contain something that I've already written, and one will be original for that week. My "Original" post for today will be a review of an older game that you may or may not have heard of called "Zombies Ate My Neighbors."
Obviously, with a title like that, it isn't a game that takes itself very seriously. The game an SNES and Genesis arcade-style top-down action game in which you play as one of two functionally-identical kids, a boy or a girl. Armed with a water gun, popsicles, soda cans, crosses, Martian Bubble Guns, and the like, you fight off hordes of undead and other monsters in an attempt to defeat the poorly-developed Dr. Tongue.
Honestly, this game is almost exactly what it tries to be - an enjoyable arcade-style action game that you can pick up, play for a while and have some fun, then come back to it later, or that you can play for a long time and attempt to beat. However, because this game isn't in an arcade, it has several flaws. One thing: It's too hard. The game starts fairly easy, and has health packs that you can pick up and use later, but the difficulty in later levels is over-the-top. The evil dolls, chainsaw murderers, and (oh god) sand worms are especially vicious, not to mention hard-to-avoid. Not only that, but if you continue from a password, you lose all your special items and weapons. Simply put, this game needs a couple of things to make it work - the option of lower difficulty, and save files. Don't get me wrong, I love a good challenging game, but without the option to save effectively, and without the possibility of a lower difficulty, it just isn't fun.
The plot in this game is almost entirely explained in the instruction manual. One change that could be made there would be to have the standard "intro plot" of most arcade games, where if you just leave the controller lying there the plot rolls before you start the game. That would be nice. Additionally, some sort of after-level plot (complete with cheesy narrating?) would be nice, if not after every level, then after every five or so. This game was practically tailor-made for the cheesy plot of a B-movie - the level names and general tone of the game are basically a playable B-movie, after all - so it's a pity that one wasn't included.
Another thing about this game is the length. Again, don't get me wrong, I love a good long game, but the challenge and annoyance of passwords makes this game feel like it drags on. I think that this problem would be mostly fixed by adding in very brief bits of cheesy plot, lower difficulty, and a better save option.
There are several things that this game does do right. The biggest thing that this game gets right that kills many action games is variety. Variety of enemies, variety of weapons, variety of power-ups, variety of level design - this game gets it right. The enemies are many and varied, the power-ups (like the inflatable clown decoys! Brilliant! If annoying-sounding) are fantastic, and the weapons are inspired. The level design is also very well-done (if challenging) - big thumbs-up to whoever did the level design for this game. The neighborhood, warehouse, shopping mall, hedge maze, and all the other levels all feel different and great. The pacing, similarly, is well done, largely because of the variety of things - though interjecting bits of plot between levels would add to it.
One other thing to complain about is having to wander around to find the last hostage. The radar is nice, but the levels are annoyingly large at times, and it's often very difficult to get to the hostages before the undead do. It's hard to find a solution here - making it less linear would be one way to do it, but I love the large stages. One solution might be to let you leave a level after you rescue, say half or three-quarters of the hostages - you can progress without having to scour the level for the path to get to the last hostage, but you lose some points that you would have gotten. Or at least giving you an item that lets you do this - maybe once every couple of levels you get another "get out of this level free" item? I think making the levels at least a bit more linear would help, or have the radar be more helpful (when there's tons of obstacles in my way, knowing which general direction to go isn't a great help).
There's not much to say about the graphics - they are pretty good for the SNES/Genesis, and fit the atmosphere.
The sound is also quite good - though there are effects that are annoying, and BGM's that really get on my nerves. That said, everything fits the tone of the game, so that's something. Slightly less annoying music and sound effects would be great, or at least the ability to change their relative volume.
Basically, this game needs a bit polish for it to shine, but it is already quite a good game, considering when it was made. An update would include difficulty levels, save files, some sort of option to get out of a level without wandering around it, slightly more linear levels - or at least some better way to tell where to go, slightly different sound, and bits of plot here and there. Then it would be the game that it tried to be, pretty much perfectly, at least to me - a quirky, retro-feeling fun little action game with an undead theme. It still wouldn't make anyone's "best games of all time" list, probably, but it would be fun for those who like the genre, and a solid little game - maybe an 8. Not especially outstanding, but certainly worth playing, and worth beating if you get some solid enjoyment out of it.
Review: Geist
Originally posted December 1st, 2008:
Let's go ahead and start this with a bang. This is, admittedly, old stuff - I wrote this a bit ago, but I feel just as passionate about it now as I did then. It's about a Gamecube game that most of you probably haven't heard of, much less actually played, called Geist.
Geist is a pseudo-FPS made by Nintendo, of all people, on the Gamecube. Its main feature that I want to talk about and remember in this is, well, its main feature.
In Geist, you are a ghost who can possess people and objects name John Raimi (silent protaganist), with the ultimate goals of stopping the BBEG and reclaiming your body, which you were separated from at the beginning of the game. During the game, you learn more about the BBEG by exploring his base and interacting with his ghostly sister, Gigi, who is an appropriately creepy (and quite helpful) little ghost girl. But the possession aspect is what makes this game so great. I want to talk about it on two levels – on the level of it, specifically, and on what I can learn from it in regards to the genre shuffle style.
The possession mechanic, first and foremost, is brilliant. You can possess various people, and thus gain various abilities that allow you to move on in the game, or combat foes in new and special ways. It also allows an element of stealth – after all, it’s not always easy to tell when someone is being possessed.
However, the idea is not taken as far as it could be. Only certain people can be possessed – usually, those who are next to objects that you can possess in order to frighten them. It feels like a “necessary” cop-out – the game designers liked the premise, but couldn’t figure out a way to make it work logically without being overpowered. Frankly, this is really annoying – if possession of others is my superpower, then I should be able to use it, gosh darn it. This is somewhat subverted, however, in that you can detonate explosives to kill enemy soldiers, or control gun turrets to shoot enemies. However, by the same token, shouldn’t you have been able to possess guns to make them fire, or doors to make them open?
One particularly brilliant segment is defending your black friend from many soldiers by possessing various objects and using them to defeat the soldiers attacking him. You control gun turrets, detonate explosives, and even manually roll grenades to their feet, detonating them.
Unfortunately, the next segment is somewhat more limited – though awesome in concept, its execution is lacking. Your aforementioned black friend is on a motorcycle, attempting to escape the complex that is the setting for much of the game. You can possess his motorcycle, moving him, you can possess explosives, detonating them in an attempt to halt pursuit – or you can mostly just possess the gun on the back of the truck in front of him, using it to gun down all other problems. Blah – while an interesting use of the possession mechanic, the possession mechanic itself felt paradoxically underused in the scene. Perhaps a more appropriate setting for such an event would be on a helicopter turret, or some such.
The rat segment is again a bit of brilliance – you possess a rat and attempt to return it to its owner, and in order to do so, you must avoid a series of mousetraps. However, your possessed host, the rat, is drawn to the cheese on the traps in an almost magnetic fashion. So in order to escape, you must avoid the traps and make your way safely back to the rat’s owner. It’s a brilliant use of the possession mechanic (even if why you can’t possess the mousetraps and set them off beforehand isn’t adequately explained).
The rat example brings me to my next point – the use of repeated genre swapping in this game. The thing is, though, it doesn’t feel like it is. Each use of the possession mechanic in a new way feels natural – the rat, the various people, missile turrets. To further this idea, your hosts are given different weapons – some hosts have shotguns, some (one, disappointingly) have a sniper rifle with a heat-vision component, some (one, again) have rocket launchers. The overall effect is that each host, animal, human, or usable object, feels like a new experience – and it’s pulled off brilliantly. This is emphasized by the fact that animals see limited to no colors, and your ghostform has its own blued-out vision as well – human hosts and mechanical objects see normally, though the perspective of inanimate objects is often entertaining. (Of course, your own body is the best form for combat – a very nice automatic weapon and anti-ghost grenades, along with the ability to go bullet-time – quite awesome, though a bit of explanation as to how that last part worked would have been nice.) As an added bonus, despite the fact that the final boss is fought in a moderately different way than anything before him, it doesn’t feel forced – in other words, it manages to (to some degree) avoid the annoyance of Star Fox Adventures, Mystical Ninja Starring Goemon, and Banjo-Tooie with the “random genre swap” final boss, by setting up a reasonable premise and keeping the shift moderate.
Lessons to be learned:
Possession is an excellent, underused mechanic with a lot of room for unique growth in future games. Taking control of your enemies = awesome!
Rapid genre swaps can work (in a non-party game setting) if you set up a logical premise for them, and don’t make the shift too dramatic.
If I were to remake the game:
Make pretty much everyone and everything possessable. While the “scaring” mechanic is a good start for limiting possession, it’s too limiting – set up circumstances that can be used to scare any given NPC (save bosses, of course, unless that’s the trick). Possessing a soldier’s gun, for example – or simply the light fixtures or PA – would be a viable way to make this work. This would also mean that, in the example of protecting the black friend, for example, that while possessing the actual people doing the shooting would be possible, it would be much more practical to do it the way that was intended. It would also give the game a much-needed sense of “more than one way to do things.”
Alternately, be able to possess anyone, but if they are not scared first, then you have only limited control over them, as well as only temporary control, similar to when ghosts possess you towards the end of the game.
Make more objects possessable, preferably everything. I’m on the fence as to whether simply not allowing doors to be opened in ghostform with no explanation is worse than trying to provide an explanation for it. If most everything is possessable, give a way to turn on/off seeing the auras around what’s possessable, in degrees – objects, people.
Spend more time in the simulator at the beginning, and when we go back, let it complete and only maintain your individuality by Gigi sneaking into the sim and helping you fight the brainwashing, or your memories of her/your family/whatever.
Things used to scare people would be possessable in any order. (Ladder, extinguisher, and pipes in any order, not just that order.)
Dear God! Higher difficulty levels! I mean, really!
Co…op? Somehow? Maybe? *shrug*
Grenades! Throw->Possess->Roll->Explode.
Flying hosts – invertable
Possessions should be quicker to initiate. I loved simply being able to slip out of a body – slipping back into one should’ve been just as natural.
The story would be deeper, and Raimi wouldn’t have been silent.
The game would have been 2-3x as long.
Multiplayer Changes:
Online, online, online. Bigger maps – this game could be the next Halo if done right.
Better ammo/gun system. Direct Halo rip?
Capture the flag.
Ghost Barriers!
Vehicles! Possessable, of course.
New Toggles:
Ghosts – invisible to non-ghosts
Ghosts – invisible on radar
Ghosts – damageable
Ghosts – pop out of hosts when the host dies, or respawn back at their base
Hosts – damage transfer between them
Hosts/Vehicles – possessable only by certain teams
Ghosts – limited possession of already possessed hosts
Objects – indicator of whether or not the object is being possessed
Let's go ahead and start this with a bang. This is, admittedly, old stuff - I wrote this a bit ago, but I feel just as passionate about it now as I did then. It's about a Gamecube game that most of you probably haven't heard of, much less actually played, called Geist.
Geist is a pseudo-FPS made by Nintendo, of all people, on the Gamecube. Its main feature that I want to talk about and remember in this is, well, its main feature.
In Geist, you are a ghost who can possess people and objects name John Raimi (silent protaganist), with the ultimate goals of stopping the BBEG and reclaiming your body, which you were separated from at the beginning of the game. During the game, you learn more about the BBEG by exploring his base and interacting with his ghostly sister, Gigi, who is an appropriately creepy (and quite helpful) little ghost girl. But the possession aspect is what makes this game so great. I want to talk about it on two levels – on the level of it, specifically, and on what I can learn from it in regards to the genre shuffle style.
The possession mechanic, first and foremost, is brilliant. You can possess various people, and thus gain various abilities that allow you to move on in the game, or combat foes in new and special ways. It also allows an element of stealth – after all, it’s not always easy to tell when someone is being possessed.
However, the idea is not taken as far as it could be. Only certain people can be possessed – usually, those who are next to objects that you can possess in order to frighten them. It feels like a “necessary” cop-out – the game designers liked the premise, but couldn’t figure out a way to make it work logically without being overpowered. Frankly, this is really annoying – if possession of others is my superpower, then I should be able to use it, gosh darn it. This is somewhat subverted, however, in that you can detonate explosives to kill enemy soldiers, or control gun turrets to shoot enemies. However, by the same token, shouldn’t you have been able to possess guns to make them fire, or doors to make them open?
One particularly brilliant segment is defending your black friend from many soldiers by possessing various objects and using them to defeat the soldiers attacking him. You control gun turrets, detonate explosives, and even manually roll grenades to their feet, detonating them.
Unfortunately, the next segment is somewhat more limited – though awesome in concept, its execution is lacking. Your aforementioned black friend is on a motorcycle, attempting to escape the complex that is the setting for much of the game. You can possess his motorcycle, moving him, you can possess explosives, detonating them in an attempt to halt pursuit – or you can mostly just possess the gun on the back of the truck in front of him, using it to gun down all other problems. Blah – while an interesting use of the possession mechanic, the possession mechanic itself felt paradoxically underused in the scene. Perhaps a more appropriate setting for such an event would be on a helicopter turret, or some such.
The rat segment is again a bit of brilliance – you possess a rat and attempt to return it to its owner, and in order to do so, you must avoid a series of mousetraps. However, your possessed host, the rat, is drawn to the cheese on the traps in an almost magnetic fashion. So in order to escape, you must avoid the traps and make your way safely back to the rat’s owner. It’s a brilliant use of the possession mechanic (even if why you can’t possess the mousetraps and set them off beforehand isn’t adequately explained).
The rat example brings me to my next point – the use of repeated genre swapping in this game. The thing is, though, it doesn’t feel like it is. Each use of the possession mechanic in a new way feels natural – the rat, the various people, missile turrets. To further this idea, your hosts are given different weapons – some hosts have shotguns, some (one, disappointingly) have a sniper rifle with a heat-vision component, some (one, again) have rocket launchers. The overall effect is that each host, animal, human, or usable object, feels like a new experience – and it’s pulled off brilliantly. This is emphasized by the fact that animals see limited to no colors, and your ghostform has its own blued-out vision as well – human hosts and mechanical objects see normally, though the perspective of inanimate objects is often entertaining. (Of course, your own body is the best form for combat – a very nice automatic weapon and anti-ghost grenades, along with the ability to go bullet-time – quite awesome, though a bit of explanation as to how that last part worked would have been nice.) As an added bonus, despite the fact that the final boss is fought in a moderately different way than anything before him, it doesn’t feel forced – in other words, it manages to (to some degree) avoid the annoyance of Star Fox Adventures, Mystical Ninja Starring Goemon, and Banjo-Tooie with the “random genre swap” final boss, by setting up a reasonable premise and keeping the shift moderate.
Lessons to be learned:
Possession is an excellent, underused mechanic with a lot of room for unique growth in future games. Taking control of your enemies = awesome!
Rapid genre swaps can work (in a non-party game setting) if you set up a logical premise for them, and don’t make the shift too dramatic.
If I were to remake the game:
Make pretty much everyone and everything possessable. While the “scaring” mechanic is a good start for limiting possession, it’s too limiting – set up circumstances that can be used to scare any given NPC (save bosses, of course, unless that’s the trick). Possessing a soldier’s gun, for example – or simply the light fixtures or PA – would be a viable way to make this work. This would also mean that, in the example of protecting the black friend, for example, that while possessing the actual people doing the shooting would be possible, it would be much more practical to do it the way that was intended. It would also give the game a much-needed sense of “more than one way to do things.”
Alternately, be able to possess anyone, but if they are not scared first, then you have only limited control over them, as well as only temporary control, similar to when ghosts possess you towards the end of the game.
Make more objects possessable, preferably everything. I’m on the fence as to whether simply not allowing doors to be opened in ghostform with no explanation is worse than trying to provide an explanation for it. If most everything is possessable, give a way to turn on/off seeing the auras around what’s possessable, in degrees – objects, people.
Spend more time in the simulator at the beginning, and when we go back, let it complete and only maintain your individuality by Gigi sneaking into the sim and helping you fight the brainwashing, or your memories of her/your family/whatever.
Things used to scare people would be possessable in any order. (Ladder, extinguisher, and pipes in any order, not just that order.)
Dear God! Higher difficulty levels! I mean, really!
Co…op? Somehow? Maybe? *shrug*
Grenades! Throw->Possess->Roll->Explode.
Flying hosts – invertable
Possessions should be quicker to initiate. I loved simply being able to slip out of a body – slipping back into one should’ve been just as natural.
The story would be deeper, and Raimi wouldn’t have been silent.
The game would have been 2-3x as long.
Multiplayer Changes:
Online, online, online. Bigger maps – this game could be the next Halo if done right.
Better ammo/gun system. Direct Halo rip?
Capture the flag.
Ghost Barriers!
Vehicles! Possessable, of course.
New Toggles:
Ghosts – invisible to non-ghosts
Ghosts – invisible on radar
Ghosts – damageable
Ghosts – pop out of hosts when the host dies, or respawn back at their base
Hosts – damage transfer between them
Hosts/Vehicles – possessable only by certain teams
Ghosts – limited possession of already possessed hosts
Objects – indicator of whether or not the object is being possessed
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