While watching my brother play through Grandia over the last few weeks, one thing I notice is that, in certain parts of the game, there simply isn't a lot of variety to the enemies. Many field areas and dungeons in the game average have an average of four or so enemy types, a fairly reasonable number, if perhaps a bit small, but some places are far worse than that.
The places in the game with the worst enemy variety are almost always military bases full of soldiers. It seems to be a rule in that game that every dungeon or major scene that has soldiers as enemies will have exactly one kind of soldier for you to fight, that will always show up in groups of three. They don't even show up in multiples of three, even though up to nine enemies can be present in a single battle, and instead just stick to groups of three. Other games that feature battles against soldiers tend to mix up the kinds of soldier that you fight, mix in other kinds of creature with the soldiers, and change up the numbers, but that doesn't happen at all in Grandia. You don't even get to fight the tanks that are seen everywhere in these dungeons. Even worse, every solider in the game uses a recolor of the same soldier sprite, and the soldiers all tend to fight using similar attacks and relative stats, so every solider-based dungeon involves battles just like the previous soldier-based dungeon. It is an incredibly boring lack of variety.
Soldier dungeons are not the only places with that problem, as well. One other place in the game, the Twin Towers dungeon, has only two kinds of enemies, and one kind is found in a single room that is visited briefly by a single character. The rest of the dungeon is filled entirely with weird medusa creatures and nothing else. This is all the more remarkable because this dungeon is technically occupied by the same soldiers you fight elsewhere in the game, but you can't break up the monotony and fight them there.
A somewhat less extreme, but still relevant example is the Typhoon Tower, an important dungeon in the middle section of the game. This tower is broken up into three sections: the path to the tower, the area around the entrance to the tower, and Typhoon Tower itself. The path to the tower is filled with nothing but a single type of monstrous plant enemy, and is thus about as boring as a soldier dungeon. The area around the tower is actually halfway decent, combining the plant enemies with new "Klepp Soldiers" (a type of bird-man monster) and Lizard Riders (Klepps that ride lizards). The tower itself is filled with six types of enemies, but these are broken up into three types of Klepp soldiers and three types of lizard riders. This would not necessarily be bad, but each kind of Klepp solider comes in the same numbers as the other kinds of Klepp soldiers, tends to have similar stats as other Klepp soldiers, and uses the same attacks as other Klepp soldiers. They are technically different, but only in the most minor ways. The three kinds of Lizard Rider are equivalently similar to each other. Thus, they may be technically different, but fighting an Elite Klepp doesn't provide much in the way of a new experience compared to fighting a basic Klepp Soldier. Thus, even though there is quite a bit of variety of enemy type in the dungeon, it still ends up feeling very monotonous and dull. The first stretch involves fight a lot of plants, and the latter stretch involves fighting countless Klepps that all fight alike, so other than the initial introduction of the Klepps there really is a lot of repetition and little variety.
The truly depressing part of all of this is that some other parts of the game have quite a bit more variety. For example, despite its small size the Castle of Dreams has five enemy types, all of which are completely different from each other and four of which were never seen before that dungeon. They range from high-HP, low-defense zombies that are weak to fire and use status attacks to low-HP phantom mages that are highly resistant to attack and use powerful attack magic, with everything in-between being equally distinct. What is more, these enemies show up in varying numbers and practically each room has its own combination of enemy types, so there is a fair amount of unpredictability and diversity. Yet, the Castle of Dreams is a small optional area, while the monotonous zones are large and important to the story.
I will admit that Grandia makes such repetitive combat more interesting than some other games, because the player needs to constantly build up different stats and has a fairly wide variety of ways of doing that which you may need to cycle through, but it is easy to get sick of seeing a particular enemy group when you have done nothing but fight that one kind of enemy for two hours of gameplay. Even the best combat system gets dull if you don't get to fight new things once and a while.
Thursday, December 11, 2008
The Fear of Over-leveling
Strangely enough, one of the things I am afraid of most when playing RPGs is becoming over-leveled. This can have odd effects on my playing habits; for example, I often try to avoid normal battles when back-tracking through areas I have already cleared, just to avoid gaining unnecessary experience points. However, this fear of over-leveling comes directly from my love for a challenging experience. In many RPGs, in order to maintain a consistently high degree of challenge, the player has to keep his levels as low as possible, which I think can be a big headache.
In an RPG, the difficulty of an encounter is dependent on the relative levels of the PCs and the monsters. If the heroes have higher levels than the enemies, the battle will be comparatively easy, and if the heroes have lower levels than the enemies, than the battle will be comparatively hard. Now then, if the player finds an opponent to be too difficult to defeat, it is usually possible to gain a few more levels by fighting random enemies, which will make it easier to overcome the hard opponent. But if the player finds that a particular challenge is too easy, it is usually impossible to lose levels and make it easier short of starting the game over from the beginning. So once a player has over-leveled, it is hard to go back.
It can be surprisingly easy to become over-leveled as well. Nowadays, many RPGs are designed such that it is possible to beat the game without level grinding, even if the player goes straight towards his next destination constantly. At the same time, RPGs are usually full of side-roads and optional areas to explore, backtracking through old areas to do, and side-quests to undertake. However, exploring optional areas and taking on sidequests exposes the player to more random battles, which means more experience points and levels. So, if the game is designed to be beatable even if the player doesn't go on sidequests, then a player who does take on sidequests will find his characters to be over-leveled. Furthermore, since many RPGs don't give the player very many clues (or deceptive clues) about what level range is appropriate for specific areas, a player may not even realize they are becoming over-leveled until it is too late.
There are few different ways to avoid this problem. First off, the game designers can design the game such that the player has to normally level grind in order to clear the game's main challenges, as was the case in many older RPGs. Unfortunately, level grinding is itself a problem to be avoided, since it is simply not fun most of the time. A second option is to let players who want a greater challenge actually give up levels. This has been done in a few games: late in Wild ARMs IV and V it becomes possible to give up levels in exchange for rare items and equipment, and in Disgaea games it is possible to reduce characters back to level one in order to gain better stat growths. This can work, particularly if it become available early in the game and required level ranges are well advertised, though I have yet to see a perfect execution. Finally, one can design a game so the PCs level growth is strongly tied to plot progression. For example, in Chrono Cross, the stats of the characters are strongly linked to how many bosses the player has beaten. This is one of my favorite solutions, since it eliminates the problems of over-leveling and level grinding at the same time.
I guess the biggest contributing problem is that RPGs don't have difficulty settings often enough. If character level is the one and only factor determining game difficulty, then it makes the problem of over-leveling that much more prominent.
In an RPG, the difficulty of an encounter is dependent on the relative levels of the PCs and the monsters. If the heroes have higher levels than the enemies, the battle will be comparatively easy, and if the heroes have lower levels than the enemies, than the battle will be comparatively hard. Now then, if the player finds an opponent to be too difficult to defeat, it is usually possible to gain a few more levels by fighting random enemies, which will make it easier to overcome the hard opponent. But if the player finds that a particular challenge is too easy, it is usually impossible to lose levels and make it easier short of starting the game over from the beginning. So once a player has over-leveled, it is hard to go back.
It can be surprisingly easy to become over-leveled as well. Nowadays, many RPGs are designed such that it is possible to beat the game without level grinding, even if the player goes straight towards his next destination constantly. At the same time, RPGs are usually full of side-roads and optional areas to explore, backtracking through old areas to do, and side-quests to undertake. However, exploring optional areas and taking on sidequests exposes the player to more random battles, which means more experience points and levels. So, if the game is designed to be beatable even if the player doesn't go on sidequests, then a player who does take on sidequests will find his characters to be over-leveled. Furthermore, since many RPGs don't give the player very many clues (or deceptive clues) about what level range is appropriate for specific areas, a player may not even realize they are becoming over-leveled until it is too late.
There are few different ways to avoid this problem. First off, the game designers can design the game such that the player has to normally level grind in order to clear the game's main challenges, as was the case in many older RPGs. Unfortunately, level grinding is itself a problem to be avoided, since it is simply not fun most of the time. A second option is to let players who want a greater challenge actually give up levels. This has been done in a few games: late in Wild ARMs IV and V it becomes possible to give up levels in exchange for rare items and equipment, and in Disgaea games it is possible to reduce characters back to level one in order to gain better stat growths. This can work, particularly if it become available early in the game and required level ranges are well advertised, though I have yet to see a perfect execution. Finally, one can design a game so the PCs level growth is strongly tied to plot progression. For example, in Chrono Cross, the stats of the characters are strongly linked to how many bosses the player has beaten. This is one of my favorite solutions, since it eliminates the problems of over-leveling and level grinding at the same time.
I guess the biggest contributing problem is that RPGs don't have difficulty settings often enough. If character level is the one and only factor determining game difficulty, then it makes the problem of over-leveling that much more prominent.
Tuesday, December 2, 2008
Grandia: Characters Leaving the Party
Grandia is an unusual RPG in that it features a fairly complex system of building up characters and at the same time has multiple characters that leave the party permanently. Normally, it is very disappointing and disheartening when a character you have spent hours building up properly leaves, but Grandia has an interesting mechanic that helps alleviate this problem.
Grandia's ability system is built around building up a characters skill levels in their weapons and in the game's four magic elements. By building these skill levels up to certain pre-determined levels, a character can learn new special moves or magic spells. However, doing so can involve putting in a lot of dedicated effort and intentionally dragging out fights to acquire more skill experience points. Furthermore, giving a character access to one of the four magical elements requires the player to trade in a Mana Egg, a rather rare and valuable item. So, building up a character requires the expenditure of a lot of time and limited resources.
Normally, it is advantageous for a player in an RPG to neglect spending valuable resources on temporary characters. However, even knowing beforehand that certain characters in Grandia were going to leave the party at the end of the first disc, I still ended up building them up. I felt comfortable doing so because Grandia gives a consolation prize of sorts when a party member leaves for good: skill books that can be used to transfer part a fraction of the old character's skill levels to another character. So, if I spend a lot of effort building up the stats of a party member who will leave, I can give a part of those stats to either help a new party member catch up or to help a character get a high level move late in the game. In that way, building up a character who is going to leave becomes advantageous in the long-term, since if you don't spend the time building that character up in the first place, you won't have any skill levels to pass on to other characters.
Grandia II does something very similar to the original in this regard, but at an even better deal. When one of the game's characters leaves the party for good, the player gets a skill book that transfers that character's accumulated skill points and magic points in total to another character of the player's choice to do with as the player pleases. I think this approach to handling leaving party members is a lot more interesting than what happens in games like Final Fantasy V, where the party member who leaves is replaced by a carbon copy clone stat-wise.
There is a lot of story potential to be had from a main character leaving the party, and it would be a shame to let a game's ability system get in the way of that. However, you don't want the player getting too upset about a character leaving for game mechanic reasons, and giving the player a reward for putting time and resources into a temporary character is a great way to ward that problem off. It encourages the player to become more invested in every character, irregardless of how long the character is in the party.
Grandia's ability system is built around building up a characters skill levels in their weapons and in the game's four magic elements. By building these skill levels up to certain pre-determined levels, a character can learn new special moves or magic spells. However, doing so can involve putting in a lot of dedicated effort and intentionally dragging out fights to acquire more skill experience points. Furthermore, giving a character access to one of the four magical elements requires the player to trade in a Mana Egg, a rather rare and valuable item. So, building up a character requires the expenditure of a lot of time and limited resources.
Normally, it is advantageous for a player in an RPG to neglect spending valuable resources on temporary characters. However, even knowing beforehand that certain characters in Grandia were going to leave the party at the end of the first disc, I still ended up building them up. I felt comfortable doing so because Grandia gives a consolation prize of sorts when a party member leaves for good: skill books that can be used to transfer part a fraction of the old character's skill levels to another character. So, if I spend a lot of effort building up the stats of a party member who will leave, I can give a part of those stats to either help a new party member catch up or to help a character get a high level move late in the game. In that way, building up a character who is going to leave becomes advantageous in the long-term, since if you don't spend the time building that character up in the first place, you won't have any skill levels to pass on to other characters.
Grandia II does something very similar to the original in this regard, but at an even better deal. When one of the game's characters leaves the party for good, the player gets a skill book that transfers that character's accumulated skill points and magic points in total to another character of the player's choice to do with as the player pleases. I think this approach to handling leaving party members is a lot more interesting than what happens in games like Final Fantasy V, where the party member who leaves is replaced by a carbon copy clone stat-wise.
There is a lot of story potential to be had from a main character leaving the party, and it would be a shame to let a game's ability system get in the way of that. However, you don't want the player getting too upset about a character leaving for game mechanic reasons, and giving the player a reward for putting time and resources into a temporary character is a great way to ward that problem off. It encourages the player to become more invested in every character, irregardless of how long the character is in the party.
Monday, November 24, 2008
Naruto Ultimate Ninja 3: Single-Player Modes
Naruto Ultimate Ninja has two single-player modes, "Hero's History" mode and "Ultimate Contest Mode". Both could be described as story modes, with "Hero's History" mode being an extremely abbreviated adaptation of the Naruto manga's storyline and key battles, and "Ultimate Contest" mode depicting an original story. There is nothing like a traditional arcade mode, so you if you want to play the game, you only really have these two modes and the versus mode. As a whole, I found these choices to be pretty lackluster.
First off, when I say that "Hero's History" mode is abbreviated, I really mean it. This mode supposedly covers the entire first part of the Naruto manga and anime, but it cuts out a very large number of events and battles, so the entire thing can be settled in about an hour of play. Most of the characters in the game don't even show up in it at all, the focus is very clearly placed on Naruto Uzumaki's battles to the exclusion of most others, and there are no branching paths or alternate versions of events at all, so it is fairly unimaginative and pretty much has no replay value. It is obvious that this was not the main focus of the game.
"Ultimate Contest", on the other hand, is fairly elaborate. Rather than being a linear series of events, it lets you freely control Naruto as he explores the Hidden leaf Village and participates in the original story. This could have been really fun, if it were not for the fact that the original story is a fairly simplistic tournament plot and you really have nowhere to explore except the village. The plot really is just a shallow excuse for a number of battles against other ninja, which would be fine (this is a fighting game after all), if it were not for the fact that the set-up limited the player to using Naruto almost exclusively, made him fight pretty much nothing but the other Leaf and sand ninja that are his own age, and placed all of the battles in an extremely limited sub-set of the game's many fun battlefields. So, the main plot of the "Ultimate Contest" mode has no real variety and a boring plot.
In addition to the tournament plot, "Ultimate Contest" mode features a number of events and missions you can undertake, which help you gather money you need to unlock bonus material (voice samples, movie clips, etc) as well as expand your repertoire of jutsu for the customization system. Fortunately, you can actually use any ninja you have unlocked for this mode in the event and mission battles, but unfortunately the events and missions don't really focus on battle at all. An event is just as likely to be a mix of completely brainless fetch quests (AKA scavenger hunts where the items you need to find show up on your map) and minigames as it is likely to contain a battle (and battles are often combined with fetch quests and minigames). What is more, most of the rarest and most important items you can acquire, the ones that allow customization of each character's strongest Ultimate Jutsu, never require battle at all. Some of the challenge battles found in this mode can be fairly fun, but as a whole, despite this being a fighting game, there simply isn't a lot of fighting, certainly nowhere enough to let the player try out all of the game's characters, Ultimate Jutsu, and customization options.
"Ultimate Contest" mode also has an experience system that lets ninja level up through battle and completing missions, but this system never really seems to matter (most battles can be won as easily with a low-level ninja as a high-level one). Actually, since other than the battles where you have to use Naruto there are practically as many battles as there are characters and most of the time every character gains experience at the same rate, there really isn't a lot of purpose to trying to raise levels for anyone.
The one thing I want out of the single-player modes of any fighting game is a chance to fight a number of battles using all of the different characters in the game. In both original fighting games like Street Fighter, Soul Calibur, or Guilty Gear and high-quality licensed fighting games like the DBZ Budokai series, a variety of arcade modes and versatile story modes fill this niche very well. Despite the strength of its battle system, Naruto Ultimate Ninja 3 just doesn't have this as an option, and thus falls flat. At least it has a decent versus mode...
First off, when I say that "Hero's History" mode is abbreviated, I really mean it. This mode supposedly covers the entire first part of the Naruto manga and anime, but it cuts out a very large number of events and battles, so the entire thing can be settled in about an hour of play. Most of the characters in the game don't even show up in it at all, the focus is very clearly placed on Naruto Uzumaki's battles to the exclusion of most others, and there are no branching paths or alternate versions of events at all, so it is fairly unimaginative and pretty much has no replay value. It is obvious that this was not the main focus of the game.
"Ultimate Contest", on the other hand, is fairly elaborate. Rather than being a linear series of events, it lets you freely control Naruto as he explores the Hidden leaf Village and participates in the original story. This could have been really fun, if it were not for the fact that the original story is a fairly simplistic tournament plot and you really have nowhere to explore except the village. The plot really is just a shallow excuse for a number of battles against other ninja, which would be fine (this is a fighting game after all), if it were not for the fact that the set-up limited the player to using Naruto almost exclusively, made him fight pretty much nothing but the other Leaf and sand ninja that are his own age, and placed all of the battles in an extremely limited sub-set of the game's many fun battlefields. So, the main plot of the "Ultimate Contest" mode has no real variety and a boring plot.
In addition to the tournament plot, "Ultimate Contest" mode features a number of events and missions you can undertake, which help you gather money you need to unlock bonus material (voice samples, movie clips, etc) as well as expand your repertoire of jutsu for the customization system. Fortunately, you can actually use any ninja you have unlocked for this mode in the event and mission battles, but unfortunately the events and missions don't really focus on battle at all. An event is just as likely to be a mix of completely brainless fetch quests (AKA scavenger hunts where the items you need to find show up on your map) and minigames as it is likely to contain a battle (and battles are often combined with fetch quests and minigames). What is more, most of the rarest and most important items you can acquire, the ones that allow customization of each character's strongest Ultimate Jutsu, never require battle at all. Some of the challenge battles found in this mode can be fairly fun, but as a whole, despite this being a fighting game, there simply isn't a lot of fighting, certainly nowhere enough to let the player try out all of the game's characters, Ultimate Jutsu, and customization options.
"Ultimate Contest" mode also has an experience system that lets ninja level up through battle and completing missions, but this system never really seems to matter (most battles can be won as easily with a low-level ninja as a high-level one). Actually, since other than the battles where you have to use Naruto there are practically as many battles as there are characters and most of the time every character gains experience at the same rate, there really isn't a lot of purpose to trying to raise levels for anyone.
The one thing I want out of the single-player modes of any fighting game is a chance to fight a number of battles using all of the different characters in the game. In both original fighting games like Street Fighter, Soul Calibur, or Guilty Gear and high-quality licensed fighting games like the DBZ Budokai series, a variety of arcade modes and versatile story modes fill this niche very well. Despite the strength of its battle system, Naruto Ultimate Ninja 3 just doesn't have this as an option, and thus falls flat. At least it has a decent versus mode...
Grandia: Conversations in Town
Every year in the month or so leading up to Christmas, I end up pulling a game that I haven't played in years out of the depths of my collection. This year, I decided to restart the Playstation version of Grandia (a game I have mentioned on this blog before) and finally sit down and beat it. It didn't take me long to be reminded how long it takes to talk to everyone in a town in this game. Since a town can have two or three dozen characters, and each character has anywhere from one to five things they say, it can easily take an hour or more to properly talk to everyone in a town. In the first ten hours of the game, I spent significantly more time talking to people than exploring dungeons or fighting monsters. Yet, I don't regret doing so in the least, since the NPC conversations in Grandia are almost always entertaining.
Unlike in many RPGs, where NPCs just give a few lines of generic back-ground information to the player when talked to, talking to NPCs in Grandia is used to help flesh out and develop the main characters. Instead of just quietly listening to the NPCs, the main characters of Grandia talk to the NPCs, ask them questions, and make jokes to each other. If an NPC mentions a future dungeon, Justin (Grandia's energetic main hero) will respond and talk about how excited he is at the prospect of going there. Seeing the characters' reactions to this kind of information really helps flesh out their motivations, interests, histories, and random personality quirks, without dumping all of this information on the player as part of the story. Since the main characters talk to each other too, it helps develop what the relationships between the main characters are like as well.
The NPC conversations in Grandia also do an unusual good job of revealing how famous the main characters are in the community and what their reputation is. The NPCs always address the main characters directly, often by name (if they know it), and often talk about what they know or think about the characters' actions. For example, when the party first arrives in a town, most of the locals point out that the main characters look like they are not locals, and the main characters are usually full of questions about the town. However, after some events and dungeons, the locals have become more familiar with the main characters and their exploits. They become more familiar with the main characters and start praising them for their heroic actions. Since the main characters are generally treated with the levels of respect and recognition that they deserve in these conversations, there is something very genuine about them that makes the world of the game more engaging. It also helps reinforce to the player that his actions have had an effect on the game's world.
Finally, the conversations in Grandia are entertaining because they are usually hilarious. Like in many Game Arts games, the characters in Grandia run the gamut from cooky to eccentric to downright insane. The witty, light-hearted nature of Grandia is one of the reasons I enjoy it so much.
Unlike in many RPGs, where NPCs just give a few lines of generic back-ground information to the player when talked to, talking to NPCs in Grandia is used to help flesh out and develop the main characters. Instead of just quietly listening to the NPCs, the main characters of Grandia talk to the NPCs, ask them questions, and make jokes to each other. If an NPC mentions a future dungeon, Justin (Grandia's energetic main hero) will respond and talk about how excited he is at the prospect of going there. Seeing the characters' reactions to this kind of information really helps flesh out their motivations, interests, histories, and random personality quirks, without dumping all of this information on the player as part of the story. Since the main characters talk to each other too, it helps develop what the relationships between the main characters are like as well.
The NPC conversations in Grandia also do an unusual good job of revealing how famous the main characters are in the community and what their reputation is. The NPCs always address the main characters directly, often by name (if they know it), and often talk about what they know or think about the characters' actions. For example, when the party first arrives in a town, most of the locals point out that the main characters look like they are not locals, and the main characters are usually full of questions about the town. However, after some events and dungeons, the locals have become more familiar with the main characters and their exploits. They become more familiar with the main characters and start praising them for their heroic actions. Since the main characters are generally treated with the levels of respect and recognition that they deserve in these conversations, there is something very genuine about them that makes the world of the game more engaging. It also helps reinforce to the player that his actions have had an effect on the game's world.
Finally, the conversations in Grandia are entertaining because they are usually hilarious. Like in many Game Arts games, the characters in Grandia run the gamut from cooky to eccentric to downright insane. The witty, light-hearted nature of Grandia is one of the reasons I enjoy it so much.
Friday, November 21, 2008
Shadow of the Colossus: Pathfinding and Exploration
It is safe to say that a player will likely spend a longer amount of time riding around on horseback in search of the Colossi than actually fighting them. Fortunately, this is actually a pretty fun experience. Even though there are no enemies to fight or puzzles to solve outside of the Colossus battles, the simple act of exploring the game world, seeking out one's targets, is very enjoyable in of itself. If anything, adding unnecessary complications would have detracted from this experience.
A great deal of the enjoyment I have derived from Shadow of the Colossus's exploration comes from the lack of guidance given to the player on how to proceed. Since the game's map is not marked with destination markers and is vague enough to be nearly useless, the payer is given only two clues on finding his next target: a short, cryptic description of the area by Dormi, and the Light of Guidence, which shines from the player's sword in the direction of the next Colossus. However, since the Light of Guidance needs to be actively checked by the player, only works when the hero is standing in strong sunlight, and only points in the relative direction of the next target and not the best path to reach it, the player often has to expend a lot of energy searching for his next destination. I have gotten lost numerous times while searching for a Colossus, and I often end up taking the long winding route instead of the short route. I have had to back-track, guess my way through winding canyon roads, climb up tall objects in a forest to find good sun-light, and so on numerous times in my search for the Colossi. Yet, I have often had a lot of fun doing so, since the act of trailblazing and pathfinding through a sprawling world is such a novel experience for me. Far too often, game developers make it far too obvious where the player's next destination is, or make it impossible to go too far off-track. This approach destroys the chance for the player to enjoy the search itself.
The lack of dangers and monsters in the game helps keep the focus of the experience on the journey itself. As it is, while riding around on Argo, I sometimes was reminded of stories of heroes riding great distances through forests and over mountains on a quest. If I had to get off my horse and kill goblins every few minutes, it would have broken that trance-like feeling. It would have also turned exploring the game world into a repetitive chore. Right now, Shadow of the Colossus is not a very repetitive game. Each Colossus provides a different challenge than the last, and each journey in search of a Colossus is different as well. Adding in minor enemies to populate the world would have required the player to fight the same meaningless battle over each time he passed through a certain area, which would have distracted from the newness of the journey itself. It would have dragged the travel portions of the game out too much as well.
Another thing I like about the exploration elements of Shadow of the Colossus is that it rewards the player for experimenting. During my search for the third Colossus, I noticed a lizard running across the canyon floor nearby. Seeing as how I had a bow, I decided to see if the game would let me hunt and kill the lizard, which it did. It even left a tail behind, which I could pick up. Later on, I discovered a lizard with an unusual white, glowing tail. When I killed that lizard and picked up the tail left behind, I discovered that my grip gauge had increased slightly. The game's manual hadn't even mentioned that there were power-ups in the game, so this was a pretty big discovery for me. After a bit more exploration and experimentation, I found fruit hanging from the branches of a tree that I could shoot down with a arrow and eat to increase my maximum health. These benefits are so slight, they are unlikely to turn the tide in an actual Colossus battle, but they do serve as a very effective reward for a player who takes the time to experiment and explore the game world. In particular, I like these rewards since they reward the player for doing what a person in that world itself would realistically do: hunt animals and gather edible fruit for food.
One final aspect of the exploration element of Shadow of the Colossus that I enjoy is the way Argo, the hero's horse, behaves. When the hero is riding Argo, the player doesn't directly control Argo's movement, he controls the way the hero commands Argo. So, getting Argo to turn the direction you want, get up to a full gallop, or stop can sometimes involve frustration and perseverance. On the other hand, Argo is also capable of following winding, narrow trails and such without a single button press from the player. In fact, it is sometimes easier to navigate by gently nudging Argo in the right direction, then letting him make the turn by himself. This make Argo seem like a real animal, instead of just a vehicle, which is a first in my experience.
It is very rare for me to find a game like Shadow of the Colossus where getting to your destination really is half the fun.
A great deal of the enjoyment I have derived from Shadow of the Colossus's exploration comes from the lack of guidance given to the player on how to proceed. Since the game's map is not marked with destination markers and is vague enough to be nearly useless, the payer is given only two clues on finding his next target: a short, cryptic description of the area by Dormi, and the Light of Guidence, which shines from the player's sword in the direction of the next Colossus. However, since the Light of Guidance needs to be actively checked by the player, only works when the hero is standing in strong sunlight, and only points in the relative direction of the next target and not the best path to reach it, the player often has to expend a lot of energy searching for his next destination. I have gotten lost numerous times while searching for a Colossus, and I often end up taking the long winding route instead of the short route. I have had to back-track, guess my way through winding canyon roads, climb up tall objects in a forest to find good sun-light, and so on numerous times in my search for the Colossi. Yet, I have often had a lot of fun doing so, since the act of trailblazing and pathfinding through a sprawling world is such a novel experience for me. Far too often, game developers make it far too obvious where the player's next destination is, or make it impossible to go too far off-track. This approach destroys the chance for the player to enjoy the search itself.
The lack of dangers and monsters in the game helps keep the focus of the experience on the journey itself. As it is, while riding around on Argo, I sometimes was reminded of stories of heroes riding great distances through forests and over mountains on a quest. If I had to get off my horse and kill goblins every few minutes, it would have broken that trance-like feeling. It would have also turned exploring the game world into a repetitive chore. Right now, Shadow of the Colossus is not a very repetitive game. Each Colossus provides a different challenge than the last, and each journey in search of a Colossus is different as well. Adding in minor enemies to populate the world would have required the player to fight the same meaningless battle over each time he passed through a certain area, which would have distracted from the newness of the journey itself. It would have dragged the travel portions of the game out too much as well.
Another thing I like about the exploration elements of Shadow of the Colossus is that it rewards the player for experimenting. During my search for the third Colossus, I noticed a lizard running across the canyon floor nearby. Seeing as how I had a bow, I decided to see if the game would let me hunt and kill the lizard, which it did. It even left a tail behind, which I could pick up. Later on, I discovered a lizard with an unusual white, glowing tail. When I killed that lizard and picked up the tail left behind, I discovered that my grip gauge had increased slightly. The game's manual hadn't even mentioned that there were power-ups in the game, so this was a pretty big discovery for me. After a bit more exploration and experimentation, I found fruit hanging from the branches of a tree that I could shoot down with a arrow and eat to increase my maximum health. These benefits are so slight, they are unlikely to turn the tide in an actual Colossus battle, but they do serve as a very effective reward for a player who takes the time to experiment and explore the game world. In particular, I like these rewards since they reward the player for doing what a person in that world itself would realistically do: hunt animals and gather edible fruit for food.
One final aspect of the exploration element of Shadow of the Colossus that I enjoy is the way Argo, the hero's horse, behaves. When the hero is riding Argo, the player doesn't directly control Argo's movement, he controls the way the hero commands Argo. So, getting Argo to turn the direction you want, get up to a full gallop, or stop can sometimes involve frustration and perseverance. On the other hand, Argo is also capable of following winding, narrow trails and such without a single button press from the player. In fact, it is sometimes easier to navigate by gently nudging Argo in the right direction, then letting him make the turn by himself. This make Argo seem like a real animal, instead of just a vehicle, which is a first in my experience.
It is very rare for me to find a game like Shadow of the Colossus where getting to your destination really is half the fun.
Naruto Ultimate Ninja 3: Ultimate Jutsu
Recently, I rented a copy of Naruto Ultimate Ninja 3, which I have been curious about for a while now. It is a pretty fun game, though it doesn't really break a lot of new ground (it is very similar to the DBZ Budokai series, after all). The core combat system of the game is very good, and they do a lot of interesting things to keep things interesting and stay true to the series. I particularly like the variety of thrown weapons (especially the character specific ones) and the fact that even a character's basic attack combos make use of far more than just basic punches and kicks (like Naruto's long-range Shadow Clone attacks and Tayuya's wide-area flute attacks). This does a lot to give the game far more variety than the typical anime tie-in fighting game and keeps true to the wide variety of fighting styles seen in the manga and anime (one of the manga's strengths). There are a wide variety of more powerful and cinematic "jutsu" attacks that you can give to the characters with the customization system, but you can can only equip three to a character at once, so the variety in basic combat ability is really important.
I would touch on the existence of a system to customize jutsu for each character, but it is fairly simplistic in this game, if refreshingly flexible, so I think I will instead write about the more powerful "Ultimate Jutsu" attacks that each character possesses. Most characters have several of these moves, of which they can only equip one at a time. They are hard to hit with, and once you actually hit with one you go into a button-pressing contest against your opponent while watching the attack animation, which affects the effectiveness of the attack. Also, after the attack hits, many ultimate jutsu cause the user to either transform or enter into a temporary state of heightened ability, or causes the target to enter into a weakened state. This set-up is fairly good, but there are a fairly large number of flaws.
One of the first flaws is due to an eternal source of frustration for me: poor documentation. In the customization screen where you equip Ultimate Jutsu you can see how much damage the jutsu will inflict and how many bars of the Chakra Gauge it will consume, but you can't see whether it enters the character into a powered-up state, what that state would be, and what the effects of that state are. This gets particularly frustrating when a character has at least three different powered-up states, six to eight different Ultimate Jutsu, and not all of his jutsu trigger powered-up states, like Sasuke Uchiha. I know "Curse Mark Activated" and "Curse Mark Chidori" activate "Curse Mark Mode" (and I have a general grasp on what that mode does), and I have memorized that "Ominous Chidori" activates the "Curse Mark Mode 2" transformation (which is completely different than the Curse Mark Mode in every possible way), but while I know that "Sharingan Activated" activates the "Sharingan Mode" (which copies the enemy's move-set), there is no easy way for me to remember whether it is "Lion's Barrage" or "Chidori" that also activates "Sharingan Mode". This gets even harder with something like Temari's "Cyclone Scythe" attack causing her to enter into something called "Heaven Dance Mode", which isn't even directly related to something from the manga or anime (and I have no clue what it actually does). I don't even want to mention my confusion regarding Kiba's "Two-Headed Wolf" attack and transformation... Needless to say, more documentation and possibly some cleaner design could have helped this mess quite a bit.
Another complaint concerns the button-hitting contest that occurs when an Ultimate Jutsu is triggered. This feature is pretty useful, since it lets the person being hit by an Ultimate Jutsu do something to defend himself even after the blow connects, and I like the way the contest is balanced towards either hitting at normal power (in most situations) or being slightly weakened (if the defender is slightly successful), with the more extreme situations (critical damage or attack interrupt) only occurring if one side dominates the contest completely, making it far more fair than the "either it hits or it doesn't" mentality that made similar competitions in some of the DBZ Budokai games so frustrating. The real complaint is that this essential competition takes place while the attack animation is in progress, forcing the player to pay attention to a small corner of the screen and miss parts of the attack. A small complaint, but it seems like a waste to have such detailed animations and then punish the player for paying attention to it. Even putting the contest cues at the center of the screen rather than the corner would have helped.
One thing that seems strange to me about the Ultimate Jutsu/Transformation system of the game is that it often feels unnatural to transform into a form after launching that form's ultimate attack. "Ominous Chidori" is Sasuke's Curse Mark Mode 2 form's ultimate attack from the manga and anime, but you use it before entering that form and you can't ever use it after transforming (since transforming disables Ultimate Jutsu). It just doesn't seem to go in the order it should. Certainly, this order works well for the "Sharingan Activated" and "Nine-Tailed Power" attacks that portray a character transforming, as well as moves that inflict a penalty like Itachi's "Tsukiyomi" attacks, but not for the true ultimate attacks.
One final problem is that it seems too limiting to only be able to equip one Ultimate Jutsu for each fight. There are around 140 Ultimate Jutsu spread unevenly amongst the 40 or so characters, often resulting in some characters having far more Ultimate Jutsu than they can actually use across any reasonable number of battles. More importantly, the limitation of only being able to use a single kind of Ultimate Jutsu in any given battles means there is no opportunity for the player to make important strategic decisions in the middle of battle. The only choice is whether to use the Ultimate Jutsu you equipped or not. This seems particularly limiting since several characters have whole chains of Ultimate Jutsu that would logically be chained together. For example, Rock Lee has his "Primary Lotus" attack, followed by three increasingly powerful "Hidden Lotus" attacks that follow the "8 Inner Gates" progression from the manga. The Hidden Lotus attacks portray a series of moves in which Lee is increasing his power one stage at a time, each move following the last, but you can only equip and use one in any given battle. Naruto's three "Rasengan" attacks work in a similar manner, with each being the strongest attack of one of Naruto's three main states. If the game actually had a system that let the characters iteratively improve their power and change their currently equipped Ultimate Jutsu accordingly, which would work well with many of the Ultimate Jutsu attacks and reflect the way battles are fought in the source material, then the last two problems I complained about would go away.
Still, problems aside, I have to say that the designers behind the Ultimate Ninja games know how to create really impressive attack animations. The music and art style of this game is great.
I would touch on the existence of a system to customize jutsu for each character, but it is fairly simplistic in this game, if refreshingly flexible, so I think I will instead write about the more powerful "Ultimate Jutsu" attacks that each character possesses. Most characters have several of these moves, of which they can only equip one at a time. They are hard to hit with, and once you actually hit with one you go into a button-pressing contest against your opponent while watching the attack animation, which affects the effectiveness of the attack. Also, after the attack hits, many ultimate jutsu cause the user to either transform or enter into a temporary state of heightened ability, or causes the target to enter into a weakened state. This set-up is fairly good, but there are a fairly large number of flaws.
One of the first flaws is due to an eternal source of frustration for me: poor documentation. In the customization screen where you equip Ultimate Jutsu you can see how much damage the jutsu will inflict and how many bars of the Chakra Gauge it will consume, but you can't see whether it enters the character into a powered-up state, what that state would be, and what the effects of that state are. This gets particularly frustrating when a character has at least three different powered-up states, six to eight different Ultimate Jutsu, and not all of his jutsu trigger powered-up states, like Sasuke Uchiha. I know "Curse Mark Activated" and "Curse Mark Chidori" activate "Curse Mark Mode" (and I have a general grasp on what that mode does), and I have memorized that "Ominous Chidori" activates the "Curse Mark Mode 2" transformation (which is completely different than the Curse Mark Mode in every possible way), but while I know that "Sharingan Activated" activates the "Sharingan Mode" (which copies the enemy's move-set), there is no easy way for me to remember whether it is "Lion's Barrage" or "Chidori" that also activates "Sharingan Mode". This gets even harder with something like Temari's "Cyclone Scythe" attack causing her to enter into something called "Heaven Dance Mode", which isn't even directly related to something from the manga or anime (and I have no clue what it actually does). I don't even want to mention my confusion regarding Kiba's "Two-Headed Wolf" attack and transformation... Needless to say, more documentation and possibly some cleaner design could have helped this mess quite a bit.
Another complaint concerns the button-hitting contest that occurs when an Ultimate Jutsu is triggered. This feature is pretty useful, since it lets the person being hit by an Ultimate Jutsu do something to defend himself even after the blow connects, and I like the way the contest is balanced towards either hitting at normal power (in most situations) or being slightly weakened (if the defender is slightly successful), with the more extreme situations (critical damage or attack interrupt) only occurring if one side dominates the contest completely, making it far more fair than the "either it hits or it doesn't" mentality that made similar competitions in some of the DBZ Budokai games so frustrating. The real complaint is that this essential competition takes place while the attack animation is in progress, forcing the player to pay attention to a small corner of the screen and miss parts of the attack. A small complaint, but it seems like a waste to have such detailed animations and then punish the player for paying attention to it. Even putting the contest cues at the center of the screen rather than the corner would have helped.
One thing that seems strange to me about the Ultimate Jutsu/Transformation system of the game is that it often feels unnatural to transform into a form after launching that form's ultimate attack. "Ominous Chidori" is Sasuke's Curse Mark Mode 2 form's ultimate attack from the manga and anime, but you use it before entering that form and you can't ever use it after transforming (since transforming disables Ultimate Jutsu). It just doesn't seem to go in the order it should. Certainly, this order works well for the "Sharingan Activated" and "Nine-Tailed Power" attacks that portray a character transforming, as well as moves that inflict a penalty like Itachi's "Tsukiyomi" attacks, but not for the true ultimate attacks.
One final problem is that it seems too limiting to only be able to equip one Ultimate Jutsu for each fight. There are around 140 Ultimate Jutsu spread unevenly amongst the 40 or so characters, often resulting in some characters having far more Ultimate Jutsu than they can actually use across any reasonable number of battles. More importantly, the limitation of only being able to use a single kind of Ultimate Jutsu in any given battles means there is no opportunity for the player to make important strategic decisions in the middle of battle. The only choice is whether to use the Ultimate Jutsu you equipped or not. This seems particularly limiting since several characters have whole chains of Ultimate Jutsu that would logically be chained together. For example, Rock Lee has his "Primary Lotus" attack, followed by three increasingly powerful "Hidden Lotus" attacks that follow the "8 Inner Gates" progression from the manga. The Hidden Lotus attacks portray a series of moves in which Lee is increasing his power one stage at a time, each move following the last, but you can only equip and use one in any given battle. Naruto's three "Rasengan" attacks work in a similar manner, with each being the strongest attack of one of Naruto's three main states. If the game actually had a system that let the characters iteratively improve their power and change their currently equipped Ultimate Jutsu accordingly, which would work well with many of the Ultimate Jutsu attacks and reflect the way battles are fought in the source material, then the last two problems I complained about would go away.
Still, problems aside, I have to say that the designers behind the Ultimate Ninja games know how to create really impressive attack animations. The music and art style of this game is great.
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