Fighting Game Controls

The fact that I didn't write anything here yesterday, the day that Super Smash Bros. Brawl was released, is not a coincidence. That game is horribly addicting, just like its predecessor. My brother and I occasionally challenged each other in Super Smash Bros. Melee all the way from its release until a week ago, and we enjoyed every minute of it. It is a game that kept on entertaining even long after we have explored every single-player game mode and fought hundreds and hundreds of matches in its multiplayer mode.

Part of the reason I enjoyed Super Smash Bros. Melee so much over the last six years is because it is a game with incredibly easy controls. Every character has a limited number of normal attacks which are controlled only by combining the A button with directions on the control pad, a list of 4 special moves controlled with the B button, a few throws, dodges, and a single defensive stance that can be used against every kind of attack. It is very easy to learn how to play the game because of the simplicity, and because every character is controlled using the exact same inputs, it is very easy to fully understand multiple characters. No matter how long it has been since I last played the game, I can still remember all of the controls and all of my favorite moves with each of my favorite characters.

As a comparison, I want to mention another fighting game series that I like quite a bit: the Soul Calibur series. I like this series, own both Soul Calibur 2 and 3, and spent quite a bit of time and money playing Soul Calibur in the arcade, but I never played this series anywhere near as much as I played Super Smash Bros. Melee. In part, I think this is because of the difficulty of this series' controls. Every character has a long and elaborate movelist of dozens of completely unique moves, each of which has its own button input (which makes learning new characters the same thing as relearning all of the controls for the game), sometimes involving complex chains of difficult timing and/or tricky sequences like slide input. As such, I can never seem to remember even the basics of a character's moveset for very long. I need to refresh my memory with a half-hour long trip to the training mode practically every time I go to play the single-player mode, I need to occasionally check movelists in the middle of battle, and I can never remember a thing about a character's moveset after putting the game down longer than a few weeks. This makes coming back to the game somewhat intimidating, which has resulted in me not playing Soul Calibur 3 ever since I first stopped shortly after the game was originally released years ago, even though I left it incomplete and like the series quite a bit.

Another game I could compare Melee to is the Tekken series. I rented a Tekken game only once, and pretty much gave up on playing it within a day, after getting stuck, unable to continue, in a few characters' training modes. I think another major fighting game series, the Dead or Alive series, is a lot of fun, but much like with the Soul Calibur games, I can't seem to ever get back to playing Dead or Alive games once I have stopped playing for more than a week.

One series I can keep playing somewhat consistently is the Guilty Gear series, even though its level of general complexity because of various subsystems is fairly high. The game has all kinds of gauges and unusual rules you need to remember (including really unusual things like the Guard Meter, the limitation on combos, and the penalty you receive for not being aggressive enough), but the controls are not terribly complex. Every character has an analogous set of attacks based on the main attacking buttons, so all you need to remember for the various characters are the special moves and their inputs, which mostly are derived from a very limited set of possible inputs and follow certain learnable patterns. While it is not as quick as with Super Smash Bros, I can get back into playing Guilty Gear well within a very short time, so I return to the series fairly often (keeping with it is a different story, since playing it too much gives my thumb blisters).

Overall, I think a good fighting game should emulate the classic series, like the Street Fighter series, and keep things relatively simple to control. There should be as much similarity in control inputs between characters as possible, and these should be kept relatively simple. Requiring many complex button inputs for a character to even be decently viable just results in a game that is only appreciated by a very dedicated fanbase of very limited size, because it excludes too many gamers like me who like the genre, but are not so big of fans that we are willing to dedicate huge amounts of time and effort to play.

Metal Gear Solid Codec calls

In my last post on extraneous back-ground information and encyclopedias, I made an off-hand reference to Metal Gear Solid's Codec system as a means of delivering information to the player. I decided that the Codec system is exceptional enough to warrant its own post. In many ways, it is a very good system for both allowing the player to learn more about the game world and for developing the cast of characters.

In some ways, the Codec is simply a substitute for towns full of random NPCs a player can talk to. You simply choose an NPC to talk to and then listen to the NPC either give you some helpful advice or blab about something pointless, and is used primarily as a means of reminding the player of their current goal in the game. However, the implementation of the Codec system elevates it to a much higher level than just talking with NPCs, like what is seen in most other games.

First off, the most distinguishing aspect of the Codec is that the player can use it to talk to the support cast whenever the player wants, whether exploring a new area, sneaking around, or in the middle of a boss battle. So, the player can interact with the NPCs whenever the player wants to. The player can talk with the supporting cast whenever he feels like it, without having to go to a specific location or anything. Furthermore, this lets the player ask the NPCs for advice even during a boss battle. For example, if a player can't figure out how to defeat a boss like Vulcan Raven in the first Metal Gear Solid, he can always go to Colonel Campbell for a few tips. This makes the Codec characters generally much more useful than typical hint-dropping NPCs, since the player can turn to them for advice when he actually needs it.

And it really does feel like the player can ask the Codec characters questions. For example, if you equip a grenade in Metal Gear Solid 3 and call Sigint up, he will talk to Snake about grenades. Ditto for various other items and equipment in the game. This lets the player intentionally equip various items to provoke various different conversations with Sigint (or whoever else is giving this kind of information in other Metal Gear games), thereby letting the player "ask" him about things.

On top of that, the best part of Metal Gear Solid's Codec system is that the NPCs don't just give information to the player, they actually engage in a real conversation with the main character. Snake actually talks back to the NPCs, and they often go off on wild, yet very funny, tangents. A good example is how asking Para medic in MGS3 about any kind of animal results in Snake asking how good it tastes. Running jokes, conversations about pointless topics, and the like don't further the plot, but they do develop the characters. I have a theory that the best way to make a character likable is to have that character engage in pointless, mundane, silly, fun conversations. It is a great way to get to know characters.

A lot of the successful elements of the Codec system can be found in very different games. For example, I get a similar vibe from conversations in the Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney series of games. Most of the time in any Phoenix Wright game, there is usually another character following the protagonist around. Whenever you examine something in an area, Phoenix and the other character usually end up talking about it. Furthermore, you really can ask NPCs about things by presenting them with evidence or asking about specific people. These questions also provoke involved, yet entertaining dialogues with the main character, that often involve running jokes and over-the top personalities. It is no wonder that the Phoenix Wright series and the Metal Gear franchise are well known for having memorable and well-developed casts of characters, even though they are very different games.

Ar Tonelico Part 4

Game Completion: Pretty much full completion of the Misha path through the game.

Well, I must say Ar tonelico took me quite a bit longer than I expected. What I thought was about 50% ended up being more like 30%. In fact, I think this game is in some ways too long of a game, something which I really need to explain more.

Ar tonelico's plot is split into three phases, each about twenty hours long. It actually has a pretty good structure. The first phase introduces the main characters, explores most of the setting, and establishes the central conflict very successfully. In the second phase, the plot splits into two different paths for most of the phase. At the end of the second phase is a "false" ending (which rather kindly unlocks all the post-game bonus features, which is a nice touch). The third phase has a major change to the cast and mostly re-unifies the two paths, leading up into a proper final battle. What is more, in each phase of the game there is a noticeable increase in the difficulty level (though in this game's case, it is a change from incredibly easy, to easy, to having a small chance of providing a challenge). At its core, this is a solid three-act structure that can be very useful. Unfortunately, it doesn't work very well in this game.

The problem with the structure and pacing of this game is that the third part of the game feels forced and unnecessary, and contradicts and weakens the plot of the previous parts. The center of the story of this game is the love triangle between Lyner, Aurica, and Misha, and it works very well up until the end of the second phase. The split path in the second phase is a choice between an Aurica route or a Misha route, and this split works really well. The (in my opinion, annoying) uncertainty of the love triangle fades away in the second phase, replaced by a visible growing relationship between Lyner and the chosen girl, ending with them falling in love and staying together in the false ending. However, the problem is that this good plot development only really ends properly in a false ending, which is obviously only a part of the way through the game and is very unsatisfying. The beginning of the third phase is based on the hero suddenly fixating on a third girl, Shurelia (a minor character up to that point who sacrificed herself at the end of the second phase), which leads to the reintroduction of the love triangle (with Shurelia added), pretty much ignoring the character development of the second phase. The choices you made in the second phase have an effect again at the true ending of the game, but up until that point the plot of the third phase is extremely focused on the third girl, Shurelia, to the exclusion of the more likable Aurica and Misha who have been developed from the start.

I think Ar tonelico would be a better game if it did not transform Shurelia into a major character so late into the game, after the love triangle had already been resolved. She should probably have either remained a minor character (an ideal for Aurica and Misha to pursue, I suppose), or have been a major character and romance interest for Lyner from the start. Also, building the false ending and third phase around Shurelia specifically puts too much emphasis on her and leaves the false ending as too happy of one, so I would probably have the false ending be based on the girl you have chosen up until that point. For example, the point in the second phase where Misha resumes her role as the Star Singer, singing eternally to seal away the villain, is very similar to the situation Shurelia is placed in for the false ending, and is actually much more dramatic (in fact, it is one of the best scenes in the game). The game cheapens that scene on the Misha route by quickly undoing Misha's sacrifice, so I think that putting a scene like that as the false ending would be more appropriate than leaving it in the middle of a phase.

I suppose that is enough about my complaints concerning the plot. On to the things I liked.

First, I must say that, appropriately enough for a game built around something called Song Magic, the music in Ar tonelico is very good. There are a few tracks that are absolutely terrible (the song played whenever a character is being goofy is jarring and painful), but these are rare, and there are many, many good songs. In particular, the plot important "Hymn Crystal" songs are incredibly good and add a lot to the game. I just wish there was a greater link between activating normal Song Magic in battle and actual music.

Second, I still like the Reyvateil characters (even the third, Shurelia) and their Cosmospheres. Shurelia's Cosmosphere doesn't have the surrealistic charm of the others', but it has more real plot and actual battles, which makes it interesting enough. I wish the strong points of Shurelia's long plot and battle system was combined better with the way the other Cosmopsheres reflected personality and subconscious thought.

Third, despite a few places where the plot gets a bit preachy and cliche in the third phase, I like the way the game breaks from the mold of having characters defeat villains with brute force all of the time. The game could have set up Mir as a sympathetic villain a bit better (it is amazing that they were able to do so at all, considering she is so single-minded on total genocide), but the events of the actual final battle, in which the heros try to convince Mir to end her rampage, is a good sequence and matches the basic premise of the game (the hero helping Reyvateils heal their mental scars) very well.

I am still curious about the Aurica route through the game, but I will probably set this game down for a while. I have been holding back a few other really good games far longer than I intended.

Glossaries

One feature of various video-games that I always appreciate is a simple glossary that the player can access at any time. Some various games that have had this kind of feature include Xenosaga Episodes 1 and 3, all three Metroid Prime games, Final Fantasy XII, and several others. I have always though that a glossary can be a very useful feature in a videogame with a complex world.

One of the best functions of a glossary is that it serves as a place to put background information in a game without cluttering up the writing on the game's main plot. It can be really easy to go a bit overboard and write a lot of background information for a game, particularly RPGs and other games built around having lots of complex characters. However, if a developer tried to put all of that information into the text of the main plot, the game's narrative would get horribly bogged down by unimportant minutia. However, there are plenty of people who like knowing that kind of information, so it isn't a bad idea to make all of that background information available to the player in some optional manner.

There have been quite a few methods of giving this information to the player over the years. One of the oldest is putting this background information into the dialog of random townspeople in RPGs. Another variation are the optional conversations with support characters in the Metal Gear Solid games. It is possible to acquire an incredible amount of completely useless and trivial, yet entertaining, information about every place, character, and item in those games from these conversations.

However, I tend to prefer having an accessible glossary to be more helpful than those other methods for one primary reason: it can be referenced at any time in the game. In most RPGs and the Metal Gear Solid games, it is possible to miss conversations or pass the point where you can go back and read them again. A glossary lets the player refresh their memory of things at any time. This can be useful for a player who plays a single game over a large span of time, particularly if the glossary includes some kind of ongoing plot summary.

Another useful feature of a glossary that can't be replicated by simple NPC conversations is that it can easily include extras such as artwork and character models. Oftentimes, it can be difficult to pay attention to detailed enemy models during gameplay, particularly since zoomed-in camera angles are rare during any kind of combat. So, it is nice to be able to look at the model of a main character, monster, NPC, or item in a glossary section at one's leisure. I would have liked a feature like this in Front Mission 4, since I rarely get a chance to look at the various mechs in that game up close. A glossary would thus be a useful feature (particularly since Front Mission 3 actually gave a lot of background information and artwork as part of its Network feature, so there would be precedent).

While a glossary is a kind of extra feature, it is the kind of extra feature I always like seeing in videogames.

Drakengard: Caim and the Red Dragon

One thing from the Drakengard games that I have really wanted to discuss is how characters from the first game are used in Drakengard 2, and how the characters are shown to grow and develop. Since Drakengard 2 only follows the first ending from the original game, I will only discuss how the characters are portrayed in that path of first game's plot.

The hero of the first game, Caim, is a man of complexities and contradictions. For one thing, he hates the Empire and dragons because his parents were killed by one of the Empire's black dragons some time previously. Of course, this kind of hatred is an over-used cliche, but unlike in the cliche situation, this hatred is not a minor attribute of the character, it is one of his most defining aspects. Caim's rage is so all-consuming that he is nearly self-destructive in his aggression and is merciless to his foes. His violent nature is so extreme that it terrifies his allies and makes the even the red dragon comment on his cruelty, such as the time he slaughters the Empire's child soldiers. At the same time, Caim is a survivor who does not die without a fight. Rather than die fighting a hopeless battle against the Empire, he makes a pact with one of the dragons he hates so much, bonding his life to hers. The interesting thing is that he is as much driven by his hatred of dragons in that act (in which he at first tries to coerce the dragon into obeying him) as he was defying that hatred. His hatred is terrible, but at the same time it is what drives him on to survive and gives him the strength to defeat his enemy (which is portrayed so monstrously that you never feel unustified in hating it). As such, the game doesn't condemn Caim's hatred, nor does it portray it as a necessarily negative quality.

Adding on to the complications of Caim's character is his genuine protective nature. Caim is a man who looks out for other people and protects them, and this is clearly seen with his desire to protect his sister Furiae. He fights to protect the world, and he seems to have a strong sense of justice. These attributes drive him as much as his hatred does, even though they seem like very contradictory things at first glance (certainly, the way Caim both spares Manah's life and condemns her to life of suffering is a sign of this contradiction, though perhaps more of his just side). Of course, anything more clear than that gets a bit difficult to describe, because after only a short time in the game, Caim becomes completely mute due to his pact with the red dragon, the relationship which easily defines the first game.

The red dragon is certainly one of the most unique and fascinating characters I have seen in videogames. Certainly, one of the most unusual things about her is the fact that she is probably the only female dragon I have ever seen which is portrayed as a powerful creature capable of widescale destruction (female dragons are rare enough). Added onto this is the combination of her pride, honest cynicism and hatred for humans (refusing to even tell humans her name), her lines being all voiced by a very good voice-actress, and her being the most talkative character in the game, resulting in her being a very memorable and entertaining who does not fit into any typical mold. Her talkativeness is in fact one of her most important qualities. Because Caim can't speak, the red dragon pretty much does all of his speaking for him, while also constantly commenting on his actions (usually mocking him for his human flaws and violent cruelty) and expressing her own feelings and opinions. In a sense, she serves as the main narrative voice who describes the action and the characters (though she is certainly not an objective voice, since she expresses somewhat inhuman thought and a lot of disdain for the people around her).

Because the red dragon is so open about her disdain for humankind and pride in her draconic nature, and Caim hates dragon so much, the very act that the two form a pact is an interesting contradiction. In a sense, the fact that they share one life after making a pact is a metaphor for how the two have to give up their own identities as a human who hates dragons and as a dragon who hates humans as a result of their partnership. Caim progresses from a person who pretty much hates everything, especially dragons, to a person who trusts the red dragon, depends on her, and encourages her. The red dragon progresses from an aloof dragon who looks down on humans to someone who respects Caim's strength and is willing to fight against incredible odds on his behalf. The way Caim can encourage the red dragon to fight a legendary dragon by just rubbing her nose with his hand is a sign of that growth, and the red dragon's eventual sacrifice to save the world is the end result of that change.

The bond between Caim and the red dragon is shown to be even greater in the events of Drakengard 2. In this game both the Empire and Caim's sister are gone, leaving him neither his hatred or the person he wanted to protect. In their place are the Knights of the Seal who protect the world and the imprisoned red dragon who suffers as the final living seal. With personal hatred behind him and no more reason to act as the world's guardian, Caim becomes the One-Eyed Man, the enigmatic destroyer determined to save the red dragon, even if it means destroying the world in the process. Nowe, the hero of Drakengard 2, fights Caim to avenge his parents (an interesting repeat of the same motivation) and to save the world, but against Caim's determination to save his pact-partner, even Nowe's noble (and traditional) motivations seem hollow (a fact that Nowe comments upon himself). At the same time, the red dragon's hatred of mankind is revealed to have never been lessened, and has grown even worse (enough for her to try to burn the world), but her bond with Caim has never wavered. She sacrificed herself to be the world's seal to protect Caim, not to protect mankind. Both of the two were willing to give up the world for the other's sake, and while this results in a tragic end, it is still portrayed as a wonderful thing.

Anyways, I only have a few minor observations left. First, the games go with an unconventional theme of condemning naive ideals while making terribly violent actions to selfishly protect loved ones the role model, never condmending characters like Caim and often soflty condemning the ideals of people who hold back in battle where violence is needed and harshly condemning people who choose to sacrifice others rather than protect anything themselves. Also, while I didn't comment on them too much, the character Manah's development in these two games is fairly good itself, and the relationship between Nowe and the blue dragon Legna both serves as both a parallel and an opposite to the relationship between Caim and the red dragon.

Customization and Transparency

I have finally reached the final battle in Front Mission, so I am taking that as an excuse to talk some more about that game's system for customizing characters, and character customization in general. As I have talked about before, Front Mission has a customization system built around building up parameters through use. As you use these abilities, your characters become more specialized and gain special abilities that can radically improve their fighting power.

However, this system has some complicating factors. First off, every character in the game has a specialty they are naturally good at. For example, some characters gain more bonus Melee experience points when they level up, while others get more Dodge experience point. Furthermore, characters gain special skills at different experience values. For instance, Royd gains his fist Melee special skill when he has 700 points in his melee skill, while Natalie requires 1000 points. On top of that, some characters have fewer skill slots that other characters, and some characters can't even learn specific skills. Yeehin, for example, is a Short specialist, like Natalie. However, while Natalie can learn all three Short skills, Yeehin can only learn one specific one. As a result, different characters have radically different customization options and potential.

The real problem is that all of this information is completely hidden from the player. While it is possible to infer from character's starting stats what they are generally good at, there is no way of guessing what skills that can learn and when. So, the player is forced to either start specializing characters blindly, or consult a strategy guide. While there is a customization system, it is so opaque to the player that it denies the ability to plan things out or make meaningful decisions. As a result, the system is not very fun to tinker with.

Unfortunately, a lot more games than just Front Mission have this problem, including several relatively recent games. Tales of Symphonia requires each character to choose a specialization between Power and Technical, without giving the player any idea what exact powers either specialty grants. Final Fantasy XII forces the player to explore the License board without any foreknowledge of what abilities there are and where they are located on the board. Most Fire Emblem games don't tell the player which characters can build support other, how long it takes to build support levels, nor what the benefits are until the support is already in effect. Even Final Fantasy Tactics, which otherwise has excellent transparency, still doesn't tell the player how to unlock classes until they are already unlocked for at least one character.

In order to make informed decisions about how to progress a character it is necessary to know ahead of time what the character will be gaining, and what they will be giving up. A good example of a game with good character customization  is Xenosaga Ep. 3. In that game, every one of the characters has two skill paths that represent very different customization focuses for each character. Thankfully, every ability on both paths are available the player's viewing from the get-go (with the exception of ultimate abilities at the very end of the path). So, the player can make a though out decision about how each character will specialize and how to balance the team out with these decisions.

Drakengard's Story, Structure, and Multiple Endings

Some of the biggest things about the two Drakengard games that I did not touch on in my last two posts were their stories and the game systems relevant to advancing the plot and determining which ending you see (since both games have multiple endings).

First, I will repeat my claim that Drakengard 2 has a better story than the original Drakengard. The first Drakengard has great character development built around the interactions between the (mostly) silent hero Caim and the fierce and proud red dragon he rides into battle, and it has a few good secondary characters, but other than that the story is fairly straightforward, relies a lot on the simplistic "Alliance of Good Nations versus the Evil Empire" cliche, and has very few unusual or unpredictable plot turns (on the main story path, at least). Drakengard 2 also has a few cliches, but the greater number of central characters, the more complex villains, and equally good character development when compared to the original makes it a lot more interesting of a game. In fact, certain events in Drakengard 2 help explain a few things left overly vague in the original game, which I think is a benefit to both. However, while I will hold to this claim, I will qualify it by saying that this is only true if you look at the games as linear stories with a single ending, which is not quite the case.

Both Drakengard games have multiple endings that are unlocked by playing through the game more after seeing the first ending. However, this is the only real point of similarity between these two games, because there is a massive difference between them otherwise: old missions are unlocked to be played again whenever you like in Drakengard, but not in Drakengard 2. In the sequel, you have to play through the entire game from start to finish in order to play the main story chapters again or see a new ending, which is the game's largest flaw. It both makes it impossible to go back to a story mission just because it would be fun or because it is a good mission for building up weapon levels, and makes seeing new endings extremely tedious. This is aggravated further by having very little variation between playthroughs (only the final chapter changes with each ending), and by having each ending only be decided by which playthrough it happens to be, rather than through the actions of the player. This is an unfortunate case of a sequel removing an important and fun part of its predecessor's game design.

In the first Drakengard, there are many optional side-paths, and you unlock new endings by opening up alternate routes and fulfilling hidden conditions. Each of the ally characters is recruited on an optional route (one of which is unlocked only after you see the first ending). In one of the more unusual choices of the game design, you can also unlock an optional route with each character by bringing that character backwards in time to a story scene you saw before you could recruit that character. Endings Two and Three are found by reaching an optional objective in a certain mission, which unlocks an alternative final chapter. If you complete all of the optional paths related to your allies, you can unlock a rather long and complicated alternate path through the last third of the game, and if you accomplish a hidden objective within that path, you reach a very different (and bizarre) alternate final chapter, where you can see the Endings Four and Five. It is extremely convoluted, and the end result does not make a lot of sense, but the game keeps things clear by making the conditions for unlocking new routes known to the player, and it is a lot of fun seeing different ways the game's story could have played out. One thing I like in particular is how the largest optional path is portrayed as a desperate attempt to avoid the greatest tragedy of the main plot, but at the same time makes circumventing that tragedy extremely difficult. This is one of the best examples I know for a good implementation of altering paths in an action game with a story.

Despite Drakengard's good system of unlocking endings, the endings themselves actually leave a lot to be desired. The first ending is a good, solid ending that is carried on well to make a great story in the sequel, but other than that things are problematic. Drakengard casts aside all of the usual rules of rewarding the player's effort by making the enjoyability of an ending inversely proportional to the difficulty in reaching the ending. The second and third endings are good, but depressing, the fourth ending is a capstone to a really bizarre and morbid final chapter, and the fifth ending combines the most illogical and anticlimactic final "battle" I have ever seen with a short and depressingly unrewarding final ending. I think endings two through three be "bad" endings is actually a pretty good idea on the designers' part. It reinforces the dark story of the game, and makes the player hungry for the "ideal route" that will lead to a hoped for "good ending". However, the designers don't follow it up by actually providing a good ending for following the most difficult route, which leaves the player severely unsatisfied (at least, it did so for me). The designers could have at least provided an exciting and fun final battle for that path...

In terms of the actual endings, Drakengard 2 is very different from its predecessor, but if anything the endings are worse in that game, especially if you consider how difficult it is to reach each ending. Each of the endings requires the characters to make severe changes in attitude with extremely little justification, which results in the endings having severe shifts in tone and focus compared to the rest of the game. Namely (please forgive the spoiler), having Legna be the final boss of the first ending did not make much sense, the twist that results in the second ending is inexplicable, and having Legna be the final boss again for the third and final ending is depressing and unsatisfying. At no point do you get to fight the real villains of the game, and instead you just end up fighting characters who are likable and endearing, over silly reasons, and then you watch the heroes pat themselves on the back and claim that the real villains have been defeated, without ever getting to fight them properly. What is more, the third final sequence is just a variation of the first final sequence that has been modified to make a little more sense and with a contradictory outcome, even though you have to play through the game three whole times in order to see it. It just is not worth it.

I think I should probably stop before this post turns even more into a rant about Drakengard 2's ending... Anyways, I think I still have one more post regarding the Drakengard games before I am done.