Samantha Lienhard's Blog, page 178
August 1, 2014
Order to Play Professor Layton and Ace Attorney Games
About a month ago, I began visiting the 3DS page on Reddit. I love my 3DS, and I wanted to get news on upcoming 3DS games earlier than I would otherwise. For a while, I was just an observer. But last Monday, someone who loved Professor Layton and the Miracle Mask asked if it was worth buying the older games in the series. Two days later, someone else wanted to play Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney - Dual Destinies and asked if it was necessary to play Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney first.
Another person interested in Dual Destinies asked if they could play it without any experience with the series.
Someone else asked which Ace Attorney game should be played first.
A few more days passed, and someone asked if they should play the Professor Layton games in the order they were released, or in chronological order.
The next day, someone asked if they could play Dual Destinies before the rest of the series.
And after that, yet another person asked which Professor Layton game was best to enter the series with.
Yesterday, someone preparing for the crossover asked if they should play all the previous Professor Layton and Phoenix Wright games first.
Meanwhile, someone else asked for help figuring out where to start the Professor Layton series... and the Ace Attorney series, too.
Somewhere in the middle of typing answers, I realized I should write a blog post on the topic. I don't know if the audiences for my two favorite niche series just grow much faster than I thought, or if this surge of interest is because Professor Layton vs. Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney comes out in less than a month, but whatever the case may be, lots of potential fans want to know where to start.
I've given a brief overview of both series in the past--Ace Attorney when I finished Dual Destinies, and Professor Layton when I finished Azran Legacy--so if you're unfamiliar with either series, stop by those articles to learn more about them.
Now, let's take a look at the Ace Attorney games.
There are five games in the main series, as well as a spin-off set in the middle of the timeline. The release date order is:
Phoenix Wright: Ace AttorneyPhoenix Wright: Ace Attorney - Justice for AllPhoenix Wright: Ace Attorney - Trials and TribulationsApollo Justice: Ace AttorneyAce Attorney Investigations: Miles Edgeworth (the spin-off)Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney - Dual Destinies
Chronological order is almost identical to release date order, except for Ace Attorney Investigations: Miles Edgeworth, which is set before Apollo Justice.
If you intend to play the entire series, you should play them in the order they were released. Ace Attorney is plot-driven, so you'll understand it best if you play them all. Investigations, since it's a spin-off, isn't as important to the overall plot, so if you want to play it last, that's also fine.
If you're interested in Dual Destinies, but not ready to go out and buy a bunch of old DS games before you know if you'll like a series, you should be fine. Dual Destinies doesn't spoil too much for the previous games, so it's a decent starting point for a newcomer to the series.
However, the original Phoenix Wright trilogy (Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney, Justice for All, and Trials & Tribulations) will be released digitally on the Nintendo eShop this winter. If you're willing to wait, don't mind digital downloads, and don't want to buy the original DS games (or the Wiiware or iOS ports), this is probably the best way to get into the series.
As for the other question--do you have to play Apollo Justice before Dual Destinies--the short answer is no, you don't have to. If you want the full experience, however, you should. Play them all! And once you've played Investigations, you can join our campaign to get Investigations 2 localized.
All right, let's move on to the Professor Layton games.
Here's where it gets a little more confusing. There are six games in the main series. This is the release date order:Professor Layton and the Curious VillageProfessor Layton and the Diabolical BoxProfessor Layton and the Unwound FutureProfessor Layton and the Last SpecterProfessor Layton and the Miracle MaskProfessor Layton and the Azran Legacy
These six games are divided into the original trilogy and the prequel trilogy. Therefore, the chronological order is:Professor Layton and the Last SpecterProfessor Layton and the Miracle MaskProfessor Layton and the Azran LegacyProfessor Layton and the Curious VillageProfessor Layton and the Diabolical BoxProfessor Layton and the Unwound Future
If you really love the story, there's also a movie. Professor Layton and the Eternal Diva is set in between Last Specter and Miracle Mask. Then there's the spin-off, but since Layton Brothers: Mystery Room may or may not be canon, is set an indeterminate amount of years after Unwound Future, raises all sorts of questions, and plays more like a mediocre, streamlined Ace Attorney game than a Professor Layton game, don't worry about it too much.
Once again, my general recommendation is that if you plan to play them all, you should play the games in the order they were released. Gameplay and design improved the further the series went on, so if you play them in chronological order, you'll feel like you took a step back when you get to the original trilogy.
Now, if you followed the links above, you might be thinking something like, "Yikes, getting a new copy of the first game isn't going to be easy. Please tell me this is getting a digital re-release, too!"
It isn't.
However, while Professor Layton games are also story-driven, the original trilogy doesn't have a strong overarching plot. If you want to skip Curious Village, you'll be okay.
If you don't plan to play all the games and just want to try them to get a feel for the series, the next logical starting place is Last Specter. On the other hand, if you want to only play the 3DS games, you should be able to start with Miracle Mask easily enough, although the prequel trilogy has a stronger overarching plot.
However, most fans agree that Unwound Future is the best game in the series, so if you never play it, you'll be missing out on something great.
So, now that you know about the individual series...what about the crossover?
Crossovers often appeal to both audiences, so while fans of both series are interested in Professor Layton vs. Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney, a lot of people looking at it are either newcomers to both series, or have played one but not the other. For that last group especially, a crossover looks like a great way to try out the other series--so do you need to play previous Ace Attorney/Professor Layton games first?
I don't think so. Its position in the timeline is vague. Most fans place it right after Trials and Tribulations in the Ace Attorney timeline, and between Diabolical Box and Unwound Future in the Professor Layton timeline, but since that puts it simultaneously in the year 2019 and in the steampunk-esque vague 1960s (no one knows when Professor Layton is actually set), does it even matter?
I haven't played it yet, but as far as I know, the crossover doesn't depend on players having prior knowledge of either series. In fact, this is a great way to give Professor Layton fans a taste of Ace Attorney gameplay and vice versa. So no matter what your knowledge of the series is, if you want to play Professor Layton vs. Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney, go for it!
July 28, 2014
Open World Better Not Be the Future of Games
Also known as "Why I Hate a Genre Most People Love."
When I discussed Fatal Frame V the other week, I pointed out my lack of nervousness about the game being described as "open." During E3, I mentioned I was excited for Dragon Age: Inquisition even though it's open world. Later on, I expressed my uncertainty about an "open" Zelda game. I'm not sure I ever explained it beyond, "I don't like open world!" though.
Still better than open world games.It might be my least popular gaming opinion, and I'm a person who liked Amy, enjoyed Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts, and disliked the Half-Life series. I'm not a big fan of Ace Attorney's Godot, either.
But anyway, this has nothing to do with vehicle-based sequels to platformers or coffee-drinking prosecutors.
Open world games are so popular, I sometimes feel like I'm the only one who cringes when an upcoming game is revealed to be such. Everyone else is going, "Yeah, open world!" Worse yet, there are some people who think every game in the future should be open world, like linear and semi-linear games are outdated and should be eliminated. Or at least, every action game, every RPG...
I hope that isn't the future of games.
Now, sometimes you'll hear me complain about linearity in games. It often comes up in reference to Final Fantasy XIII or the newer Resident Evil games. However, I don't want them to be completely open instead. I like semi-linearity--games where I have choices, but also boundaries. In fact, I often completely explore everything I can access before proceeding with the plot. Open world games aren't built with that sort of gameplay in mind.
In contrast, let's take a look at one of my favorite genres: survival horror. When I discuss the definition of survival horror, I tend to babble about unlocking things. You gotta unlock things! Backtrack and unlock things! Solve puzzles and unlock more things!
People who choose not to babble have dubbed this Recursive Unlocking, a design where "the player travels through the map in a very non-linear fashion, moving back and forth between rooms as items are collected and puzzles are solved, and eventually passing into areas with entirely new rooms. The map opens itself up like a spiral shell."
Resident EvilWhen you enter an area, you'll only be able to access some of the rooms. These rooms will give you the tools you need to access new rooms. By the end of the game, you've opened up the entire map.
I like that. It appeals to my obsessive-compulsive side. There is something incredibly satisfying about gradually opening up more and more of the map, one piece at a time.
An open world game is the exact opposite of that. It's open. You can go anywhere. There are no boundaries to find. No satisfaction from expanding your access.
Survival horror is an easy example, because it fits so well, but other genres work, too. In RPGs, I like being bound to a specific area until the plot or gameplay expands to allow me to reach a new area. I like seeing things I can't reach yet. "Metroidvania" games are excellent. Open world... the very idea disturbs that obsessive-compulsive part of me.
So no, I don't want my games to be open!
On the other hand, people often point out to me that because the idea repels me, I haven't played open world games, so I can't really judge them. Fair enough. I try not to judge things I'm unfamiliar with. For various reasons, I've ended up buying a few open world games, and I intend to play them so I can give a solid opinion of the genre.
First up is Batman: Arkham City, which I've been playing for a while now. And you know what?
I like it. It's a fun game.
...Just not as much fun as Arkham Asylum, which has a much more closed, Metroidvania-esque, not-quite-recursive-unlocking structure. Asylum made it on my list of the top 5 games I played last year. I loved it. And I like Arkham City, but I don't think it'll be one of the best 5 games I play this year.
So far, it's softened my impression of open world games from "I hate them!" to "They're not so bad, just not my favorite." We'll see what happens as I try others...
When I discussed Fatal Frame V the other week, I pointed out my lack of nervousness about the game being described as "open." During E3, I mentioned I was excited for Dragon Age: Inquisition even though it's open world. Later on, I expressed my uncertainty about an "open" Zelda game. I'm not sure I ever explained it beyond, "I don't like open world!" though.
Still better than open world games.It might be my least popular gaming opinion, and I'm a person who liked Amy, enjoyed Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts, and disliked the Half-Life series. I'm not a big fan of Ace Attorney's Godot, either.But anyway, this has nothing to do with vehicle-based sequels to platformers or coffee-drinking prosecutors.
Open world games are so popular, I sometimes feel like I'm the only one who cringes when an upcoming game is revealed to be such. Everyone else is going, "Yeah, open world!" Worse yet, there are some people who think every game in the future should be open world, like linear and semi-linear games are outdated and should be eliminated. Or at least, every action game, every RPG...
I hope that isn't the future of games.
Now, sometimes you'll hear me complain about linearity in games. It often comes up in reference to Final Fantasy XIII or the newer Resident Evil games. However, I don't want them to be completely open instead. I like semi-linearity--games where I have choices, but also boundaries. In fact, I often completely explore everything I can access before proceeding with the plot. Open world games aren't built with that sort of gameplay in mind.
In contrast, let's take a look at one of my favorite genres: survival horror. When I discuss the definition of survival horror, I tend to babble about unlocking things. You gotta unlock things! Backtrack and unlock things! Solve puzzles and unlock more things!
People who choose not to babble have dubbed this Recursive Unlocking, a design where "the player travels through the map in a very non-linear fashion, moving back and forth between rooms as items are collected and puzzles are solved, and eventually passing into areas with entirely new rooms. The map opens itself up like a spiral shell."
Resident EvilWhen you enter an area, you'll only be able to access some of the rooms. These rooms will give you the tools you need to access new rooms. By the end of the game, you've opened up the entire map.I like that. It appeals to my obsessive-compulsive side. There is something incredibly satisfying about gradually opening up more and more of the map, one piece at a time.
An open world game is the exact opposite of that. It's open. You can go anywhere. There are no boundaries to find. No satisfaction from expanding your access.
Survival horror is an easy example, because it fits so well, but other genres work, too. In RPGs, I like being bound to a specific area until the plot or gameplay expands to allow me to reach a new area. I like seeing things I can't reach yet. "Metroidvania" games are excellent. Open world... the very idea disturbs that obsessive-compulsive part of me.
So no, I don't want my games to be open!
On the other hand, people often point out to me that because the idea repels me, I haven't played open world games, so I can't really judge them. Fair enough. I try not to judge things I'm unfamiliar with. For various reasons, I've ended up buying a few open world games, and I intend to play them so I can give a solid opinion of the genre.
First up is Batman: Arkham City, which I've been playing for a while now. And you know what?
I like it. It's a fun game.
...Just not as much fun as Arkham Asylum, which has a much more closed, Metroidvania-esque, not-quite-recursive-unlocking structure. Asylum made it on my list of the top 5 games I played last year. I loved it. And I like Arkham City, but I don't think it'll be one of the best 5 games I play this year.
So far, it's softened my impression of open world games from "I hate them!" to "They're not so bad, just not my favorite." We'll see what happens as I try others...
July 25, 2014
Top 5 Reasons Why I Haven't Edited Sunrider
An interesting thing happened earlier this week. I'd just gotten another rejection for Agent of the Relari, my YA fantasy novel. My dad mentioned that I always talk about that book and asked if there are any others I send out query letters for. The short answer was no, but I went through each of my WIPs and explained why. When I finished, I felt like I was missing something. Didn't I have more novels?
No, not her.Oh, right. That. Sunrider.
A couple days later, I decided to take a break from querying about Agent of the Relari to have beta readers look at it. One of my friends offered to read it and asked if it was the same book of mine he'd read part of before.
No. That was Sunrider.
Every now and then, people will ask me about "my book," and it always takes me a few minutes to remember that they knew Sunrider as my major project. Back when it was my only WIP, there was no need to clarify which book they meant.
Sometimes people ask me what happened to it. Why didn't it take precedence over Agent of the Relari? Why do I forget it when I think about my novels? In short, why haven't I edited it yet?
Here you go--the top 5 reasons why I haven't edited Sunrider.
5. Not Enough Time
This is the simplest of the reasons. I just don't have enough time to edit it right now. I have new stories to work on, my thesis, the rest of my graduate work, my freelance writing--there isn't a lot of time in there to edit an old novel. Of course, that still doesn't answer the question of why I've devoted so much time to other editing projects instead...
4. It's a Monstrosity
You want to know the top reason why, back in 2009, I shelved Sunrider for a while so I could work on other novels? I read a fantasy novel called Talion: Revenant by Michael A. Stackpole. He mentioned in a note that it was actually his first novel, even though it wasn't the first he had published. Publishers weren't willing to take a chance on a 175,000-word novel from a new author.
I took that to mean there was a pretty good chance I couldn't just appear out of nowhere with a massive fantasy novel. I needed to work on shorter things--short stories, and yes, shorter novels.
Since then, I've learned more about word counts. It feels like 80,000 is an average word count for novels, although fantasy genres tend to be longer, and veer closer to numbers like Stackpole's 175,000.
I just checked to be sure. Sunrider sits at around 260,000 words. That isn't as huge as I was afraid it might be, but it's nowhere near reasonable, either. But hey, word count rules can be flexible, as long as the book is good enough...
3. I Wrote It as a Teenager
There's a reason people tend to think of it as "my book." I started Sunrider when I was 13 and finished it when I was 18. Yes, I basically wrote it during high school, and I know what my writing looked like back then. I've learned a lot through experience, classes, and especially my graduate program. I look back on my older writing... and laugh. Sunrider would probably make my professors throw things at me.
So I wouldn't just be editing a novel. I'd be editing 260,000 words of a badly-written novel.
On the other hand, maybe the story--
2. The Main Plot is Cliché
A young man learns he's the Chosen One and sets out to save the world from demons. It doesn't get much more basic than that.
Every book needs to have something to make it stand out from the rest, so a generic fantasy plot isn't a good idea. Whenever I actually decide to edit it, I'll need to seriously ask myself, "What makes this book different than the rest?"
Oh, but maybe I do have an answer. Sunrider isn't just about a hero fighting demons...
1. It's About EVERYTHING!
Yes, we've reached the #1 reason I haven't edited this book yet. I wrote Sunrider between the ages of 13 and 18. Just about every single thing a teenage Sam thought was cool found its way into the plot. As a result we have:
This is what you'd expect
in a fantasy novel, right?
A prophecy and a Chosen OneA rebellious noblewoman who wishes she was a commonerA comic relief emperor......and the maid in love with him......and his cyborg armyPirates!Demons!Sorcerers!Faeries!Wicked devil-worshiping tyrants......and the brave rebels......who happen to be a percussion ensembleAssassins!Mobsters!...and their laser gunsAn army of heroes who have become worse than their enemies, in a quickly-forgotten subplotVaguely Judeo-Christian religions (and their antithesis, as the devil-worshipers are organized enough to be counted as a major religion)Heavy-handed political commentaryMad scientists!Probably even more stuff, like zombies. I can't remember if the zombie scene made it in or not.Let me put it this way. At one point I considered sending the hero into space to request help from elves. Even I realized that was a bit much.
One continent has medieval technology, magic, and bans anything modern/futuristic. Another continent has futuristic technology and bans magic. So of course, the emperor with the cyborg army is in charge of the magic land, and the sorcerer duke is in charge of the futuristic land. In fact, he's decided to make it more like the other continent, but to do gradually so as not to upset people--hence the 1920s-era weapons becoming popular, as people gradually switch from laser guns to swords ("The Weapon of the Future!" as we see displayed in one scene).
By the final scene, we've got sword fights, gun fights, magic fights, cyborgs fighting on top of airplanes, percussionists blocking bullets with their drums, and I don't even know what else.
Someday, I'll edit Sunrider.
But I'm not ready to face it just yet.
No, not her.Oh, right. That. Sunrider.A couple days later, I decided to take a break from querying about Agent of the Relari to have beta readers look at it. One of my friends offered to read it and asked if it was the same book of mine he'd read part of before.
No. That was Sunrider.
Every now and then, people will ask me about "my book," and it always takes me a few minutes to remember that they knew Sunrider as my major project. Back when it was my only WIP, there was no need to clarify which book they meant.
Sometimes people ask me what happened to it. Why didn't it take precedence over Agent of the Relari? Why do I forget it when I think about my novels? In short, why haven't I edited it yet?
Here you go--the top 5 reasons why I haven't edited Sunrider.
5. Not Enough Time
This is the simplest of the reasons. I just don't have enough time to edit it right now. I have new stories to work on, my thesis, the rest of my graduate work, my freelance writing--there isn't a lot of time in there to edit an old novel. Of course, that still doesn't answer the question of why I've devoted so much time to other editing projects instead...
4. It's a Monstrosity
You want to know the top reason why, back in 2009, I shelved Sunrider for a while so I could work on other novels? I read a fantasy novel called Talion: Revenant by Michael A. Stackpole. He mentioned in a note that it was actually his first novel, even though it wasn't the first he had published. Publishers weren't willing to take a chance on a 175,000-word novel from a new author.
I took that to mean there was a pretty good chance I couldn't just appear out of nowhere with a massive fantasy novel. I needed to work on shorter things--short stories, and yes, shorter novels.
Since then, I've learned more about word counts. It feels like 80,000 is an average word count for novels, although fantasy genres tend to be longer, and veer closer to numbers like Stackpole's 175,000.
I just checked to be sure. Sunrider sits at around 260,000 words. That isn't as huge as I was afraid it might be, but it's nowhere near reasonable, either. But hey, word count rules can be flexible, as long as the book is good enough...
3. I Wrote It as a Teenager
There's a reason people tend to think of it as "my book." I started Sunrider when I was 13 and finished it when I was 18. Yes, I basically wrote it during high school, and I know what my writing looked like back then. I've learned a lot through experience, classes, and especially my graduate program. I look back on my older writing... and laugh. Sunrider would probably make my professors throw things at me.
So I wouldn't just be editing a novel. I'd be editing 260,000 words of a badly-written novel.
On the other hand, maybe the story--
2. The Main Plot is Cliché
A young man learns he's the Chosen One and sets out to save the world from demons. It doesn't get much more basic than that.
Every book needs to have something to make it stand out from the rest, so a generic fantasy plot isn't a good idea. Whenever I actually decide to edit it, I'll need to seriously ask myself, "What makes this book different than the rest?"
Oh, but maybe I do have an answer. Sunrider isn't just about a hero fighting demons...
1. It's About EVERYTHING!
Yes, we've reached the #1 reason I haven't edited this book yet. I wrote Sunrider between the ages of 13 and 18. Just about every single thing a teenage Sam thought was cool found its way into the plot. As a result we have:
This is what you'd expectin a fantasy novel, right?
A prophecy and a Chosen OneA rebellious noblewoman who wishes she was a commonerA comic relief emperor......and the maid in love with him......and his cyborg armyPirates!Demons!Sorcerers!Faeries!Wicked devil-worshiping tyrants......and the brave rebels......who happen to be a percussion ensembleAssassins!Mobsters!...and their laser gunsAn army of heroes who have become worse than their enemies, in a quickly-forgotten subplotVaguely Judeo-Christian religions (and their antithesis, as the devil-worshipers are organized enough to be counted as a major religion)Heavy-handed political commentaryMad scientists!Probably even more stuff, like zombies. I can't remember if the zombie scene made it in or not.Let me put it this way. At one point I considered sending the hero into space to request help from elves. Even I realized that was a bit much.
One continent has medieval technology, magic, and bans anything modern/futuristic. Another continent has futuristic technology and bans magic. So of course, the emperor with the cyborg army is in charge of the magic land, and the sorcerer duke is in charge of the futuristic land. In fact, he's decided to make it more like the other continent, but to do gradually so as not to upset people--hence the 1920s-era weapons becoming popular, as people gradually switch from laser guns to swords ("The Weapon of the Future!" as we see displayed in one scene).
By the final scene, we've got sword fights, gun fights, magic fights, cyborgs fighting on top of airplanes, percussionists blocking bullets with their drums, and I don't even know what else.
Someday, I'll edit Sunrider.
But I'm not ready to face it just yet.
July 21, 2014
...And Then I Decided to Make a Video Game
Don't get too excited. I don't have a video game, a prototype, or a good idea of what I'm doing.
A while ago, I played a downloadable game called Choice of the Dragon. I liked it a lot. It was simple, just a text-based adventure game, but I enjoyed making choices and seeing their results. It was like a Choose Your Own Adventure book, except as a game. Plus, you played as a dragon.
Then, just a few days ago, I had a question about video game writing. Symantha Reagor came to my aid, and one of the things she mentioned was that you can make games for Choice of Games. When I was to see who this company was--it turned out to be the company behind Choice of the Dragon!
It's possible to become a writer for them and be paid for writing official games under the Choice of Games label. That is awesome, and of course I'm interested in it. I'm not quite ready to submit my credentials to them yet, though. I'd like a little more experience, first.
Their other option involves creating games they won't pay you for (except royalties from any ad revenue, and stuff like that) using ChoiceScript, their simple programming language. If you made one of these games, you could submit it to be hosted and made available for people to play. That's also very cool, if not quite as awesome as the first option. After I read about it, I decided to download ChoiceScript yesterday, just to play around.
I got hooked.
I spent the rest of the evening trying to understand ChoiceScript so I could start a little text-based game of my own. I thought about it all night long. I thought about it as soon as I woke up.
And I devoted today to editing and doing other important things, so I haven't made any more progress.
It was still a lot of fun. Once I get some more free time, I'll be back at it. Who knows, maybe one of these days, I'll have an adventure game to show you.
A while ago, I played a downloadable game called Choice of the Dragon. I liked it a lot. It was simple, just a text-based adventure game, but I enjoyed making choices and seeing their results. It was like a Choose Your Own Adventure book, except as a game. Plus, you played as a dragon.
Then, just a few days ago, I had a question about video game writing. Symantha Reagor came to my aid, and one of the things she mentioned was that you can make games for Choice of Games. When I was to see who this company was--it turned out to be the company behind Choice of the Dragon!
It's possible to become a writer for them and be paid for writing official games under the Choice of Games label. That is awesome, and of course I'm interested in it. I'm not quite ready to submit my credentials to them yet, though. I'd like a little more experience, first.
Their other option involves creating games they won't pay you for (except royalties from any ad revenue, and stuff like that) using ChoiceScript, their simple programming language. If you made one of these games, you could submit it to be hosted and made available for people to play. That's also very cool, if not quite as awesome as the first option. After I read about it, I decided to download ChoiceScript yesterday, just to play around.
I got hooked.
I spent the rest of the evening trying to understand ChoiceScript so I could start a little text-based game of my own. I thought about it all night long. I thought about it as soon as I woke up.
And I devoted today to editing and doing other important things, so I haven't made any more progress.
It was still a lot of fun. Once I get some more free time, I'll be back at it. Who knows, maybe one of these days, I'll have an adventure game to show you.
July 18, 2014
Fatal Frame: The Black Haired Shrine Maiden Haunts Japan This September
Fatal Frame: The Black Haired Shrine MaidenYesterday, the newest Fatal Frame game was announced for the Wii U. Zero: Nuregarasu no Miko, or Fatal Frame: The Black Haired Shrine Maiden, will be released in Japan on September 27, and I really hope it gets localized.At this point, you might be saying, "Wait a minute. Wasn't it just a week ago you mentioned you still haven't played Fatal Frame?"
It's true. The only Fatal Frame game I've played so far is the spin-off title Spirit Camera: The Cursed Memoir, which isn't a stellar look at the series. Spirit Camera suffered from many flaws, the biggest of which was its reliance on the 3DS's camera. I had to play certain sections directly beneath a lamp to make it function at all, which isn't an ideal setup for a horror game.
But enough about that misstep (I'm certain it looked great on paper). I own the first Fatal Frame game, and I will get around to playing it. In the meantime, the success of the series is important to me because of my interest in the survival horror genre. Mainstream survival horror games are rare these days, and Fatal Frame is one of the big ones still active.
It's also the first series I think of when it comes to using the Wii U GamePad in new and interesting ways.
Fatal Frame (which is called Project Zero in Europe and 零 Zero in Japan) centers around a device called the Camera Obscura, a camera players use to explore and to fight evil spirits. It's almost weird that I haven't played the games yet, because Fatal Frame uses some of my favorite horror elements--ghosts and dark rituals.
So, what are the Fatal Frame games?Fatal Frame, the first game, was released first for the PS2 and was later ported to the Xbox. It's the only main series game to be rated T.Fatal Frame II: Crimson Butterfly was also released for the PS2 and ported to the Xbox, and it received a PSN release last year. A Wii-exclusive remake, Deep Crimson Butterfly, came out in 2012, but only in Japan, Europe, and Australia.Fatal Frame III: The Tormented was released for the PS2 and later on PSN, like its predecessor.And this is where our localization worries begin.The fourth game, known as Mask of the Lunar Eclipse, was released for the Wii in 2008, but only in Japan.And now, The Black Haired Shrine Maiden is coming out for the Wii U.The three spin-offs include a Japan-only mobile game called Real: Another Edition, Spirit Camera, and a manga called Fatal Frame: Shadow Priestess. The manga has been translated, and while Japan is getting a movie adaptation on September 26 (and an original novel in August), it was recently announced that a Hollywood movie is also in the works. Maybe this means we have a better chance of the new game being localized, as well.
The announcement of the fifth game was accompanied by a trailer. Let's take a look.
Looks nice and spooky to me! The trailer kept up an atmosphere of dread, so I have high hopes for the game. The game's official site includes a few more gameplay clips.
The Black Haired Shrine Maiden has a strong focus on water, more open areas, and themes about the line between life and death. The protagonist can locate people who were taken into the spirit world and bring them back.
And yes! The Wii U GamePad will be used as the camera!
Now, normally I get a bit nervous when the word "open" is used to describe games, but in this case, I don't think the "open areas" mean it's going to be open world or anything like that. It's just not set in a mansion or enclosed area, this time, but at the Hikayama mountain, or the "mountain of death," and will be larger than any previous Fatal Frame game. Just like narrow passages and small rooms aren't enough to make a game survival horror, open outdoor areas aren't enough to make a game not survival horror, either.
Will we see this in the West? The fate of the fourth game suggests we won't, but on the other hand, when director Makoto Shibata was asked on Twitter if The Black Haired Shrine Maiden would be released overseas, he said an overseas released hasn't been announced yet.
Yet? Sounds like it already has a better shot than Ace Attorney Investigations 2.
I may not have played Fatal Frame yet, but I'm excited for The Black Haired Shrine Maiden. Most of my information about it is thanks to Operation Zero, a group dedicated to encouraging the localization of the Fatal Frame series. Drop on by if you're as interested as I am in getting this game localized.
July 14, 2014
I Can't Stop Thinking About Poison Study
I wanted to make a clever poison pun, but I couldn't think of anything.
I don't review books very often, in part because I'm never quite sure what to say. In fact, even though I categorize all of these things as reviews, I tend to refer to them as "discussions." Sometimes I'm honest enough to admit I'm just going to ramble. With that in mind, it's time for a new review/discussion/ramble, because I finished a book the other day, and I can't stop thinking about it.
The book in question is Poison Study , by Maria V. Snyder.
It's a fantasy novel, and the premise is simple. The protagonist, Yelena, is set to be executed, but she's given the chance to become the Commander's food taster instead. She accepts, and finds herself confronted with new problems--people trying to murder her, magical powers (which may not sound like a problem, but magic is illegal under the Commander's reign), and the fact that she's been poisoned to keep her from running away.
Sound cool? I certainly thought so, and the plot held my interest for the entire book. It wasn't filled with twists and turns, as some of my favorites are, but it kept up a strong pace and raised enough questions that I always wanted to see what happened next.
But the characters are what really set it apart for me. Yelena is a fun, likable protagonist, there's a strong supporting cast, and as for the security chief, Valek? Well, let's just say I set the book down partway through to ask myself if I should feel weird for being in love with the scary assassin guy, and then I decided to stop asking myself stupid questions and just keep reading!
The more I read, the more I liked the characters. My concern for them and what would happen to them kept me up at night, which hasn't happened since I played Dual Destinies (technically Azran Legacy, but there it was the plot that kept me awake, not agonizing worry for the protagonists). When a story has me worrying about the characters, it's done something right.
On the other side of the character spectrum, the villains were perfectly despicable. I've mentioned in the past that I need to feel something for a story's villains, and Poison Study's villains made sure I felt something for them--pure hatred.
All in all, it was a fantastic book. When I finished it, I felt... a little sad. Yes, I'd wanted to know what happened next, but... it was over. I didn't want it to be over.
I can't wait to read the sequel, and I'm telling you all right now, if you enjoy fantasy, you really should buy Poison Study . And if you've already read it, share your own thoughts in the comments below.
I don't review books very often, in part because I'm never quite sure what to say. In fact, even though I categorize all of these things as reviews, I tend to refer to them as "discussions." Sometimes I'm honest enough to admit I'm just going to ramble. With that in mind, it's time for a new review/discussion/ramble, because I finished a book the other day, and I can't stop thinking about it.
The book in question is Poison Study , by Maria V. Snyder.
It's a fantasy novel, and the premise is simple. The protagonist, Yelena, is set to be executed, but she's given the chance to become the Commander's food taster instead. She accepts, and finds herself confronted with new problems--people trying to murder her, magical powers (which may not sound like a problem, but magic is illegal under the Commander's reign), and the fact that she's been poisoned to keep her from running away.
Sound cool? I certainly thought so, and the plot held my interest for the entire book. It wasn't filled with twists and turns, as some of my favorites are, but it kept up a strong pace and raised enough questions that I always wanted to see what happened next.
But the characters are what really set it apart for me. Yelena is a fun, likable protagonist, there's a strong supporting cast, and as for the security chief, Valek? Well, let's just say I set the book down partway through to ask myself if I should feel weird for being in love with the scary assassin guy, and then I decided to stop asking myself stupid questions and just keep reading!
The more I read, the more I liked the characters. My concern for them and what would happen to them kept me up at night, which hasn't happened since I played Dual Destinies (technically Azran Legacy, but there it was the plot that kept me awake, not agonizing worry for the protagonists). When a story has me worrying about the characters, it's done something right.
On the other side of the character spectrum, the villains were perfectly despicable. I've mentioned in the past that I need to feel something for a story's villains, and Poison Study's villains made sure I felt something for them--pure hatred.
All in all, it was a fantastic book. When I finished it, I felt... a little sad. Yes, I'd wanted to know what happened next, but... it was over. I didn't want it to be over.
I can't wait to read the sequel, and I'm telling you all right now, if you enjoy fantasy, you really should buy Poison Study . And if you've already read it, share your own thoughts in the comments below.
July 11, 2014
In Space, No One Can Hear You Pre-order Alien: Isolation
I know, everyone is adapting the tagline from the original movie to create headlines about this game. It just works so well. Now, when I started to write this post, I thought I'd already blogged about Alien: Isolation in the past. I couldn't find anything, though, so I must have gotten confused because of the freelance article I wrote about it.
Or maybe my second Alien: Isolation freelance article.
Okay, so I wrote about the game three times.
If you haven't guessed, I'm really excited about this game. I already pre-ordered it, and I might even suspend my other game priorities to play it as soon as it comes out. (Which will be in October, along with an absurd number of other high-profile games. What in the world is so special about October?) I've followed all the news released about it, and I'm hopeful it will truly be the sort of survival horror game I enjoy. While many fans of the genre have pinned their hopes on The Evil Within (which comes out in...October!), my survival horror hopes lie with Alien: Isolation.
Unlike most video game adaptations of the Alien franchise, which favor lots of action and shooting, Isolation plans to capture the mood of the original 1979 film. I watched Alien for the first time last October and quite enjoyed it. If the game can produce that sort of atmosphere, it will already be headed in the right direction.
Alien: Isolation is set 15 years after the first movie. You play as Amanda Ripley, Ellen Ripley's daughter, who is trying to find out what happened to her mother. She goes to the space station Sevastopol... but there's an Alien on board.
One Alien. It will stalk you. It will adapt to your actions. And it will be terrifying.
You're not going to mow down Xenomorph after Xenomorph with your guns. One Alien, and you will run and hide.
A lot of the focus has been on the Alien for obvious reasons, but this has led to the popular misconception that Isolation is going to be another game where the protagonist is completely helpless and has to run and hide from everything. That's not true. There is combat in this game. There are some weapons, and you'll be able to use them to fight human and android enemies. A while back, I heard you could use weapons to slow the Alien somewhat, but I'm no longer sure this is the case. Either way, it's not going to be a shooting-fest, but it won't be 100% running and screaming, either.And that's great!
See, there are certain things I want in survival horror. These elements are best seen in the classic Silent Hill and Resident Evil series (yes, I'll get around to playing Fatal Frame and the other classics soon), which got me into the genre.
Modern survival horror has largely split in two directions. The first direction is what happened to Resident Evil: combat-heavy action games that are "survival horror" because you're, uh, trying to survive, and...look, something scary! This is one of the outcomes of taking the genre name literally while trying to go mainstream. These games are not survival horror, no matter how many people claim Resident Evil 4 is the pinnacle of the genre. RE4 is not survival horror. Some people claim The Evil Within is a true successor to RE4, which is one of the reasons I'm not interested in it. (It also looks like a gore-fest... which is a cheap way to achieve horror.)
The second direction is the helpless-protagonist-runs-and-hides gameplay popularized by Amnesia: The Dark Descent, which is a fantastic game. Amnesia and games like it are terrifying and awesome. They are survival horror. It's just not the same survival horror as the classics.
A few games have tried for the fight-or-flight balance of the classic survival horror games. I haven't played Silent Hill: Downpour yet, but it's on my list. I've heard great things about it. Amy, which isn't as bad as its reviews suggest, failed to achieve a good balance between the two, but at least it tried. Zombi U is another one on my waiting list, and I have high hopes for it.
And then there's Alien: Isolation.
Am I setting myself up for disappointment by eyeing this game as the next greatest survival horror game? Maybe. But so far it sounds like just what I need.
Alien: Isolation comes out on October 7, the same day as 6 other game releases. If, like me, you pre-order Isolation, you'll get a free upgrade to the Nostromo Edition, which includes a DLC episode set during the original movie. Let me know what you think of Alien: Isolation... and tell me if I missed any classic-style survival horror games!
July 7, 2014
We'll All Feel Chills When Johnny Comes Marching Home: Compelling Villains
When I talk about fiction, I focus in on the villains a lot. Villains can make or break a story for me. I can't discuss Final Fantasy XIII without complaining its main antagonist, who is one of the least compelling villains I've ever seen. I'm still not sure if the big reveal about his identity was supposed to be shocking. It had zero impact on me, because the character barely had a role in the story before that point.
ASSUMING DIRECT CONTROLAnd when he was on the screen, he was just...there. The game wanted me to hate him, but didn't lend any fuel for my hatred. Even though he was the primary villain, he lacked presence. I often contrast him to Mass Effect 2's Harbinger, who was off-screen for almost the entire game, but still made himself felt throughout the story.
The lack of a compelling villain is also one of my many complaints about Sticker Star, which couldn't seem to handle Bowser as an actual character.
So, I complain about bad villains an awful lot, but what about counter-examples? It's an important question for me as a writer, too. What makes a villain compelling?
I could be here all day writing about that. I wrote an entire paper on Iago from Othello. You want a compelling villain, take a look at the guy that made me slam shut my copy of Shakespeare to shout at the characters to stop listening to this guy already. Many of the works I've commented on favorably (Amnesia: Justine, Arsenic and Old Lace, Ace Attorney, Professor Layton, and even I Am Legend, believe it or not) have villains/antagonists that work. Of course, I can't list everything that has a great villain, so go ahead, ask me if I like the villain in such-and-such.
But today, we're not going to discuss a manipulative mastermind like Iago, or a cool swordsman like Descole. We're going to jump back to a movie made in 1953 and discuss the informant in Stalag 17. (I will refer to him as "the informant" throughout this post, so you can keep reading even if you plan to watch the movie.)
This is an unusual example, because there isn't a lot of on-screen villainy--which makes it an excellent example. Similar to Harbinger, Stalag 17's informant becomes a sinister and compelling figure from the shadows. And just like any story with a mystery around its villain's identity, the truth forever changes the way you view the rest of the movie.
And for me, it changed the way I hear a song.
There's a Civil War song called "When Johnny Comes Marching Home." It's not as big as some of the other patriotic tunes, but you might have heard it. The basic idea is that the soldiers are coming home, so let's celebrate! It's upbeat, optimistic, and all around cheerful.
So why does it give me chills? Because it plays during the scene in Stalag 17 where the informant is revealed to the audience. I often prefer when the audience and protagonist find out the villain's identity at the same time, but Stalag 17 is an example of how it can work to show the audience first.
If you're unfamiliar with the term, a Stalag is a German POW camp. The movie is set during WW2, and opens with two prisoners trying to escape Stalag 17, only to be shot by guards waiting for them. The remaining prisoners know someone among them must have told the Nazis about the escape plan. Their suspicion falls on a prisoner named Sefton, because he's a jerk. (I don't like Sefton, okay?) He starts the movie by making a bet that the escapees won't get very far, and he openly trades with the Nazis. He's the obvious suspect--but who is the informant really?
The following video shows the informant using the secret communication method he has with the Nazis, so if you don't want to see spoilers for Stalag 17, don't watch this clip. In fact, it's probably best if you skip ahead.
If you're still reading, you don't mind having the movie spoiled for you.
Here is some extra space so the video won't accidentally be seen.
And just a little more space.
All right, here we go.
Whenever I hear that song now, all I can see is the informant joining the celebration. Singing along with the men he'll happily betray and send to their deaths. It gives me chills. That one little scene carries more weight than anything FFXIII or Sticker Star managed to do with their villains, even though he barely did anything on screen. It's all built up to that point--the deaths of the prisoners, the blame falling on Sefton, the betrayal of another prisoner who joins them partway through the movie. You hate the informant for what he's done, even though you don't know who he is, and when a face is given to the traitor, you hate him even more.
» Click to show Spoiler - click again to hide... « Even though he's actually a Nazi, not a real prisoner, I'm still calling him a traitor. He's betraying people he's lived alongside and pretended to be friends with. I once got into a debate over whether or not he's really a "villain," since he's just doing what's right for his side. Yeah, he's a bad guy. We see no sign of any moral struggle at all in him. I'm a big fan of sympathetic villains, and this guy is absolutely not one.
The scene itself is also well-crafted. While music is often used to enhance the atmosphere, the dissonance between "When Johnny Comes Marching Home" and the informant's actions works well. The actor also does contributes to the effect. His casual, yet deliberate, movements heighten the tension and make you wonder if anyone will notice.
Even though I don't write mysteries, I do like to have surprise villains. This is the sort of feeling I want to achieve in my audience--dread and hatred for a villain even when the character isn't on the page. I want my villains to evoke emotions. Whether it's a sympathetic villain the audience will like and almost root for, or this sort of unsympathetic villain the audience will long to see destroyed, I want the audience to feel something for them.
In short, I want my villains to be more like Iago, Harbinger, and the informant, not like FFXIII's villain and Sticker Star's almost non-existent Bowser.
If you're intrigued by what I've talked about today, you can always watch Stalag 17. It's not one of my favorite movies, but it's a good one, especially for this scene.
ASSUMING DIRECT CONTROLAnd when he was on the screen, he was just...there. The game wanted me to hate him, but didn't lend any fuel for my hatred. Even though he was the primary villain, he lacked presence. I often contrast him to Mass Effect 2's Harbinger, who was off-screen for almost the entire game, but still made himself felt throughout the story. The lack of a compelling villain is also one of my many complaints about Sticker Star, which couldn't seem to handle Bowser as an actual character.
So, I complain about bad villains an awful lot, but what about counter-examples? It's an important question for me as a writer, too. What makes a villain compelling?
I could be here all day writing about that. I wrote an entire paper on Iago from Othello. You want a compelling villain, take a look at the guy that made me slam shut my copy of Shakespeare to shout at the characters to stop listening to this guy already. Many of the works I've commented on favorably (Amnesia: Justine, Arsenic and Old Lace, Ace Attorney, Professor Layton, and even I Am Legend, believe it or not) have villains/antagonists that work. Of course, I can't list everything that has a great villain, so go ahead, ask me if I like the villain in such-and-such.
But today, we're not going to discuss a manipulative mastermind like Iago, or a cool swordsman like Descole. We're going to jump back to a movie made in 1953 and discuss the informant in Stalag 17. (I will refer to him as "the informant" throughout this post, so you can keep reading even if you plan to watch the movie.)
This is an unusual example, because there isn't a lot of on-screen villainy--which makes it an excellent example. Similar to Harbinger, Stalag 17's informant becomes a sinister and compelling figure from the shadows. And just like any story with a mystery around its villain's identity, the truth forever changes the way you view the rest of the movie.
And for me, it changed the way I hear a song.
There's a Civil War song called "When Johnny Comes Marching Home." It's not as big as some of the other patriotic tunes, but you might have heard it. The basic idea is that the soldiers are coming home, so let's celebrate! It's upbeat, optimistic, and all around cheerful.
So why does it give me chills? Because it plays during the scene in Stalag 17 where the informant is revealed to the audience. I often prefer when the audience and protagonist find out the villain's identity at the same time, but Stalag 17 is an example of how it can work to show the audience first.
If you're unfamiliar with the term, a Stalag is a German POW camp. The movie is set during WW2, and opens with two prisoners trying to escape Stalag 17, only to be shot by guards waiting for them. The remaining prisoners know someone among them must have told the Nazis about the escape plan. Their suspicion falls on a prisoner named Sefton, because he's a jerk. (I don't like Sefton, okay?) He starts the movie by making a bet that the escapees won't get very far, and he openly trades with the Nazis. He's the obvious suspect--but who is the informant really?
The following video shows the informant using the secret communication method he has with the Nazis, so if you don't want to see spoilers for Stalag 17, don't watch this clip. In fact, it's probably best if you skip ahead.
If you're still reading, you don't mind having the movie spoiled for you.
Here is some extra space so the video won't accidentally be seen.
And just a little more space.
All right, here we go.
Whenever I hear that song now, all I can see is the informant joining the celebration. Singing along with the men he'll happily betray and send to their deaths. It gives me chills. That one little scene carries more weight than anything FFXIII or Sticker Star managed to do with their villains, even though he barely did anything on screen. It's all built up to that point--the deaths of the prisoners, the blame falling on Sefton, the betrayal of another prisoner who joins them partway through the movie. You hate the informant for what he's done, even though you don't know who he is, and when a face is given to the traitor, you hate him even more.
» Click to show Spoiler - click again to hide... « Even though he's actually a Nazi, not a real prisoner, I'm still calling him a traitor. He's betraying people he's lived alongside and pretended to be friends with. I once got into a debate over whether or not he's really a "villain," since he's just doing what's right for his side. Yeah, he's a bad guy. We see no sign of any moral struggle at all in him. I'm a big fan of sympathetic villains, and this guy is absolutely not one.
The scene itself is also well-crafted. While music is often used to enhance the atmosphere, the dissonance between "When Johnny Comes Marching Home" and the informant's actions works well. The actor also does contributes to the effect. His casual, yet deliberate, movements heighten the tension and make you wonder if anyone will notice.
Even though I don't write mysteries, I do like to have surprise villains. This is the sort of feeling I want to achieve in my audience--dread and hatred for a villain even when the character isn't on the page. I want my villains to evoke emotions. Whether it's a sympathetic villain the audience will like and almost root for, or this sort of unsympathetic villain the audience will long to see destroyed, I want the audience to feel something for them.
In short, I want my villains to be more like Iago, Harbinger, and the informant, not like FFXIII's villain and Sticker Star's almost non-existent Bowser.
If you're intrigued by what I've talked about today, you can always watch Stalag 17. It's not one of my favorite movies, but it's a good one, especially for this scene.
June 23, 2014
Sticker Star: What Have You Done to Paper Mario?
I loved the original Paper Mario. It came out in 2001 for the Nintendo 64, and I played it over and over. When I ran out of save files, I picked my least favorite playthrough to overwrite. My first playthrough remained preserved forever, and sometimes I replayed the final battle. Everything about it was fantastic--the RPG gameplay, the music, the memorable characters...
Even the somewhat simple story, which has Bowser kidnap Princess Peach and wreak havoc with the help of the Star Rod he stole from the seven Star Spirits, was great. If I'd understood the concept of fanfiction back then, I'd have written a Paper Mario fanfiction filled with adventure, combat, time travel, and cheesy romance. As it was, I kept it in my head. The world is grateful to me for that.
In 2004, the first sequel came out. Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door had a stronger (and darker) plot, which stepped away from Mario conventions with the new hub city of Rogueport, which hides the Thousand-Year Door and the treasure it supposedly contains. It was just as amazing as the original, maybe even more so.
2007 saw the release of Super Paper Mario, and I missed it because I didn't have a Wii. When I finally got a Wii, I played it. It was quite different from its predecessors, because it was more of an action RPG, or perhaps a platformer with RPG elements. Still, it had a great story and some truly memorable characters (especially the villains).
And then... in 2012... THIS happened.
When Paper Mario: Sticker Star was announced, I was interested. It was Paper Mario, after all. Then I saw people online talking about how this game would bring back partners (one of the series elements missed the most in Super Paper Mario), and I was excited. And when I learned about the sticker-based combat and puzzles during E3 2012, I was ecstatic. It sounded amazing. Then I saw an article about how Sticker Star wouldn't have any new characters or an emphasis on plot......but I wasn't too worried, because that couldn't be what they meant.
It was.
Sticker Star doesn't introduce any new characters to the Mario series except for a sticker companion named Kersti, who ranges from "mildly amusing" to "annoying and unhelpful." It barely has a plot. And it does such a good job keeping its "plot" involved in the story that by the time I finished World 1, I couldn't even remember if Peach had been kidnapped or not.
This game makes heavy use of the paper theme, with scissors as powerful weapons, stickers everywhere, NPCs blowing away in high winds, and so on, but it doesn't deserve to be called Paper Mario. This is not a Paper Mario game, much like a certain un-funny "comedy" released in 2012 is not Dark Shadows no matter how many character names and vague plot similarities it throws around.
Both ripped the heart and soul out of their series in such a way that they left me with distrust for the people responsible--Tim Burton and Johnny Depp for not realizing the movie was completely devoid of what made the beloved TV show good, and Shigeru Miyamoto for deciding plot and characters weren't important to PAPER MARIO and making the developers do this.
And you know what? Just like 2012's Dark Shadows still would be a bad movie even if it had a different title, Sticker Star still is a bad game even without Paper Mario considerations.
Somehow, the only thing that made it out of the Super Paper Mario complaints and into the heads of the developers (or maybe just Mr. Miyamoto's) was that fans missed the turn-based combat system. Sticker Star has turn-based combat. So...it's an RPG, right? Right??
Wrong!
You know what battling gets you? Coins. There's no experience. No leveling up. No abilities to learn, no partners to fight by your side, no stats to build except by finding HP upgrades, kind of like heart containers in The Legend of Zelda series. It's less of an RPG than Super Paper Mario was.
Stickers are at the core of the game. You keep them in an album with limited space, and you use them up when you want to attack. One jump attack uses one jump sticker, one mushroom uses one mushroom sticker, and so on. Inventory management, right?
Nope, the game even failed me there. When I heard about it at that fateful E3, I imagined something akin to Resident Evil's inventory management. (Yes, there was a time when I honestly believed Paper Mario: Sticker Star would fill my need for survival horror mechanics.) Limited inventory space, time spent deciding how many items you should take with you and how much free space you should leave--and items that take up different amounts of space, more like Kid Icarus: Uprising's ability system than survival horror, but fun nonetheless.
Nope!
Sticker Star managed to drain away all the strategy and leave a tedious mess in its place. You buy stickers at shops, pick them up from the environment, and even get some as drops after battles. They are plentiful. So are coins. And there's no storage system, either. Everything was reduced to keeping powerful stickers, discarding/ignoring weak stickers, and occasionally sorting them to make room for a big sticker. As for the shapes, stickers generally came in three--square, big square, and really big square.
Among the biggest stickers were the Thing stickers. Things, or 3D objects, are hidden around the levels (which, by the way, you access from a world map like you'd see in 2D sidescrolling Mario games). If you find one, you can turn it into a sticker. Thing stickers tend to have powerful effects in battle and some are used to solve puzzles.
And that's where this gameplay element fails.
Suppose you're on your way to the next level, and you encounter an impassable obstacle. You go into stickerization mode and see a spot for a big sticker. Clearly a Thing is needed. If you already have it with you, great, just use it. If you don't, but you already found it, you can either go back to its hiding place and pick it up again, or buy it from a shady Toad. And if you don't have it.... well, you'd better search all the worlds, because the game isn't going to give you any clues as to where it is, and it probably won't be somewhere logical. And this is all assuming that you can use the context clues to figure out what Thing you even need. For example, what object would you use to stop a whirlwind?
Ready?
If you guessed "vacuum cleaner," you're right!I'm all for games that make you figure things out, but at least have puzzles that make sense! Sticker Star's illogical puzzles just forced you to 1. use Google, or 2. waste your coins on space-consuming Thing stickers to lose one at a time as you try them. Yes, if you use an incorrect sticker in stickerization, you lose it.
It wasn't all bad. There was a nice mansion chapter with logical puzzles and little hints of story. I'm not sure what it was doing in Sticker Star--maybe it was left over from the original design?
Now that we've gotten the gameplay out of the way, let's go back to the characters. Kersti was awful. Unmemorable, unlikable, and unhelpful. She was supposed to provide hints, but every time I was stuck, her "hint" was more a vague comment about the general situations. "The climate here sure is bad for stickers." No kidding, now where do I find the door?!
As for the other characters...
Well, there was Wiggler. He had a personality and almost a plot, even if that level was tedious and annoying. Then there were bosses who had enough personality to be thought of as Evil Generic Goomba Boss, Evil Generic Blooper Boss, Evil Generic...
Look, I'm not faulting them for using existing Mario species. The other games did that all the time, except they still made them characters. Remember the Koopa Bros.? They were Koopas, but they had enough personality to ensure they were never "just Koopas." They were more memorable than the entire cast of Sticker Star.
So, how did they do with the actual named characters? Mario was a silent protagonist, as always. Peach had no role beyond being kidnapped. (I guess playing as her in the previous Paper Mario games added too much depth to the story to work in this game.) Bowser had no lines. Bowser Jr. showed up for a few boss battles. K--wait, wait, wait, what? Let's go back to Bowser for a minute.
Bowser had no lines. None. Zip. Zilch. Zero. Like everything else about Sticker Star, the portrayal of Bowser went back to classic Mario games, even though it's all but an unwritten rule that Mario RPGs give him character development. (But then, we've already established that Sticker Star isn't an RPG, so why am I surprised?)
I have to bring back the Dark Shadows analogy. We've got a series villain who gets a surprising amount of character development, veers into villain protagonist and antihero territory whenever a greater threat rears its head, and may or may not be in love with one of the main characters.
I bet no one has ever compared Angelique and Bowser before.Of course, that's where the similarities end. The version of Angelique we saw in 2012 was a one-dimensional villain because the movie seemed to have a phobia of anything that would cause any ambiguity whatsoever. Sticker Star's version of Bowser was a one-dimensional villain because the game had a phobia of plot and character development. And maybe I'm being too harsh with this comparison. After all, Lara Parker's portrayal of Angelique was the original, while the more developed Bowser seen in the Mario RPGs came after his original portrayals.
But still... other characters had dialogue. One of the things that aggravates me the most is a story where the villain has very little presence. Bowser was supposed to be the villain of Sticker Star. I didn't hate him. I didn't like him. He was just there.
Back to our character list, Kamek had more personality than the rest of the characters combined. When The Dragon is the only one with any character development in your story, something has gone terribly wrong.
So the characters were negligible, the plot was all but nonexistent, and for a game that ignored characters and plot to focus on gameplay, the gameplay was an absolute mess. Sticker Star has a certain charm when you start it, but once that charm wears off, it is horrible.
The only good things I can say about Sticker Star are that the mansion level is nice, the music isn't bad, and the descriptions of Things in the sticker museum are funny.
You shouldn't cringe when someone mentions the name of your favorite series. But just like I add a "the original show from the 60s, not the new movie" whenever I mention Dark Shadows, I now add an "except for Sticker Star" when I praise Paper Mario. Maybe 2012 was just a weird year. Maybe the next Paper Mario will go back to its roots.
But the next time one is announced, I'll eye it with the suspicion that it will end up like Sticker Star, a Paper Mario game in name only.
Even the somewhat simple story, which has Bowser kidnap Princess Peach and wreak havoc with the help of the Star Rod he stole from the seven Star Spirits, was great. If I'd understood the concept of fanfiction back then, I'd have written a Paper Mario fanfiction filled with adventure, combat, time travel, and cheesy romance. As it was, I kept it in my head. The world is grateful to me for that.
In 2004, the first sequel came out. Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door had a stronger (and darker) plot, which stepped away from Mario conventions with the new hub city of Rogueport, which hides the Thousand-Year Door and the treasure it supposedly contains. It was just as amazing as the original, maybe even more so.
2007 saw the release of Super Paper Mario, and I missed it because I didn't have a Wii. When I finally got a Wii, I played it. It was quite different from its predecessors, because it was more of an action RPG, or perhaps a platformer with RPG elements. Still, it had a great story and some truly memorable characters (especially the villains).
And then... in 2012... THIS happened.
When Paper Mario: Sticker Star was announced, I was interested. It was Paper Mario, after all. Then I saw people online talking about how this game would bring back partners (one of the series elements missed the most in Super Paper Mario), and I was excited. And when I learned about the sticker-based combat and puzzles during E3 2012, I was ecstatic. It sounded amazing. Then I saw an article about how Sticker Star wouldn't have any new characters or an emphasis on plot......but I wasn't too worried, because that couldn't be what they meant.
It was.
Sticker Star doesn't introduce any new characters to the Mario series except for a sticker companion named Kersti, who ranges from "mildly amusing" to "annoying and unhelpful." It barely has a plot. And it does such a good job keeping its "plot" involved in the story that by the time I finished World 1, I couldn't even remember if Peach had been kidnapped or not.
This game makes heavy use of the paper theme, with scissors as powerful weapons, stickers everywhere, NPCs blowing away in high winds, and so on, but it doesn't deserve to be called Paper Mario. This is not a Paper Mario game, much like a certain un-funny "comedy" released in 2012 is not Dark Shadows no matter how many character names and vague plot similarities it throws around.
Both ripped the heart and soul out of their series in such a way that they left me with distrust for the people responsible--Tim Burton and Johnny Depp for not realizing the movie was completely devoid of what made the beloved TV show good, and Shigeru Miyamoto for deciding plot and characters weren't important to PAPER MARIO and making the developers do this.
And you know what? Just like 2012's Dark Shadows still would be a bad movie even if it had a different title, Sticker Star still is a bad game even without Paper Mario considerations.
Somehow, the only thing that made it out of the Super Paper Mario complaints and into the heads of the developers (or maybe just Mr. Miyamoto's) was that fans missed the turn-based combat system. Sticker Star has turn-based combat. So...it's an RPG, right? Right??
Wrong!
You know what battling gets you? Coins. There's no experience. No leveling up. No abilities to learn, no partners to fight by your side, no stats to build except by finding HP upgrades, kind of like heart containers in The Legend of Zelda series. It's less of an RPG than Super Paper Mario was.
Stickers are at the core of the game. You keep them in an album with limited space, and you use them up when you want to attack. One jump attack uses one jump sticker, one mushroom uses one mushroom sticker, and so on. Inventory management, right?
Nope, the game even failed me there. When I heard about it at that fateful E3, I imagined something akin to Resident Evil's inventory management. (Yes, there was a time when I honestly believed Paper Mario: Sticker Star would fill my need for survival horror mechanics.) Limited inventory space, time spent deciding how many items you should take with you and how much free space you should leave--and items that take up different amounts of space, more like Kid Icarus: Uprising's ability system than survival horror, but fun nonetheless.
Nope!
Sticker Star managed to drain away all the strategy and leave a tedious mess in its place. You buy stickers at shops, pick them up from the environment, and even get some as drops after battles. They are plentiful. So are coins. And there's no storage system, either. Everything was reduced to keeping powerful stickers, discarding/ignoring weak stickers, and occasionally sorting them to make room for a big sticker. As for the shapes, stickers generally came in three--square, big square, and really big square.
Among the biggest stickers were the Thing stickers. Things, or 3D objects, are hidden around the levels (which, by the way, you access from a world map like you'd see in 2D sidescrolling Mario games). If you find one, you can turn it into a sticker. Thing stickers tend to have powerful effects in battle and some are used to solve puzzles.
And that's where this gameplay element fails.
Suppose you're on your way to the next level, and you encounter an impassable obstacle. You go into stickerization mode and see a spot for a big sticker. Clearly a Thing is needed. If you already have it with you, great, just use it. If you don't, but you already found it, you can either go back to its hiding place and pick it up again, or buy it from a shady Toad. And if you don't have it.... well, you'd better search all the worlds, because the game isn't going to give you any clues as to where it is, and it probably won't be somewhere logical. And this is all assuming that you can use the context clues to figure out what Thing you even need. For example, what object would you use to stop a whirlwind?
Ready?
If you guessed "vacuum cleaner," you're right!I'm all for games that make you figure things out, but at least have puzzles that make sense! Sticker Star's illogical puzzles just forced you to 1. use Google, or 2. waste your coins on space-consuming Thing stickers to lose one at a time as you try them. Yes, if you use an incorrect sticker in stickerization, you lose it.It wasn't all bad. There was a nice mansion chapter with logical puzzles and little hints of story. I'm not sure what it was doing in Sticker Star--maybe it was left over from the original design?
Now that we've gotten the gameplay out of the way, let's go back to the characters. Kersti was awful. Unmemorable, unlikable, and unhelpful. She was supposed to provide hints, but every time I was stuck, her "hint" was more a vague comment about the general situations. "The climate here sure is bad for stickers." No kidding, now where do I find the door?!
As for the other characters...
Well, there was Wiggler. He had a personality and almost a plot, even if that level was tedious and annoying. Then there were bosses who had enough personality to be thought of as Evil Generic Goomba Boss, Evil Generic Blooper Boss, Evil Generic...
Look, I'm not faulting them for using existing Mario species. The other games did that all the time, except they still made them characters. Remember the Koopa Bros.? They were Koopas, but they had enough personality to ensure they were never "just Koopas." They were more memorable than the entire cast of Sticker Star.
So, how did they do with the actual named characters? Mario was a silent protagonist, as always. Peach had no role beyond being kidnapped. (I guess playing as her in the previous Paper Mario games added too much depth to the story to work in this game.) Bowser had no lines. Bowser Jr. showed up for a few boss battles. K--wait, wait, wait, what? Let's go back to Bowser for a minute.
Bowser had no lines. None. Zip. Zilch. Zero. Like everything else about Sticker Star, the portrayal of Bowser went back to classic Mario games, even though it's all but an unwritten rule that Mario RPGs give him character development. (But then, we've already established that Sticker Star isn't an RPG, so why am I surprised?)
I have to bring back the Dark Shadows analogy. We've got a series villain who gets a surprising amount of character development, veers into villain protagonist and antihero territory whenever a greater threat rears its head, and may or may not be in love with one of the main characters.
I bet no one has ever compared Angelique and Bowser before.Of course, that's where the similarities end. The version of Angelique we saw in 2012 was a one-dimensional villain because the movie seemed to have a phobia of anything that would cause any ambiguity whatsoever. Sticker Star's version of Bowser was a one-dimensional villain because the game had a phobia of plot and character development. And maybe I'm being too harsh with this comparison. After all, Lara Parker's portrayal of Angelique was the original, while the more developed Bowser seen in the Mario RPGs came after his original portrayals.But still... other characters had dialogue. One of the things that aggravates me the most is a story where the villain has very little presence. Bowser was supposed to be the villain of Sticker Star. I didn't hate him. I didn't like him. He was just there.
Back to our character list, Kamek had more personality than the rest of the characters combined. When The Dragon is the only one with any character development in your story, something has gone terribly wrong.
So the characters were negligible, the plot was all but nonexistent, and for a game that ignored characters and plot to focus on gameplay, the gameplay was an absolute mess. Sticker Star has a certain charm when you start it, but once that charm wears off, it is horrible.
The only good things I can say about Sticker Star are that the mansion level is nice, the music isn't bad, and the descriptions of Things in the sticker museum are funny.
You shouldn't cringe when someone mentions the name of your favorite series. But just like I add a "the original show from the 60s, not the new movie" whenever I mention Dark Shadows, I now add an "except for Sticker Star" when I praise Paper Mario. Maybe 2012 was just a weird year. Maybe the next Paper Mario will go back to its roots.
But the next time one is announced, I'll eye it with the suspicion that it will end up like Sticker Star, a Paper Mario game in name only.
June 21, 2014
E3 2014 Part 5: Nintendo Keeps It Alive
Did you think Nintendo's role in this little overview of E3 was over? Of course not!
Microsoft
EA
Ubisoft
Sony
Nintendo
More From Nintendo
Conclusion
If Nintendo hadn't already won, this would have done it.
In fact, yes. Nintendo won twice this year.I'll be honest, even though E3 runs for three days, four if you count the first day of press conferences, for me it tends to fade away after the first two. Sure, after all the press conferences are finished, games are being shown on the floor and streamed for those of us at home, but it just isn't as exciting as the initial rush of game announcements.
Nintendo held my attention until E3 was over.
But let's go back to the second day we covered, when Nintendo held its digital event. It also announced some games that weren't mentioned there, like a new Star Fox game for Wii U (along with a tower defense game and a robot fighting game that may or may not be somehow linked to Star Fox, maybe), a mature title called Devil's Third, and Mario Party 10. I'd been feeling nostalgic for the Mario Party series ever since I watched GameInformer's replay of Mario Party 2, my old favorite. Mario Party 10 looks great because it has a mode where the player with the GamePad gets to play as Bowser versus the other 4 players. On the other hand, I haven't seen if the regular, classic gameplay mode lets the characters move individually, or if they're all trapped moving together in a car. I don't get the appeal of the car when they don't have a common enemy.
Two games previously released only in Japan were also announced for localization. (No, not that game, the write-in/call-in campaign is still on for July 1.) One was Fantasy Life, which is an RPG (good) co-developed by 1-UP Studio (good) and Level-5 (awesome), with music by Nobuo Uematsu (YES YES YES).
I've had my eye on Fantasy Life ever since I first heard about it. Now that it's being localized, I already preordered it--though not as quickly as I preordered Professor Layton vs. Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney.
This crossover, which I mentioned briefly in my spoiler-free review of Professor Layton and the Azran Legacy, would have been at the top of my list for localization requests if not for three things:
It was already confirmed for localization and released in Europe, although the North American version kept a vague release window of "early 2014."I want Investigations 2 even more.The crossover's localization was in Level-5's hands, and I trust them more than I trust Capcom.Anyway... this crossover between two of the greatest video game series ever is going to hit North American on August 29! Yeah! I know what I'll be playing between bouts of grad school work!
(I'd like to take this opportunity to express my personal hope that Level-5's love of sword fight scenes will lead to a sequel with a duel between a certain sword-wielding prosecutor and a certain sword-wielding, cloak-wearing, masked master of disguise.)
Ahem.
You know, it's funny--some fans criticize Nintendo's E3 show for focusing too much on the Wii U at E3, and not enough on the 3DS. I loved the Wii U selection, but so far I've preordered three 3DS games and no Wii U games. The 3DS came out of this E3 just fine...
Anyway, I spent the rest of June 10, 11, and 12 tuning into Nintendo Treehouse every now and then to see what they were streaming. This isn't the first time Nintendo has done this--I know Nintendo Treehouse was around last E3, but I also remember tuning in and getting bored. Not so this year! While I didn't watch every game, since I had things to do and they didn't all interest me, I saw a lot of great stuff. For example, I watched some gameplay of Fantasy Life that confirmed my intent to buy it. I also caught a few snippets of Xenoblade Chronicles X, although not as much as I would have liked to see. I checked out a Bayonetta 2 battle, watch Zelda destroy enemies in Hyrule Warriors, and fell further in love with Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker.
Don't think Nintendo was done with game announcements, either. While there weren't as many new games announced as an erroneous schedule led me to believe, Code Name: S.T.E.A.M. was announced for the 3DS in a special un-streamed event. It's a turn-based strategy game by Intelligent Systems, set in an alternate history (Abraham Lincoln vs. aliens) where the Strike Team Eliminating the Alien Menace (S.T.E.A.M.--they worked hard on that one) fights...uh... the alien menace.
I'd be interested enough just for the sheer weirdness of that premise, but then they mentioned that the alien designs drew inspiration from H.P. Lovecraft. All right, count me in! This is much better than what people thought S.T.E.A.M. was going to be, a first-person shooter by Miyamoto. I'll take this game over that any day!
I'm going out of order, but I also watched the Super Smash Bros. 4 tournament, which was fun, even if I had to take breaks to do work.
Really, all I can say is... keep it up, Nintendo! People are saying Nintendo should go back to a traditional stage show at E3, but if this is what a digital event can do, I say keep going. Nintendo came in swinging this year, with new IPs, tons of great games, and enough content to make sure I tuned in every day. Even without a Majora's Mask remake and the localization of Gyakuten Kenji 2, there was enough to satisfy me. In fact, there was so much, I probably forgot some games, so feel free to post in the comments with, "Why didn't you talk about such-and-such," and I'll get back to you.
My final rankings? Nintendo was in the lead by a huge margin, followed by Sony, followed by a much-improved Microsoft, followed by Ubisoft, with poor EA bringing up the rear.
I've preordered three games and have a huge list of titles to wait for. I'll be trying the Super Smash Bros. series and rejoicing over Professor Layton vs. Phoenix Wright. My gaming backlog has no hope.
This was a fantastic E3--not just for Nintendo, but for everyone (except EA and, for me, Ubisoft). I had a great time. What surprises will next year's hold?
Microsoft
EA
Ubisoft
Sony
Nintendo
More From Nintendo
Conclusion
If Nintendo hadn't already won, this would have done it.In fact, yes. Nintendo won twice this year.I'll be honest, even though E3 runs for three days, four if you count the first day of press conferences, for me it tends to fade away after the first two. Sure, after all the press conferences are finished, games are being shown on the floor and streamed for those of us at home, but it just isn't as exciting as the initial rush of game announcements.
Nintendo held my attention until E3 was over.
But let's go back to the second day we covered, when Nintendo held its digital event. It also announced some games that weren't mentioned there, like a new Star Fox game for Wii U (along with a tower defense game and a robot fighting game that may or may not be somehow linked to Star Fox, maybe), a mature title called Devil's Third, and Mario Party 10. I'd been feeling nostalgic for the Mario Party series ever since I watched GameInformer's replay of Mario Party 2, my old favorite. Mario Party 10 looks great because it has a mode where the player with the GamePad gets to play as Bowser versus the other 4 players. On the other hand, I haven't seen if the regular, classic gameplay mode lets the characters move individually, or if they're all trapped moving together in a car. I don't get the appeal of the car when they don't have a common enemy.
Two games previously released only in Japan were also announced for localization. (No, not that game, the write-in/call-in campaign is still on for July 1.) One was Fantasy Life, which is an RPG (good) co-developed by 1-UP Studio (good) and Level-5 (awesome), with music by Nobuo Uematsu (YES YES YES).
I've had my eye on Fantasy Life ever since I first heard about it. Now that it's being localized, I already preordered it--though not as quickly as I preordered Professor Layton vs. Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney.
This crossover, which I mentioned briefly in my spoiler-free review of Professor Layton and the Azran Legacy, would have been at the top of my list for localization requests if not for three things:
It was already confirmed for localization and released in Europe, although the North American version kept a vague release window of "early 2014."I want Investigations 2 even more.The crossover's localization was in Level-5's hands, and I trust them more than I trust Capcom.Anyway... this crossover between two of the greatest video game series ever is going to hit North American on August 29! Yeah! I know what I'll be playing between bouts of grad school work!
(I'd like to take this opportunity to express my personal hope that Level-5's love of sword fight scenes will lead to a sequel with a duel between a certain sword-wielding prosecutor and a certain sword-wielding, cloak-wearing, masked master of disguise.)
Ahem.
You know, it's funny--some fans criticize Nintendo's E3 show for focusing too much on the Wii U at E3, and not enough on the 3DS. I loved the Wii U selection, but so far I've preordered three 3DS games and no Wii U games. The 3DS came out of this E3 just fine...
Anyway, I spent the rest of June 10, 11, and 12 tuning into Nintendo Treehouse every now and then to see what they were streaming. This isn't the first time Nintendo has done this--I know Nintendo Treehouse was around last E3, but I also remember tuning in and getting bored. Not so this year! While I didn't watch every game, since I had things to do and they didn't all interest me, I saw a lot of great stuff. For example, I watched some gameplay of Fantasy Life that confirmed my intent to buy it. I also caught a few snippets of Xenoblade Chronicles X, although not as much as I would have liked to see. I checked out a Bayonetta 2 battle, watch Zelda destroy enemies in Hyrule Warriors, and fell further in love with Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker.
Don't think Nintendo was done with game announcements, either. While there weren't as many new games announced as an erroneous schedule led me to believe, Code Name: S.T.E.A.M. was announced for the 3DS in a special un-streamed event. It's a turn-based strategy game by Intelligent Systems, set in an alternate history (Abraham Lincoln vs. aliens) where the Strike Team Eliminating the Alien Menace (S.T.E.A.M.--they worked hard on that one) fights...uh... the alien menace.
I'd be interested enough just for the sheer weirdness of that premise, but then they mentioned that the alien designs drew inspiration from H.P. Lovecraft. All right, count me in! This is much better than what people thought S.T.E.A.M. was going to be, a first-person shooter by Miyamoto. I'll take this game over that any day!
I'm going out of order, but I also watched the Super Smash Bros. 4 tournament, which was fun, even if I had to take breaks to do work.
Really, all I can say is... keep it up, Nintendo! People are saying Nintendo should go back to a traditional stage show at E3, but if this is what a digital event can do, I say keep going. Nintendo came in swinging this year, with new IPs, tons of great games, and enough content to make sure I tuned in every day. Even without a Majora's Mask remake and the localization of Gyakuten Kenji 2, there was enough to satisfy me. In fact, there was so much, I probably forgot some games, so feel free to post in the comments with, "Why didn't you talk about such-and-such," and I'll get back to you.
My final rankings? Nintendo was in the lead by a huge margin, followed by Sony, followed by a much-improved Microsoft, followed by Ubisoft, with poor EA bringing up the rear.
I've preordered three games and have a huge list of titles to wait for. I'll be trying the Super Smash Bros. series and rejoicing over Professor Layton vs. Phoenix Wright. My gaming backlog has no hope.
This was a fantastic E3--not just for Nintendo, but for everyone (except EA and, for me, Ubisoft). I had a great time. What surprises will next year's hold?
