X8? Really? Uh, okay. Guess I lost track after...
Three, I guess. Yeah, musta been three. Anyway. X8.
An intro level, like Mega Man X. Cool. Good idea, makes sure people start out with the same experience, and the same chance to get used to the game. In X8, you're getting used to three different characters and the ability to switch between them. You've got X, Zero, and a new guy named Axl, who plays like Bass/Forte.
Also: Dialogue, cutscenes, a plot. On principle, I should try to care about this stuff, but paying attention to the opening cinema in a Mega Man game is like counting the sprinkles on a cupcake: you can be as attentive as you like, but in five minutes it ain't gonna matter. That cupcake will be eaten, and that Mega Man game will be presenting you with eight plotless levels that you can play in any dang order.
If you're gonna give a Mega Man game a plot, why not have some fun with it? A little treat for the people who pay attention to it. The setting prevents you from making it a story about, say, lesbian slave traders on the run from their future selves, but why not take it in a different direction? Make it dark, make it surreal, tell me of betrayal, of passion! Let them talk! Let them speak of jumping sharks, let them wring their pale hands and let their shuffling feet wear grooves into the stone beneath them! Look down on them from your web of shining lace, throw them a line, promise them love, for they are no less than the measure of you!
Which brings us to the level design. Mega Man 9 gave me a renewed appreciation for the levels of old, where platforms were platforms, spikes were spikes, and enemies were enemies. X8 is grey and drab and I can't always see where the damn enemies are and that. Is. A. Problem. Rendering everything in 3D is a neat trick, but if it makes it harder to tell what I'm looking at, then the graphics are bad. You could render every muscle in Megaman's face, you could model fire and water and motion with breathtaking realism and beauty, but if I can't tell where enemies are, then your game has bad graphics.
It doesn't help that the levels aren't laid out with much apparent care. I'm asked to make leaps of faith into what looked for all the world like bottomless pits, and I've made leaps of faith into bottomless pits only to see at the last minute that the next platform required Axl's hovering ability or Zero's double jump.
There's some good choices in there, some new ideas. There's the level where you change the local gravity and blocks fall on you if you do it wrong. Cruel, but it's laid out logically, so you can beat it if you're careful. But there's also some new ideas that don't really pan out. Like a snowmobile chase. And a hovercraft chase. The snowmobile's not bad, actually, I'll give that one a pass just for being new.
But the hovercraft... Let me relate something personal. I'm making a shoot-em-up game right now - a shoot-em-up set on a spherical screen, and built to take advantage of that fact - and you can imagine how much sweaty, tearful blood has gone into making that game usable and fun for people of all skill levels. We have made aesthetic sacrifices for the sake of the user. We love the user. Mega Man X8's hovercraft minigame does not love the user. Your bullets fly off in crazy directions, your target is constantly zipping around corners, out of your reach, and your hovercraft handles like the steering mechanism is full of, I don't know, eels or something. It's not a challenge, it just blows. Admit it, guys: playtesters came to you and told you these things, and you didn't care enough. Or you didn't have enough time, sure, but somewhere along the line someone didn't love the user enough, or even hate the user enough. I Wanna Be The Guy isn't a game born out of loving the user, at least not in a traditional or healthy way, but it's lit a fire in some hearts.
Mega Man X8 represents the departure from grace that Mega Man 9 answered. I don't hold against X8 the risks it took, but I do resent its failure to remember what made the originals good. Making a hovercraft minigame when you can't even make a good platformer level is like remembering to bungee jump but forgetting to eat.
Wednesday, November 26, 2008
Saturday, November 22, 2008
God Hand
God Hand, by all reports I'd seen, has always been one of those "love it or haven't yet played it" games. And it's easy to see why. First cutscene: a man and a woman walk into a dusty town and spot a group of tough-ugly thugs, and the first thing out of the guy's mouth is an insistence that they're better-looking than the girl. Aggressively gay protagonist? I am all over this one.
I'm just being silly, of course. There's much more to God Hand than homosexuality. But in case you want more, there's also Mr. Gold and Mr. Silver, two scantily clad, quiveringly effeminate henchmen of a villain called "Elvis." They turn in a bizarre, squealing performance that makes me feel like I should be offended on behalf of actual gay people. Like some other Japanese portrayals of homosexuals, though, like Hard Gay and those guys from Mother 3, it seems more affectionate than derisive. It's like putting a cowboy hat on an American character.
Okay, okay. The fighting is the important thing, right? It's fast-paced, intense, but somehow thoughtful and patient as well. A thinking man's fistfight. You customize your attacks, building a pattern to best suit your enemies' inclinations, you read your enemies' movements, you asses the position of threats... It's got me thinking and caring about what I'm doing more than damn near any other game in recent memory.
I'm forced to compare it to another game I've played recently, the anime fantasy RTS Grim Grimoire. Like God Hand, I found the story engaging, and the game was fun - but God Hand handles tension better. Grim Grimoire is slow-paced overall, with units crawling towards each other over the course of tens of minutes.
Tens!
Still, it's tense all the way through. And that's the problem - I'm scrambling to gather my forces, all to keep ahead of an enemy who's doing the same, ever growing stronger and creeping towards my base from behind the fog of war. I get burned out on tension, playing that kind of game. There's no break from the tension, just a perpetual low-level rumble in the stress center of my brain.
In God Hand, the tension comes in discrete encounters that the player enters at his own discretion. For the most part, the player can hang back, see what he's getting into, and make a plan. As a result, the game's interest curve is perfectly ribbed for the player's pleasure, rising and falling as the player chooses to meet each new challenge. There's also some unexpected spikes in difficulty in the form of enemies who transform into demons when defeated - it's always a surprise, because even on repeated playthroughs it's never the same enemies. It's not always a welcome surprise, but it keeps things interesting and the treasure drops are good.
Oh, and that's another thing! In God Hand, failure is instructive. Because combat is won by quick thinking, rather than button-mashing and luck, the player bounces back from each loss with a little more knowledge and a little better prepared to win. But in the same spirit, the player also keeps all the treasure and currency he's won, giving struggling players a chance to pull themselves up. It's a simple form of difficulty adjusting, but it works. And God Hand can use it, because it's one hell of a hard game.
I've played other difficult games. All too often, not only am I defeated, I feel defeated. See my Ninja Gaiden II review - I was bitching about a boss that kept kicking my ass. His patterns seemed unbeatable, his actions unpredictable, and the way he fought was utterly without precedent in the rest of the game. I had a similar experience fighting Elvis - you know, the boss of Mr. Gold and Mr. Silver - but as I played, his movements began to make sense, I learned to dodge his attacks, and I figured out that son of a bitch.
If I had beaten Ninja Gaiden II, it would have been a labor of pure stubbornness. I'm inspired to keep playing God Hand because, at every turn, each challenge seems surmountable and worthwhile, made up of pieces that make sense individually and collectively add up to something like a puzzle. It's no exaggeration to say that God Hand is the Braid of brawlers. Silly and meaningless, perhaps. But not, technically, an exaggeration.
And in the end, isn't that what's
Oops, just reached my self-imposed word limit. See you later!
I'm just being silly, of course. There's much more to God Hand than homosexuality. But in case you want more, there's also Mr. Gold and Mr. Silver, two scantily clad, quiveringly effeminate henchmen of a villain called "Elvis." They turn in a bizarre, squealing performance that makes me feel like I should be offended on behalf of actual gay people. Like some other Japanese portrayals of homosexuals, though, like Hard Gay and those guys from Mother 3, it seems more affectionate than derisive. It's like putting a cowboy hat on an American character.
Okay, okay. The fighting is the important thing, right? It's fast-paced, intense, but somehow thoughtful and patient as well. A thinking man's fistfight. You customize your attacks, building a pattern to best suit your enemies' inclinations, you read your enemies' movements, you asses the position of threats... It's got me thinking and caring about what I'm doing more than damn near any other game in recent memory.
I'm forced to compare it to another game I've played recently, the anime fantasy RTS Grim Grimoire. Like God Hand, I found the story engaging, and the game was fun - but God Hand handles tension better. Grim Grimoire is slow-paced overall, with units crawling towards each other over the course of tens of minutes.
Tens!
Still, it's tense all the way through. And that's the problem - I'm scrambling to gather my forces, all to keep ahead of an enemy who's doing the same, ever growing stronger and creeping towards my base from behind the fog of war. I get burned out on tension, playing that kind of game. There's no break from the tension, just a perpetual low-level rumble in the stress center of my brain.
In God Hand, the tension comes in discrete encounters that the player enters at his own discretion. For the most part, the player can hang back, see what he's getting into, and make a plan. As a result, the game's interest curve is perfectly ribbed for the player's pleasure, rising and falling as the player chooses to meet each new challenge. There's also some unexpected spikes in difficulty in the form of enemies who transform into demons when defeated - it's always a surprise, because even on repeated playthroughs it's never the same enemies. It's not always a welcome surprise, but it keeps things interesting and the treasure drops are good.
Oh, and that's another thing! In God Hand, failure is instructive. Because combat is won by quick thinking, rather than button-mashing and luck, the player bounces back from each loss with a little more knowledge and a little better prepared to win. But in the same spirit, the player also keeps all the treasure and currency he's won, giving struggling players a chance to pull themselves up. It's a simple form of difficulty adjusting, but it works. And God Hand can use it, because it's one hell of a hard game.
I've played other difficult games. All too often, not only am I defeated, I feel defeated. See my Ninja Gaiden II review - I was bitching about a boss that kept kicking my ass. His patterns seemed unbeatable, his actions unpredictable, and the way he fought was utterly without precedent in the rest of the game. I had a similar experience fighting Elvis - you know, the boss of Mr. Gold and Mr. Silver - but as I played, his movements began to make sense, I learned to dodge his attacks, and I figured out that son of a bitch.
If I had beaten Ninja Gaiden II, it would have been a labor of pure stubbornness. I'm inspired to keep playing God Hand because, at every turn, each challenge seems surmountable and worthwhile, made up of pieces that make sense individually and collectively add up to something like a puzzle. It's no exaggeration to say that God Hand is the Braid of brawlers. Silly and meaningless, perhaps. But not, technically, an exaggeration.
And in the end, isn't that what's
Oops, just reached my self-imposed word limit. See you later!
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