Death of the Action Game

I recently picked up the Wonderful 101 and have been having a blast with it. The bright colors, lively music, likable characters, and over-the-top action make it a must play. This is despite some areas that could have used a bit more polish such as a few trial-and-error gameplay sections and some difficulties with the game registering some unite morphs. However, in playing this and watching the new God of War reveal trailer, I'm concerned that big-budget action games are going to undergo the same fate that survival horror did a few years ago.

Now, when I say action games, I don't mean third-person shooters such as Gears of War, Uncharted or Dark Souls. Those games are released on a regular basis and they're pretty much the driving force of the industry. The types of games I'm referring to are the kind of character action games such as Viewtiful Joe, God Hand, Devil May Cry, and Ninja Gaiden. These types of games were known for their brutal difficulty, emphasis on over-the-top action, and grading systems which judged the player's actions based on how skillful the player could go through a level. However, besides the fact that two of these have had subpar games be released in recent years such as Yaiba Ninja Gaiden Z, Ninja Gaiden 3, and the highly controversial DmC: Devil May Cry, it's as if no developer outside of Platinum Games has any interest in releasing fun, over-the-top hack n' slash games. This is most evident as the recent God of War seems to be aiming for a type of "high art" gameplay, taking cues from the Last of Us in terms of narrative structure and Dark Souls for the slow paced aggressive gameplay. The thing is, God of War already had it's fast-paced, frenetic style of gameplay. The God of War games have a history of being both fast-paced and steadily improving on the gameplay over time. God of War 1 and Chains of Olympus were a pretty by-the-numbers affair with a focus more on just beating the crap out of everything that moved with some puzzle solving thrown in. By God of War 3, however, the combat had been improved significantly and relied more on player skill especially to clear the higher difficulties. This is why it's so surprising to see the new God of War going in this supposed "new direction". Combat looks to be more "intense" but it appears to have a greater emphasis on button mashing as opposed to player skill and a story.

This is actually something I've been wanting to cover for sometime, but it appears that games have been recently trying to get more focus towards having grand stories and dropping most of their focus in gameplay. The thing game developers need to understand is that most games over the past 30 years have had compelling stories without having to yank control away from the player or dumbing down the gameplay. Games like Devil May Cry 3, Metal Gear Solid, Chrono Trigger, Final Fantasy 6, and Xenoblade Chronicles all managed to tell fantastic stories without ever yanking control away from the player for too long. My biggest concern is the industry will want to turn all of their games into titles into stuff like Heavy Rain and Dragon's Quest to be credited as a 10 out of 10 gameplay extravaganza while neglecting the core gameplay.

I know most action games don't have deep compelling stories but this is why gaming continues to appeal to me to this day. There are thousands of games in a variety of genres that focus on entertaining gamers with a wide-variety of interests. But until we get out of this comfort zone where everyone feels like their newest title can't appeal to the masses unless it's high art, then I'm worried that we could end up losing several genres. I know there are still plenty of indie developers that will always cater to the niche crowd's tastes and Platinum Games has done a fine job putting out quality action titles. But unless there is that big budget title that can come out and attract the masses, it could be a long time before we see something along the caliber of Devil May Cry or God Hand.

Soulsborne doesn't need an easy mode.

The Soulsborne franchise is easily some of the best sets of games I have played in the past two years and I'm not exaggerating. With the exception of Dark Souls 2, each game is a masterpiece thanks to it's dark atmosphere, brutal difficulty, and extensive lore. However, as anyone can tell you, the part about the brutal difficulty can easily turn people off and it's not helped by it being the driving force of marketing when it comes to the Dark Souls games (Demon's Souls and Bloodborne didn't play up the difficulty as much). Regardless, I have met several people who are turned off as soon as I mention any of the games in the franchise as they feel that it is a franchise aimed at masochists. The biggest issue I have with this is that, once you learn the nuances, the games become some of the easiest franchises to get into.

For starters, the games require several hours clocked into the series to understand all of the nuances, lore, gameplay, and to fully grasp the layout of the environment. This is not a game that is meant to be rushed through as dashing through and unknown area will punish you for failing to take into account audio cues, enemy placements, your own item inventory, and your armor and weapon stats. There is alot of micro-management to go through and stubbornly insisting on one type of build can be a death-sentence for newbies. This is ultimately why I am so against the idea of an easy mode. By removing the challenge and set up of the game, several of the key themes of helplessness and overcoming adversity are lost. There's no reason to feel at odds with the environment or worry about checking your environment because you could easily just run through an area and walk through basic enemies. 

And this is another reason why I feel like there is no purpose in adding an easy mode. Enemies, as whole, have very basic designs to them. Their attacks are often slow, they can be easily dodged, and they can often be baited to even fall off a cliff if the player plays carefully. If a player is struck, the damage is significantly high, but after getting back up and learning enemy attacks patterns most enemies can be cleared through no problem. By including an easy mode, this feature would become a flaw as most players would wonder why such enemies hit so light after performing what appears to be a devastating attack or wondering why enemies hit really hard after winding up for 30 seconds. Bosses would also be turned into complete jokes. Most of the bosses are known for having a high damage output and requiring skill, patience, and endurance to take down. With an easy mode, most of these bosses would be turned into a complete joke with their telegraphed attacks and large frames.

But overall, the online component would be what would take one of the worst hits. The games have massive online communities built around the game's extensive multiplayer which runs simultaneously with the single player experience allowing players to leave notes or assist their allies. The problem with trying to incorporate an easy mode in this situation is how other players could possibly interact with other players. One solution may be to lock out players from the online to provide a better solo experience and to prevent invasions. The catch with this is that there is already a way to avoid this. If the player does not use a humanity, human effigy, or ember, they end up locking themselves out of multiplayer and they can re-enter whenever they want. Another problem is that players can no longer receive assistance from other players were this to be the ideal situation nor would they be able to receive hints as the series has become known for.

Finally, there is the famous attribute of player death. The games have earned a massive backlash due to the heavy emphasis on player death through the marketing. However, the biggest thing people don't realize is that bonfires are easily accessible and they are scattered strategically around levels in order to allow players to quickly recover, level up, or take a break should they be feeling overwhelmed. As a matter of fact, the death system is almost identical to that of Shovel Knight, providing the player with an infinite number of lives and goes a step further by adapting the Metroidvania design and encouraging the player to find shortcuts in order to lessen backtracking and provide quick access to bonfires.

Due to the stigma that the Soulsborne games have received, it will be almost impossible to get people who think the games are to hard into the series. However, forcing an easy mode should not be the solution, but rather changing a player's mindset is. We have been conditioned so much to games having us rush through them or being railroaded to the next location or sidequest that the lack of hand-holding can seem intimidating. Just paying attention to your surroundings or by backing off from an overwhelming challenge, any player can come to see that the challenge is often due to an individual's own mindset. Once you learn from your mistakes and adapt, any challenge can be easily conquered without having to go to an easy mode.

Berserk Musou's Marketing Campaign

I can safely confirm that the upcoming Berserk game developed by Omega Force is easily one of my most hyped games for the coming year. While I don’t enjoy the mainline Dynasty Warriors, I am a fan of the anime spinoff games such as Pirate Warriors and Dynasty Warriors Gundam Reborn. The pacing of the Berserk manga makes it ripe for adaptation into a video game and when combined with the fast-paced, hyperactive, over-the-top of the Dynasty Warriors engine, it seems like a match made in heaven. However, if there’s one thing that’s concerning me right now it’s the way the game has been marketed since it’s reveal, in particular the treatment of the character of Casca.
The reveal trailer opens up with Casca being held by some tentacles while being suspended naked in the air, before the tentacles wrap around her body and lead to the brand of sacrifice. Long-time fans will immediately recognize this as the infamous Eclipse, wherein the Band of the Hawk was sacrificed to Godhand in order to allow the band’s leader, Griffith, to become the 5th member, Femto. Afterwards, he proceeded to violently rape Casca, the protagonist Guts’ love interest, in front of him. This is easily one of the most iconic and disturbing scenes in the history of the series and has resulted in the series unable to be talked about without mentioning this scene. So what does the reveal trailer decide to do? Focus on the scene itself. At first I was disturbed that Koei Tecmo would use such a scene in order to drum up hype for the game. Afterwards, once more information was brought forward, however, I was just baffled as Koei Tecmo decided to have a huge focus on the sexual aspects of the series. Berserk is a violent manga with a huge emphasis on action as well as on world-building, so Hisashi Koinuma’s statement describing the series as a “violent and erotic manga” feels only half true. To add on to that, the fact they even went so far as have a pre-order bonus were Casca wears the smock after she’s recovering from the events of the Eclipse and it’s described as her “bathing suit”. This feels so disjointed compared to the tone that was set for this scene as this is the first time that she shows her fear of men due to what happened to her. This actually leaves me worried for he rest of the game as the developer has gone on record to say that they plan to adapt the Golden Age to Millennium Falcon arcs, especially since towards the end of the Golden Age arc is when the sexual aspects shoot up, before going by the wayside after the Conviction arc.
Overall, while I feel that on the gameplay side of things the game looks fine, especially after the recent gameplay trailer, but I feel that if the developer is not careful on the way that they handle the sexual aspects of the game, they could very easily come under fire for portraying rape in a poor light. I hope this isn’t the case, but they need to find some way to portray as tastefully as possible.