I rarely want to revisit or detail at length my thoughts
about a movie after a review, even if I have more things to say. But nearly two weeks and two more viewings later, I’m still buzzing about Guillermo Del Toro’s Pacific
Rim. I’m as surprised about it myself.
Why does Del Tero’s ode to the kaiju and mecha films of his childhood have such a hold on
me? Part of it is probably because I
grew up on the same diet, though, a slightly newer incarnations of the same material
– like Choudenshi Bioman , Ultraman, Voltron, Transformers, and Macross/Robotech. The
other part is because I think there’s really something there that many professional
critics who gave backhanded compliments to the film as being a ‘fun’ summer
blockbuster missed. Pacific Rim is a
very human story. Very simple perhaps,
but it was by design. Del Toro had
mildly criticized, though not by name, the
Christopher Nolan blockbusters that has seemingly dominated cinemas of late, as being "existential", "dystopian", "incredibly complex" and one
would assume, not fun (to watch).
And he is right. While I had a buzz for weeks after
seeing Inception and enjoyed the movie quite a lot, the movie appealed to the engineering and logical centers of my brain. I was more interested
in the intricate layers of Nolan’s dream world and how everything connected and
how it all made sense than I was about the characters. Debating the ending aside, I didn’t really care
about Cobb, nor did I want to explore Inception’s world beyond what is there on
screen. Pacific Rim appeals to me on a deeper more emotional level.
What’s interesting to me about the film is how it has affected
other people. There is a whole community
of fans, on twitter, tumblr and elsewhere blogging about a movie that is sort
of considered a flop domestically. There
are hundreds of fan fics, fan art with ‘pairings’ of Newt and Herman, the two comedic
relief, and just about ever character, including and especially the Russian crew of
Cherno Alpha who has a few lines and even fewer scenes on screen. This is also
why the graphic novel explaining the backstory ‘Tales from Year 0’ is doing surprisingly well. Pacific Rim has
reached the cult fandom that your typical summer blockbuster do not. I do not see the same enthusiasm for Man of
Steel as I do for Pacific Rim, even though the former outperformed the latter
at the box office.
Pacific Rim is also the reason why I sorely miss Roger Ebert's insights at the movies. Ebert respects films for what they are, judging each by their merits and comparing them within the context of their creation. Just as every film cannot be a Battleship Potempkin or a Godfather, he does not try to compare them as such.
He rarely condescends and in his reviews he gets to the heart of the movies. With his recent passing, a voice that echoes the passion for film has been removed from the broader conversation. Instead, we have salaried critics vying for the trailer quote or writing lazy haphazard reviews to cram into a 500 word summary at the edge of a newspaper column. If Roger Ebert was alive, I think he really would have liked the film.
I think Ebert would point out that Pacific Rim ultimately makes the audience care about the
characters. There’s a lot in this film
that’s non-Hollywood by design. It isn't jingoistic, there's no shoehorned in army scene with troops running around city streets to appeal to the Call of Duty crowd. It's just a fun movie about robots vs. aliens where characters are relatable on a very simple level. While the characters generally fall into
genre stereotypes as a shorthand for explaining where they come from,
motivations and so on, Del Toro has
crated a universe that people want to explore.
Like the characters in a good anime, the characters of Mako Mori,
Raleigh Becket, Stacker Pentecost have a certain earnestness and humanity about them. Their interactions within the film's universe creates a certain narrative inertia that
makes people care. Just like any good
anime, the audience keeps coming back for more and wants to know what
happens to them. That is why I think Pacific Rim is greater than the sum of its parts and it is also why I very much want a sequel. One that either tells the backstory or the story of the kaijus return.
If I learned anything from my childhood. The monsters always find a way back.
Once in a while a movie like Pacific Rim flies under the
radar and almost slips away from a first viewing on the big screen. I am very
glad I didn’t let it slip away. I had
started out highly anticipating the film given the film’s pedigree (helmed by Guillermo
del Toro) and the premise (mechas). But
as release neared, the marketing which tried to evoke a Bill Pullman moment in
ID4 with Idris Elba’s ‘Cancelling the apocalypse’ speech backfired for being too over the top and hokey. It didn’t spike my
interest. As I had vowed to keep myself
spoiler free, the negative comments and weak box office numbers seem to have
confirmed what I feared. It was a bomb. It didn’t connect with the nerds and
anime-fans who should love this.
I’m glad I reconsidered.
Going to see the film on a whim, I was hooked from beginning to end. I knew immediately I was going to like the within
the first 15 minutes, before we even see the opening title which did not appear
until after an extended prologue. And
here’s the thing. There’s nothing cerebral about Pacific Rim. Del Toro made no bones hiding his inspiration
was the giant monster (Kaiju) films of his childhood. This is essentially a big budget version of
those films, aimed at children inspired by a staple of Japanese and Asian pop entertainment. However, unlike Michael Bay’s Transformers
and a bevy of blockbusters with flashy effects, Pacific Rim respects the source
material and treats the audience with respect.
The end result is a great movie about giant robots fighting giant
monsters with a distinctly non -Hollywood sensibility.
Del Toro had a movie he could have
made that he didn’t and it was for the better. The film’s first 15
minutes summarizes a series of events spanning years. Describing the first attack of the Kaijus,
the devastation the wrecked, and the triumph of humanity over these monsters
with the first Jaegers (hunter mechas)
developed to stop them. This would have sufficed
for a Hollywood sci-fi movie. Cities
destroyed, millions dead, and a rousing ending.
But instead of making that movie, Del Toro made the sequel. His story is about the peace that did not
happen after the victory. The film opens
at a high point. Kaijus have apparently been
dealt with, Jaeger pilots have become more than heroes, they are rock-stars and
the mechas they pilot have entered as pop-culture merchandising machines. Humanity has grown comfortable with their own
power and supremacy. At this point the
audience knows something else is about to happen. It is only the beginning of
the movie. The question becomes how the story would wind its way into the
eventual monster-mecha brawlfests we’ve seen in the trailers and ads. The journey there forms the core of Pacific
Rim, and in doing so, Del Toro allows for the characters, who we barely yet
know, the ability to show emotion, weakness when they are in positions where we
expect them to be triumphant and confident.
While it is not unusual for a summer popcorn flick to show a
flawed hero with emotions, we expect those to happen in canned family scenes where
innocent civilians and family members are killed by the wanton actions of the
villain, we expect the hero to collect
his emotions and go out and kick ass in a rousing epic battle. The narrative arc of the typical Hollywood blockbuster
almost wills it. But not in Pacific
Rim. We see tragedy after tragedy befall
the Jaeger corps. at the height of the
protagonists power. Doing this, Del Toro
and writer Travis Beacham frames the character in a way that makes it easy for
the audience to identify with their emotions and motivations. There’s no need to spend screen time
emoting badly written lines about duty,
honor and vengeance. We simply know by
observing the tragedies. In Pacific Rim, I really cared.
While not without its hokey, clichéd moments and anime
staples, Del Toro manages to make it work.
The film doesn’t feel like a cheapened by them. Clichés like the rivalry and redemption
between Jaeger pilots whose resolution we could see coming a mile away merely acknowledges
that these kind of tropes exists in the genre and is a narrative staple in the
genre. As someone who grew up watching
Evangelion, Macross, and countless other Japanese mecha anime, I appreciated
the anime inspired tropes. Watching them
done in live action by a director who is respectful of the source material is
refreshing. The anime inspired hero poses
and one-liners (in Japanese) comes to mind.
Even more impressive are the fight scenes. These turn into
all-out-brawls, with some pretty brutal
moments. When I felt distress as a Jaeger is crippled and
its pilots slowly killed blow by blow by
a Kaiju, I knew Del Toro has got it right.
He wasn’t just cutting together pieces of CG action sequences commissioned
from ILM, he was telling a story with the brawl sequences. Like a boxer being knocked around, the audience is right there rooting for the
Jaegers to win as the living hell is beat out of them.
On the same token, Ramin Djawadi’s (Game of Thrones) provides an unobtrusive and
excellent mix of electronic and choral score. I’v e spent the past several summers having
my ear drums blasted by Hans Zimmer’s sometimes overbearing scores that Djawadi’s
guitar riffs seems decidedly understated.
In hindsight, that is Del Toro’s style. The music shepherds you from one
scene to another and it wasn’t until the
visuals had faded away and the story ended that the score’s quality comes to
the fore. As I walked out the theatre with the credits rolling, the guitar
riffs from the main theme struck me as being catchy. I had been hearing riffs of the main theme
through the entire movie, but didn’t realize how good it was until then.
Rinko Kikuchi as Mako Mori
Having said all that, the inner geek in me was disappointed by
a number of things. The relative short
screen time of the Chinese and Russian Jaeger and what is essentially a cameo
from the Japanese Jaeger Coyote Tango.
While I don’t fault the Beacham and Del Toro for focusing on the
American Jaeger, the high profile of the
Australian Jaeger was surprising. I feel
its role could have been shared by the machines from the several other
participating nations.
I want to close by noting that Rinko Kikuchi’s and Idris
Elba’s performance were superb. The
poorly cut ‘cancelling the apocalypse’ speech shown out of context in the
trailers may have given a lot of people the wrong impression. In-context, the speech works. Elba’s role as Stacker Pentecost is the glue that holds the film's narrative together. While he is seen shouting in the trailers,
most of his screen-time is understated acting more as the narrative anchor of
the entire film, or as his character puts it, he is the ‘immovable point’ on
the screen. Kikuchi’s Mako Mori is
surprisingly good, channelling the anime mecha pilot personality to a tee. There are fleeting resemblances to many anime
characters in her role, but I felt like she’s closest to Evangelion’s Rei
Ayanami. A wounded soul.
Vulnerable, but incredibly lethal
in combat. It is worth noting that one
of her final lines was left untranslated to the English speaking audience. A little bit of searching on Google should
yield its meaning, normal spoiler warnings apply. The line is a poignant and fitting touch by
Del Toro and Beacham as it fits the Japanese inspiration perfectly and would be
the kind of thing you wouldn't expect in a Hollywood blockbuster but it is something someone in an anime would say in the end, at the climax, when decisions are made. It wasn’t lost
on me that at that moment, when she said those words that I realized what I had
just seen. Pacific Rim is the live-action
mecha movie I had always wanted to see
and make myself.
So E3 2013 is done and over with. I had commented last week that I hoped to seesurprises and the unexpected but sadly that didn't happen. I think it was obvious given the reduced pomp in this year’s
presentation that Nintendo would be focusing on tried and true franchises to
kickstart Wii U sales. That said, it
was still a little disappointing that there were no surprise “one more thing”
game to show off and that the core of what was shown to us was known, via
various Nintendo Directs in the past.
And maybe that’s also part of where the expectations game needs to be
played. We get announcements from
Nintendo now almost every other month, so the big news dump at E3, at least for
a ‘games only’ year like this one doesn't feel as overhwleming or exciting.
I was unable to
attend the Best Buy E3 demos this year, but that’s not the purpose of this
article. What I want to reflect on is to
frame my reaction in context of what others are saying on-line, and to reflect
my first ‘feel’ of a game after checking out the video and media Nintendo
released.
Super Mario 3D World
A lot of bytes have been spilt commenting on why this wasn’t
Super Mario Galaxy U; and to be quite frank, I was never the biggest fan of the
Galaxy series (full disclosure: I haven’t yet played Super Mario Galaxy 2 which I
understand is the better of the two games).
That said, 3DWorld is surprising
take. Edge-Online openly commented they suspected the game may have even started life as a 3DS sequel to 3DLand and
was up-converted to the Wii U to have a big Mario title for Christmas.
I think the disappointment has to do with the fact that the
game, while looking visually strong, appears to be a sequelized 3DLand and
lacked the 'wow' factor visually and conceptually that console gamers have come to expect when a new Mario
game is announced for Nintendo’s home console.
There's little concern that the game won't be fun, in fact I'm willing to bet that it will be a great game, so in that sense some of the disappointment is due to expectations. Were they too high?
It’s really hard to say, but for me personally, I expected a
console Mario to feel more substantial.
It’s nice to see Nintendo explore co-op multiplayer in a 3-D Mario game,
but I doubt it will have on-line co-op, and I haven’t yet seen the kind of conceptual
and technical leap Super Mario World had over Super Mario Land between 3DLand and 3DWorld. Super Mario
3DWorld feels at this point more like a sequel than a console cousin that
shares similar branding. I want to be
proved wrong here, but I did enjoy 3DLand quite a bit and will likely be picking
this up.
The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker HD
Wind Waker was one of the few games that got me back to the
GameCube ten years ago when I had drifted away to PC gaming and doing other
things. It was also released during a very good period of my young adulthood, so there’s a
certain bit of nostalgia involved here.
I’m glad that Nintendo hasn’t abandoned what was at the time a very
controversial decision to make a cute (Toon) Link when the industry, under Sony’s
domination, was going for ‘mature’ with breakout hits like GrandTheftAuto 3.
I’m glad that the series producer/director Eiji Aonuma is actively
trying to address the game’s two major flaws.
The overlong sea voyages between islands and the game’s pacing,
especially around the Triforce fetch quests. That said, Wind Waker is still a flawed
game and always felt a bit short. The **spoiler alert** underwater section of Hyrule right before the final battle was pretty amazing. It was my first glimpse at Hyrule on a hardware powerful enough to render it in impressive detail, but it felt half-finished and rushed. There was a short area outside to explore and the player literally walks through a narrow corridor through a bridge and to the final battle.
Given that this will be a full priced release, I was
certainly hoping that there would be new content. There’s certainly precedent for this in the
many Zelda remixes when they port a Zelda game to new hardware. Four Swords dungeon in A Link to the Past on
GBA or
the special color based dungeon for Link’s Awakening DX. Unfortunately, it does not appear new dungeons are on the way.
Here’s to hoping there’s surprise extra content when more is
revealed of this HD remake. For now I’m
certainly interested.
“X”
This is perhaps the most interesting Wii U game shown at the
conference. With the current zeitgeist of the nerd crowd
around Guillermo del Toro’s Pacific Rim, it’s nice to see an unashamedly
Japanese mecha game take center stage.
The game’s pedigree from Xenoblade developer Monolithsoft doesn't
hurt. The visuals deliver the kind of
next-gen look that makes this a standout title on the Wii U. Very interested.
Mario Kart 8
Easily the most visually impressive Wii U game next to
Monolithosft’s “X”. The trailer looks
awesome. I was wondering where Nintendo would take the franchise after Mario
Kart 7 and it’s very nice to see that they’ve kept the core of what makes Mario
Kart great and added a new twist by allowing racing sideways with anti-gravity karts. Opening up the tracks even more and adding more angles to attack in the race.
News that we're able to record videos of our matches and share them on Miiverse is awesome and welcome. As a very casual player, this interests me far more than any amount of tournament communities can, though I do hope they keep the excellent Mario Kart communities on-line system they have on the 3DS for Mario Kart 8.
The Legend of Zelda : A Link Between Worlds
On any other E3, news of a handheld Zelda game based on A
Link to the Past would have been big enough news, but we got to know about this game
several months ago from a Nintendo Direct.
I already discussed my impressions of the reveal trailer.
Given the E3 trailer is showing much more of the game, it
really does look like a 3D interpretation of A Link to the Past. The environments look slightly better than
the trailer we saw last April, with more detail to the textures. That said, I still can’t see a single torch
in the test dungeon where the Eastern Palace used to be. This may sound trivial but I think part of
what made A Link to the Past look great visually is the unity of purpose of the
elements on screen. Dark rooms are dark
for a reason. Lit rooms have an obvious source of light. It certainly didn't hurt that this showed off
the SNES transparency capabilities at the time.
It’s a little curious that the outside of the singular window we see
Link wallcrawl through from the trailers, there are no obvious light sources in
the dungeons. It’s not like the 3DS isn't capable of nice
lighting effects. I don’t want to feel
like playing through floors floating in
space. I want to feel like I’m fighting through a dungeon and be terrified when I
enter a darkened room. The even lighting
in the test dungeon we've seen so far is a little worrisome.
That said, I want to say the remastered A Link to the Past
overworld and dungeon themes (as can be heard in this playthrough with direct
feed sound in the embedded video above) is absolutely brilliant.
Easily my most anticipated game this year, and given the
pedigree of the world it is building from, I have very high hopes for this. Don’t
screw it up! Give me torches!
Donkey Kong Country Returns Tropical Freeze
This is probably where a lot of people were
disappointed. I am still enjoying Donkey
Kong Country Returns 3D on my 3DS so
this game feels entirely too soon.
Visually, it also looks like an upscaled Wii game. Not that there is anything wrong with it, but
the game actually managed to look better on the 3DS because the smaller screen
made everything look crisper, and the 3D added the right kind of volume to the graphics making them pop out from the environments which is reminiscent of the ‘ACM graphics’ (made up marketing word) from
the original Donkey Kong Country games.
The Wii U game looks far too clean in the sense that there
are no shiny shaders we normally associate with HD games. While I have no doubt the platforming will be
superb and the music will be top notch with Rareware's David Wise on board again, I’d much
rather they delay this game and work on the visuals. Look at Trine 2 Director’s Cut on Wii U and
see how a 2D game can look with the power of modern graphics chipset and apply
it to Donkey Kong Country Returns: Tropical Freeze.
Give this game the proper love and Nintendo polish and I will be there day 1.
There are several games I haven’t touched on here. Pokemon
X&Y, Smash Bros U/3DS, Mario & Luigi Dream Team, Pikmin 3 Bayonetta
2, Yoshi’s New Island. I either have no
strong opinions about these games or are less interested in them than usual. That doesn't mean I won't be picking them up. The new Mario & Luigi game is the closet (visually) to Super Mario RPG, which is awesome in my book as I really dig that style of graphics plus I love the series offbeat humour, but I just really don't have enough to say about these games at this point in time.
Please Understand
Finally, I want to touch on Nintendo’s E3 performance. From a game’s perspective its leaps ahead of
last year’s seriously disappointing reveals and it brings into focus what we’ll
be getting for the rest of the year plus see a preview of some of the titles in
2014. I applaud them for bringing E3
playable games to games at Best Buy and hope they do it again next year, at
expanded locations, perhaps even at GameStops.
Part of the reason I couldn’t test those games out this year were the
BestBuy locations they chose and the times didn’t mesh with my schedule.
For the E3 direct itself, I hope the massive demand for the
stream on the day of the stream imparts some important lessons. Get more servers for the Nintendo Direct steams, and perhaps defray some of
that load by allowing a 3rd party, such as GameTrailers to also
carry the feed. That kind of cross
promotion has merit as you may reach people who otherwise may not have been
aware Nintendo was going to be having a video feed that day.
The High quality feeds on the Wii U eshop also shows off the games much much better than the lower quality versions on YouTube. Nintendo should upload and show off the best quality versions of their trailers.
Last by not least, bring surprises to E3. I mentioned this already, but
people need to have their expectations exceeded. I felt like we knew all the games going
in. I was also disappointed that
Square-Enix threw all their bones at Sony.
No Final Fantasy V remake for the 3DS?
No RPG support for Wii U?
Some things for Nintendo to rectify in their next Nintendo
Direct in the weeks and months ahead.
It’s been a year since I wrote about the Wii U reveal at E32012. The Wii U launched to lukewarm
public reception and Nintendo’s position heading into E3 2013 is precarious, with Sony’s PS4
and Microsoft’s Xbox One nipping at their heels.
In this industry, the narrative can change on a dime. After tearing through several E3s with record
sales and the next Wii titled casual experience, Nintendo's last two E3s has been
a lucklustre mess of disappointment and confusion. It is probably not a surprise them that
despite having one of the largest booth if not the largest at the conference
itself, the company has opted to scale back its pre E3 conference to a business
partner meeting and eschewed the
overproduced extravaganza that are notorious source for internet memes to a
pre-recorded 1 hour show to be aired at 7am PDT on June 11th.
Given whatever they wanted to say and reveal was likely
decided months and weeks ago, I have no
expectation of this blog posting influencing them in anyway. But if someone at Nintendo is reading, it’s
worth noting that the consumer unrest around Xbox One’s restrictive consumer
policies has handed them a golden opportunity to re-introduce the Wii U as
gaming console as people understood it, not where Microsoft wants to take them.
Do the Unexpected:
We know what to expect.
Smash, Mario, Zelda & Luigi.
They’re all fine. We’ll undoubtedly
see Smash Brothers and previews to the next big Mario game. What Nintendo really needs however is a
surprise or several of them. A
collaboration project, a new franchise, a third party exclusive that will fire
people up. At this point, most people
who own a Wii U or is considering it knows it will be their Nintendo Box, that
expectation is priced in. Showing
Nintendo’s traditional franchises will help clarify what is coming, but it may
not convince any new people. Nintendo
really needs to work on the part of the expectations this is currently non-existent. That is the ‘extras’ that will get new people
to turn their head and look and push fence sitters to committing.
There are 3 angles to approaching this:
The perfect example is a marquee title like GTA V. People
aren’t expecting GTA V to land on Wii U.
But if it were to be announced, with exclusive content, or even better a
timed exclusivity, that could rain on Microsoft’s parade.
In terms of smaller scale titles, buying exclusives for well
loved games that has strong hardcore following but has largely been abandoned
by their publishers (see Bayonetta) is also a good 2nd angle to get
attention and hype. An oft rumoured
title is Beyond Good and Evil 2. Beyond
that could be revival of Darksiders from the now bankrupt THQ under Nintendo’s
publishing banner. There is a graveyard of games from this past
generation with only a single entry that were dropped by their publishers due to high HD development costs and low
returns. Picking diamonds in the rough
like Nintendo had with Bayonetta is a great strategy to immediately get
mindshare among consumers with a known quantity.
Finally, angle digital content. Minecraft seems tailor made for a Nintendo
platform, yet Microsoft has it on the 360.
Getting a game like Minecraft, even if it never makes Nintendo a dime,
would immediately boost interest in the Wii U, especially if there’s off TV
play involved. Consider it a
loss-leader.
Nintendo’s long-time software partner Square-Enix has been
on a tear with premium releases of RPGs on iOS and Android Play Store. Priced between $5 and $15 those titles seem
ideal for the eShop. Yet, they have not
released a single digital game on the eShop.
If Nintendo needs evidence for people’s desire for the kind of digital
content Square-Enix is putting out, they need to look no further than the
success Level 5 has been enjoying with their Guild01 imports – Liberation Maiden
and Crimson Shroud. There’s a hunger for
high quality premium digital titles done by Japanese developers in under-served
genres like Adventure games and RPGs.
Satisfy the Disgruntled Consumer
Nintendo’s biggest problem is it’s archaic digital
policies. Digital purchases tied to the machine instead of accounts, the slow pace and trickle of Virtual Console releases and
non-transferable Virtual Console content between platforms has infuriated and
disappointed many of their long time fans.
Unified Account System - This is imperative if Nintendo is to exploit the consumer
furor over Microsoft’s current DRM and used game policy. Announce a unified account for all Wii U, and
3DS purchases that lets consumers access their content on more than one machine
as long as they are signed into their accounts.
In this way, the games we buy are attached to the account, not the
machine that it was originally downloaded.
Things break, people move, or buy a 2nd console. They want to be able to seamlessly move
content around, not wait 4-6 weeks via
mail for Nintendo to manually move content over.
The Apple Approach – Nintendo may already be heading in this
direction with their addition of 3DS software information on the Wii U eshop
but it would be really nice to to allow certain digital content (Virtual
Console, some eshop games) to work on the Wii U and 3DS. 1 purchase would allow access on two
platforms. This will be seen a
positively consumer friendly and excite people.
Extras:
3DS Miiverse - This
is long overdue. A Miiverse app
integrated into the 3DS operating system would be great. What would even be better is for it to
function exactly as it does now on the Wii U.
Suspend a game, and make a post
with a screenshot of the game at the suspended state.
New hardware - Nothing is more exciting than a new hardware
reveal. This may seem counter-intuitive
but a new piece of hardware that
complements the Wii U and 3DS could be an interesting 3rd pillar
for Nintendo. What could this hardware
be? Maybe a box with a screen that allows
the Wii U to stream content to it as if
it is a second game pad , but a game pad with an internal processor, SD card slot and memory
that supports the 3DS eshop. Price it
right, and with the right content, this in-between portable could be a hit and leverage the aforementioned unified accounts system while serving as a Wii U as a game pad substitute and a portable digital only 3DS device.
Designed by Yasumi Matsuno
of the Ogre Battle series & Final Fantasy Tactics fame and initially released in Level 5's anthology collection Guild 01 before making it to eshop in Europe and North America as a stand-alone download, Crimson Shroud is delightfully fun retro experience. The game is table-top RPG, with an unseen game-master guiding the game’s
players along a game board. As an eshop
title, the game isn't particularly long, but one can think of the game’s
narrative as a weekend Dungeons & Dragon session with some friends. The narrative isn’t meant to be dragged out,
but is a short and simple story about a band of heroes in search of the truth
behind an ancient relic called the Crimson Shroud.
For some people who are fans of RPGs as a video-game genre, the
old classic table-top RPG can be something foreign, perhaps even quaint. Matsuno’s Crimson Shroud in this sense is unashamedly retro
in it use of the dice. Everything from
the effectiveness of the mage’s magic to the power of the front-line attack is
determined by the die. In doing so, the
game unveils a common mechanic in many RPGs we’ve come to love since the NES
days. In almost every RPG, the random
number generator plays a critical role in determining hits and misses, damage
variances and critical damage probabilities. Yet in the shift from tabletop to
video gaming, the trend was to hide these calculations behind the game’s
visuals and attack and defend sequences. Crimson Shroud deconstructs the RPG genre to its
constituent parts by showing players how the results are arrived at with the
dice roll standing in for the random number generator.
Characters are represented as figurines on a game board
Eschewing the increasingly incomprehensible gear upgrade
systems in many JRPGs, Crimson Shroud offers the ability to earn equipment and gear
through random enemy battles and treasure chests with an endless supply of
weapons and armor that can be upgraded by simply combining weapons of the same
type together to create new and more powerful versions of the item in +1, +2 ,
+3 versions and so on. As an added incentive to replay the game,
upgraded gear are allowed to be carried over into a New Game+ after the game
has been beaten for the first time, allowing players to experience a more
difficult version of the game.
There are little
touches littered throughout the game that adds a sense of whimsy and realism. To roll the dice for example, players must
use the 3DS analog slide pad to roll the dice around around imitating the motion of the hands before a dice roll. All the units are portrayed not as fully
animated avatars, but as figurines on a game board that topple over when they
are killed. While this may seem like a
visual downgrade, the game uses the 3DS' 3D to great effect to craft a minimalist
but seemingly real virtual game board. The 3D depth of the games visuals gives the figurines and the game board a sense of volume, as if the player is holding a window with the 3DS and looking in.
Launched in December 2012, the game’s surprising performance atop the Nintendo 3DS eshop charts as one of the consistently top ten most downloaded titles is a testament that
old-school doesn't necessarily mean boring or archaic.
When it was first revealed at E3 2012, I was excited and gushed about its potential to create a seamless communications network for
fans, and users of Nintendo hardware across multiple platforms, a kind of
Twitter for gamers, a micro-social network. Six months after Wii U’s launch
Miiverse has arrived on phones and for browsers and reality seems to have crept
up and dashed some of those high hopes.
Checking what's new?
Expect to see a lot of this
Miiverse for the phone and PC browsers look robust
enough. Simple design that is evocative
of the Wii U Miiverse interface, and very Twitter-like. However, moving to
anything substantive, such as looking at my own feed or the activity feed from
friends and those I’m following, I’m met
with relatively long loading times, compared say to my twitter app, or
even the mobile/web version of twitter.
It’s a pain to see what’s new.
Yes, I understand Miiverse has to load images as well as text on the
feed itself, but some streamlining would be appreciated given the Wii U
Miiverse isn’t the fastest thing in the world either.
More importantly, there’s no functionality to make a new
post directly from a PC or phone browser. The private messaging system is
missing, nor is there an option to follow /friend interesting posters that I may
stumble upon while casually browsing through the communities on my phone. Why
these limitations? Nintendo could easily
create a tag for posts made of different hardware (Wii U, 3DS, Internet) but allowing Miiverse as a reply
only feature is detrimental to the growth and vitality of the social aspect of
the network. Even if a filter is
specifically added to prevent children for seeing off-Wii U posts, it would
still be a nice functionality for users to correspond and socialize on Miiverse
outside of home, and to make gaming related posts in that context. If I were ever to meet Mr. Miyamoto in
person again, I’d like to post it to Miiverse first.
Miiverse app for the phones (the unofficial Andriod version
notwithstanding) would be the obvious next step for Nintendo. A web address isn't very visible in today’s
app centric smartphone. An app could
raise the profile of Miiverse and could also solve some of the performance
issues by streamlining a smartphone’s resources to run a set number of features
by caching feed updates into the app even when the phone is in sleep mode to
speed up load time and allowing the functionality to ping and alert users to
check the app when there is activity in their feed. A very contemporary feature
that twitter already has.
It is interesting to note that the web based Miiverse is blocked on the Wii U and 3DS
browsers. Since the Wii U already has Miiverse as a system feature blocking it on the Wii U browser makes sense. The fact it is also blocks on the 3DS is a
fairly good indication the service will arrive in some form on the 3DS. And on that note, I hope that Miiverse on the 3DS will exist in OS level rather
than as a separate app, so that I can actually suspend a game and use it. The feature could perhaps take the place of
the underutilized notepad functionality which incidentally already has the
functionality to pull a suspended game’s in-game screenshot from memory. Something Miiverse also uses in allowing
users to post a screenshot of their in-progress games. This would allow players use the Miiverse in
a way that is more or less similar to how we use it on the Wii U.
Slick Interface: A good start but
many Wii U options are missing
The fear is that Nintendo being Nintendo, Miiverse on
3DS could also arrive in a decidedly
less interesting format. As a separate app
that is not integrated into any game, or worse, as a separate app and in its
own ‘walled garden’ addressing 3DS only releases. I certainly hope for an open Miiverse that is
accessible across all Nintendo platforms moving forward. The current ‘Year of Luigi’ community is a
perfect example of a Miiverse community that would benefit from 3DS
cross-posting.
More generally as a Nintendo-centric social network,
Miiverse needs the raw numbers (of users) to generate the kind of interesting
discussion, memes, tending topics, and maybe even the occasional scandal to
draw people in. However, seeing as to
how the web and phone version seems more limited than what many of us had
originally envisaged, we cannot rule out that Nintendo’s goal is not to make a
social network for their users, which in my mind would be a tragic mistake. But
Nintendo’s opaque goals on Miiverse means we cannot rule out this possibility.
On final analysis, while it’s nice to have Miiverse on my
phone and on my PC, and I’ve find myself checking my feed more often, the current
incarnation of Miiverse for PCs and phones just feels a little lacking. It
certainly delivered everything shown to
us at E32012. Its just that after the E3
‘reveal’, My mind went in directions far
grander than what the final product suggested.
None of the features I assumed would be standard (off-Wii U posting, a grand confederacy of current Nintendo
products with Miiverse support) were actually promised, but rather, we as consumers assumed it. There’s certainly nothing stopping them
releasing a Miiverse app on the now seven year old Wii, and turning these web
based experiences on the phone into apps.
But as a first step, Miiverse as a website feed is adequate. Let’s hope for better things in the future.
After two disappointing DS entries and to me what felt like
a lucklustre Wii entry, I felt that maybe it was time to leave Zelda alone. The ‘major’ entries to the Zelda franchise have increasingly become bogged down
by long laborious story sequences, overlong tutorial ‘sandboxes’ and desolate
overworlds. Yet, in
the back of my mind, I’ve always wanted to experience again the sheer joy of
the Zelda game that got my hooked –A Link to the Past.
I was beyond thrilled when Nintendo announced earlier in the
week that there would be a new 3DS Zelda game set in the world of A Link to the
Past. This is a game that I’ve thought
about and cautiously wished for. After
downloading the 3DS preview trailer, it was apparent that this a real honest to
goodness non-gimmicky top-down Zelda.
The antidote to the creative doldrums the franchise finds itself in.
Of course, a short
one-minute trailer can only show so much. Thankfully, Nintendo also had demo units for
journalists to try and since last week plenty of hands on impressions have
began to filter through. One in
particular shows an extended hands-on video with a direct sound feed from the
3DS, confirming that the soundtrack, at least for this demo, is a sufficiently
moody remixed dungeon theme from A Link
to the Past.
Visually, the game embraces its pedigree, bringing
back the fresh looking round faced Link of the late 80s and early 90s that I
grew up with, with the yellow banded trim on his green cap. The ornamentations such as snake/cobra themed
motifs, and the metal dungeon doors with the evil eyes are back. Everything
from puzzle components of the test dungeon and the layout of overworld itself
drew directly from A Link to the Past.
The extended demo
confirmed that this 3DS entry will be tight compact Zelda game with quick
and easy swordplay and shield mastery with fast navigation through the screen. This
speed is further reinforced by the fluid framerate, which appears to run at a
very impressive 60 frames per second. The ease with which Link moves on screen and his
quickness harkens back to that era of games where things respond as they
should. There are also subtle modern progressions. In the demo, the magic bar (green bar on the left of the screen) now slowly recharges when magic isn't being used. Eliminating one layer of inventory and magic points management that bedeviled some Link to the Past players.
Aesthetically this is as I had imagined A Link to the Past
could look in 3D. Granted we mainly only
see a few scenes outside in Hyrule and mostly inside dungeons, the minimalistic designs is the modern
interpretation of A Link to the Past’s clean pixel Art, with a sheen added to
the walls and floors as they catch bits of light and reflect sparks from Link’s
shield blocks.
While the 3DS demo clearly brought over visual elements from
A Link to the Past, the aesthetic choices for the 3D conversion haven’t been without
its critics. There were some who were
concerned they looked simplistic and not ‘lived –in’ enough, prompting Industry
personality Cliff Bleszinski aka Cliffy
B (formerly of Epic) to chime in with a disappointed tweet that people who arecomplaining are ‘part of the problem’. In
an extension of the critique, one piece of fan art from A Link to the Past’sopening sequence was used as a primary point of comparison in one of the
discussions over at NeoGAF. The argument seems to be essentially asking for a
‘grittier’ look. The rocks needed
texture, the grass needed to be browner.
I’m not really sure that’s what the Zelda of our childhood
would have looked like had it been a modern franchise. While we can quibble over Nintendo’s art
direction, I would agree that the demo dungeons lacked visual unity. It is as
if we are merely watching layers stacked upon layers, with no aesthetic logic
to their design. Where is the light coming from exactly?
Even in the 1990s, the designers of A Link to the Past’s many dungeons understood
that dungeons needed a logical unity of purpose to their design. Following this approach, they took care to
show how the levels were lit, and how floors and puzzles were interconnected and
how the overall design fit a purpose, often with hidden patterns and
multi-tiered Indiana Joneseque puzzles that blew my twelve year old mind. Doing this pushed the SNES’ to show off its
many graphical effects, playing with light and darkness, pushing the SNES with
a generous use of transparency effects and parallax scrolling.
The proposed Zelda
game for the 3DS could do more in terms of pushing the 3DS in that
direction. Luigi’s Mansion Dark Moon
showed us the 3DS can pull off some impressive lighting. So let’s see more dungeons
with light sources like torches reflecting and refracting light around gleaming
rooms, beams of light filtering through
and illuminating the environs and staircases, clever trap doors and secret
entrances that unite the dungeons into a single puzzle, rather than a collection
of puzzles as we’ve seen in the demo. That
said, demo is the operative word. This is a demo experience with a test
dungeon. Nothing would indicate we’re
playing a finished product. The dungeon may not even be in the final game.
I’m fairly confident Nintendo will deliver with this title
in terms of crafting a compelling experience.
To that end gamers and fans of the franchise should also be cautious in
jumping to conclusions by either proclaiming the game’s success as forgone
conclusion or lamenting Nintendo ‘cutting corners’. It feels that both points of view
over-exaggerate and fit into pre-existing narratives of people want to see
rather than a true unadulterated first impression.
The Legend of Zelda demo on the 3DS is clearly impressive in
how closely it captures the spirit of the original SNES title. Here’s to hoping that the final product will
not disappoint.
