What's the Happy-hap?
Exciting possibilities upon the horizon...stay tuned.
Awhile back when playing through No More Heroes I wrote on my blog a letter addressed to Gouchi Suda, merely pointing out what was done well and what detracted from the game. I never expected him to read it but the letter writing process is a good one for politely voicing out your opinions and flushing out ideas.
My main complaints were:
1.that the boss fights were too unforgiving even if you played them to almost perfection
2.the open GTA-esque city was pointless and ate up time
3. The side quests were boring and introduced grinding to an action game…which shouldn’t happen
I’ve pieced together some bits of several interviews and here is what Suda 51 has to say.
Suda51 has also stated that not only will the game world be largely improved over the first game, the sidequests available will be far more varied and will be connected to the main story. The physics and the enemy A.I. will also be improved, to create greater variety in combat. A “Mark II” version of Travis’ motorbike will be featured, along with a driving overhaul. The number of boss fights will increase. There will be 50 bosses, but some will challenge Travis in groups so this does not mean there will be 50 boss fights.
The game’s city has been scaled back a little bit, improved visually with motion blue and HDR lighting. Suda says it’s closer to the game he wanted to deliver originally. Edge says the city is a lot more lively and the streets more populated. He describes it as one-and-a-half times the original.
What’s great about this is Suda 51 has listened, no doubt, to the constructive criticism given to his game. How many game designers admit to mucking stuff up and than offer solutions for it? A handful…maybe. It sounds like the next installment will be free of many the pitfalls. He didn’t hint at any of the boss fights being more forgiving but I suppose we can always hope.
It’s looking like I might just pick up the sequel.
* a brief response to a class assignment. Which is more important, character or action? *
Character Over Action
Action is simply a verb. Without something behind it to give it some meaning, it is purposeless (except perhaps for spectacle only).
Ex. Blow up.
Ex. The car blows up, killing the shop owner who owed money to the mafia boss.
Ex. Kiss. Ex. The princess kisses the frog, knowing that he is actually a prince in disguise.
As you can see, while the verb alone is somewhat intriguing, it’s only intriguing because you want to know why the verb is happening. You want to know what is behind the action. That’s where character comes in.
Now I’m not going to argue that you can create entertainment without characters. Many video games (though less and less now) had no real focus to it. It was simply action because it was fun. Super Mario makes no sense (an Italian plumber stuck in a world with mushrooms and mean turtles) but it provided very little for the player to build off of. In other words, while you are trying to save the princess, the player doesn’t in fact care about the princess, they instead are interested in the action and puzzle solving that will get you to that princess.
Another example would be The Matrix. The action in the movie was groundbreaking and still to this day is some of the best physical action (as far as fighting) you can get. What if the movie was just that…cool fight scenes? It would still be amazing, but we’d have no reason to feel attached to the characters. Now once we start learning about the story and characters we know that the action is precipitated by Neo trying to free humans from the Matrix.
This of course does not mean that characters can be without action. Characters need action to justify their very characters. Just like a noun needs a verb to be a complete sentence, a character needs action
A character acts in order to build more upon their character (or another character). An action does not simply use a character to build more upon the action. Yes stories use actions to help create a character (ex. Batman losing his parents, Peter Parker getting bitten by the radioactive spider, Harry Potter realizing he’s a wizard) but that does not mean action is without character. Even in these examples there are reasons (characters) behind what happened (ex. crook robbing a couple in an alley, a careless breach in the spider’s containment–instigated by fate or nature as a character rather than a human being, Harry Potter’s back story of having his family killed by Voldemort and his accidental run ins with magic at the hands of the Dursleys.
You see a beached whale explode. Certainly that is a great visual for the eyes, but I’d bet a penny or two that your mind goes automatically to Who, What, Where, Why, and How. Because action without a person behind it and some sort of motive behind us does not fit into our realm of understanding. That’s why natural tragedies are often the hardest to comprehend. Who is to blame for such a tragedy? Mother nature I suppose, but nature does not follow any rules of understanding or discernment. Nature is chaos and it does simply what it’s supposed to do without regard for life.
An action without a character and a verb without a noun is chaos.
…
Of course chaos alone now and then can be quite entertaining. 
Who decided this sytem of unreadable words was a good idea for verification? This is madness!
Recently Tim Sweeney, the founder of Epic Games estimated that within 10 to 15 years video games will be photo-realistic. Whether or not he is right is not the question we should be asking ourselves. What we should be asking is, is it truly possible at all and is that what we want?
Videogames and CG movies have always had a hard time creating convincing human characters. For those of you not familiar to the Uncanny Valley, click here to read more about. In essence there is only so far humans will accept a nonhuman entity to look human. Here’s an example of what humans will accept:
Notice that all though all of these are either human or human-esque, they do not go for complete realism. Now lets look at when things going horribly wrong.
As for the first picture from Oblivion, I’m not sure what they were going for, but whatever it is…it’s disturbing. The other two, in an attempt to cross the Uncanny Valley and make their animation look real, they have successfully warded off all watchers. Why? Because there’s something built inside of us that makes us feel uneasy about what we are seeing. We know that what we see isn’t human. It’s missing something. My guess is we know it’s not real because it doesn’t have that breath of life…it doesn’t have a soul, like we do, and for some reason we can instinctually point that out whether we realize it or not.
Part of me believes we will never be able to cross the Uncanny Valley. The other part of me is praying that we don’t. What happens when we go into complete realism and say we are playing a war game? What happens when the people we are killing look like real people? How will that effect us in the real world? Will it desensitize us? Or will we be able to play it at all without feeling sick?
Why do we strive for complete realism? Right now some video games look real enough so that we are separated from the real world while playing, though our minds still process it like a game. Take Call of Duty: Modern Warfare. The characters certainly look human but they are in no way photo-realistic. Would you play that game if it looked like real people? I don’t think I would.
Instead of striving for something that is either impossible to achieve or something that will inevitably be like opening Pandora’s box, why not use the graphic engines we have and play around in different art styles? It certainly doesn’t work for every game but look below at some great games that shy away from realism yet the games are incredibly fun and the graphics are nice ta boot!
Little Big Planet
Team Fortress 2
Zelda: Windwaker
Okami
I bought Tales of the Abyss quite awhile ago and have yet to finish it. It’s not that I dislike it, in fact I enjoy a many of the characters (which is rare for me in a JRPG). The trouble I have with it is its complexity. I played through Tales of Symphonia with regular ease and understood most of what was going on but with Tales of the Abyss I don’t have a damn clue what is going on. Something about fonons and all these other names that characters say all the time but they are meaningless to me.
And it’s not like I’m just trying to wing past the game. I play games for their story more than I do anything else and even when I hunker down and focus on this game I’m still left wondering what is going on.
As I sat at my computer working on one of my oldest stories, trying to making it sharper and better with thoughts and notes I had gotten from a mentor of mine, it silly revelation (if you can even call it that) sort of struck my mind and now I’m here typing this. So here it goes.
”Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.
-Matthew 7:13-14 New International Version
Okay, totally out of context but I think this can set up a good picture for what I’m trying to aim at. While shallow stories are not very satisfying, neither are bloated stories. As an audience we want to think but we don’t want to have to study for the story. Does that make sense?
For example, Star Wars. The movie, even though it takes on the sci-fi future (okay technically a long time ago…but stay with me) we are still able to understand it. We aren’t bogged down by the crazy ideas and gadgets it poses. In fact I think it is because of its simplicity that so many people like it. Lets review some of its facets to see where the simplicity lies:
Jedi’s are like knights. The Empire is like colonial Britian (hence why all the commanders are British The force is like magic mixed with buddhism. All we need to know about Chewbacca is he’ll rip your arms right out of your sockets if he’s pissed…nough said. Tell me you can’t find a seedy bar like the one Luke and Ben find in A New Hope some miles from your house. Maybe their aren’t aliens there but I’m sure they’re just as colourful.
Where the simplicity of Star Wars excels the most are the names given to their technological advances. Forget made up names that make people confused. How about Death Star (a star that induces death). X-Wing (a space ship in…you guessed it, the shame of an X). Lightsaber (a saber made of light). Star Destroyer (this ship we’ll seriously mess your shit up). The Dark Side and the Light Side.
See how easy it is to use what we know and give it a twist so your audience doesn’t get lost. Now I don’t mean to rag on Star Trek (especially since I hear the new movie is what the new Star Wars movies should have been) but I’m no trekkie. Unlike Star Wars, Star Trek relies heavily on several gimmicks that people just don’t understand. Even more so with stories like Dune or Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep. Again, this is not to say these stories are bad, because they aren’t, they just aren’t accessible to as many people. Don’t you want your story to be understood? If not, what’s the point?
So lets look at two games that implement the polar opposites of each other, though both created by Squaresoft (since more people have played those games).
The Narrow Road
Kingdom Hearts. When I first heard of Kingdom Hearts I thought it was the worst idea ever. Final fantasy anime like characters together with Disney characters? That’s the worst idea ever, maybe even worse than Jimmy Fallon taking over Late Night. But oh how I was wrong. The game is incredibly accessible to both younger kids and older gamers. Take that in for a second…how often does that EVER happen? Almost never. But by the use of simple mechanics and characters we all know (Disney and Final Fantasy characters) they successfully, despite all reason, created a great game. The game is moving and deep…and yet…and yet I have no idea what is going on…but I don’t really care.
The game has simple messages in it. Friendship, dark vs light, envy, etc. We’ve all been taught these specific topics through stories since we were kids. However Kingdom Hearts does begin to drift into the Squaresoft pitfall of being too complex to follow. We aren’t given the steps we need to fully understand what we need in the story. But Kingdom Hearts simplicity luckily overshadows this and I don’t find myself really caring too deeply about the stuff I don’t understand. I simply enjoy the core of the story. Now on the flip side is…
The Wide Road
Final Fantasy VII. The RPG classic that nobody wants to hear about anymore but won’t go away. The game was incredibly well put together (especially the use of 3D art and such) but the story was…well it was hard to connect with. I’m sure there are those who deeply studied the story and understand what Jenovah is, how Cloud and Sephiroth are connected, and all the other crazy antics that go on. Now Final Fantasy VII does a decent job at engaging the player but certainly not as far as Kingdom Hearts. The last third of the game I had no idea vague idea at what was going on, and I knew from others that I needed to kill Sephiroth, so whatever got me to that end point was great. But if you asked me who Cloud really is and why Sephiroth goes all nutty…well I couldn’t answer you because I haven no idea. I wanted to know. Sephiroth is considered an amazing villain and I wanted to know why…to tell you the truth I was somewhat disappointed.
Need further proof that FFVII goes beyond the boundaries of audience comprehension? Ever watched Final Fantasy: Advent Children. AMAZING graphics, I mean their cg work makes the US look like we’re stuck in the black and white days of Betty Boop. And the fight scenes…words can’t describe but its where I wish more games and movies took their action to. But I dare you to make sense of that movie. I’ve talked with friends who played FFVII too and they have no idea what is going on. Would you have liked the movie without the beautiful cg and fight scenes? My guess is probably not.
And that’s okay. Sometimes I feel like writers keep the audience at a distance because they don’t want us to fully grasp the story. If we did we might start to realize things aren’t adding up. Anybody ever watch the television show Lost? Ingeniously planned story or sporadicly pick of the hat? I think only the ending will let us know…and I would bet money the majority will be disappointed by the ending.
So if you’ve made it this far, what am I trying to say? I’m trying to show you (the writer) that the more of your story that has parrallels wrapped in what the audience knows now, the easier it will be for them to swallow down your story.
Villains in stories rarely come to a good end. They are either obliterated by their overzealous protagonist, incarcerated indefinitely (or a short time if you run Arkham Asylum), or they escape to live and fight another day. This is all and well but sometimes it’s nice to spice up villainy from time to time.
In another post I had shared my enthusiasm for Tales of Vesperia and their final boss. While Duke was certainly not my favorite villain of the series, the writers of this story were able to put together something that rarely happens…the protagonist and antagonist work things out.
say what?!
That’s right. You fight the last boss and instead of ending his life, you actually help him see your side of things. Albeit you sort of beat him into thinking like you, which isn’t healthy, but it’s different and I like it. In fact the villain in this series has a legitimate claim to his cause since yours–well I won’t go into detail but your plan sort of screws a lot of people over.
The point is it’s nice to not see a bad guy who curses you with even his final breath or doesn’t want to destroy some major city or star collection because of some delusional plan.
This brings me to the arguably main antagonist of Mass Effect, a game I just finished. You go through this entire game hunting down this alien who has no regard for human life. Then things start to change. You start seeing his doubts and how even though he’s using others as pawns for his own personal gain, the same is being done to him. Now depending on how you play the game, the endings can be very different. I prided my character in being able to talk down people from situations. And surprisingly…I don’t so with the last boss.
The cutscene plays and I can feel a last boss fight coming on. But wait…I start talking down the villain. I let him know he’s being used. And you know what…he’s sorry. He’s so sorry he puts a bullet in his brain, crysis averted. Now at that point I’m sure many gamers would have been pissed.
What, no last boss fight?!
But to be honest, I was completely content. I had helped an wicked man see the errors of his ways. No gratuitous overdone fight where killing him solves all my problems…well not right away anyway. No matter what ending you pick you still fight Saren’s metal bones possessed by Sovereign. Sovereign was a boring character and I could care less about him because he wasn’t relatable, he was just a machine, and like most machines in the future, it had a penchant for wiping out all living life. Had I been left with just that the game would have really disappointed, but allowing the user to use meaningful dialogue with Saren (the relatable antagonist) it made the game that much more emerging and real.
So all of this to say…don’t take the easy way out. It’s easy for us to simply kill off our villains when it comes to the end of a story. Or have them escape so we can use them in the sequel that is no doubt paying our rent. But instead lets delve into endings that are seldom used. Now I’m not saying that villains should go soft. No, what I’m saying is its okay if the final villain realizes his mistake.
Want to take it a step farther? Think of different actions for the villain after they’ve been bested. What do they do now? Perhaps they would rather die than live with the same. Maybe they must fight even harder to undo the evils that they have unleashed. Then again, what if the main villain–simply walked away.
Is that cheating the consumer of the story? It all depends on how you write your story. Is is a bit unorthodox? Maybe. Will people be pissed and feel like they’ve been cheated–oh most definitely. But are you taking your villain and story to another level instead of the same recycled stories and arcs we see over and over again? You betcha.
Now get out there and start mixing things up!
Kratos: A complex user experience or a shallow cliche character?
Though I’m not quite yet finished, I have recently been playing the two current God of War games and I have to say I’m having a blast. Though the game can be incredibly frustrating at points it is just enough for me to feverishly keep trying and not give up, while also not giving me an aneurysm. But that’s not what this post is about. The gameplay to the story is fantastic. The use of old Greek mythology is also very creative and fun. What’s lacking from this otherwise stellar story is pathos, and pathos makes all the difference in a story.
Kratos is the character you play as in the story so lets go into a little backstory. Kratos is this bloodthirsty spartan army leader when he takes on some barbarians and his army is decimated. Right before the leader of the barbarian horde is going to enact the final blow on Kratos, Kratos calls out to Ares and says he’ll be his servant if he can deliver him from death. Ares kills everybody except Kratos and his Spartans.
Kratos is now the leader of Spartans under the command of Ares. He goes about killing pretty much anybody and everybody. Eventually this catches up with him and though an old oracle warns him, in his blind fury Kratos murders his wife and child. He then feels bad and swears not to be Ares servant anymore. Ares points out that he was just trying to get Kratos to be a better warrior but KRatos is pretty set on getting revenge. In fact unquenchable revenge is ultimately what powers the main character and the story.
Kratos then becomes a servant to the other gods and sets out on a quest to kill Ares. After you kill every monster and person (regardless of they’re innocence) Kratos eventually kills Ares and becomes the new god of war.
The second game opens with the rest of the gods pissed at Kratos because he’s being a complete douchebag like Ares before him, sending out armies to destroy everything. The gods take away his powers and Zeus delivers the kill blow, however the Titans intercede and blah blah blah.
Poor boat captain...*sigh*
Okay now lets get into what this is all about. Kratos is perhaps the weakest written character of the story. He is pretty much revenge in human form. While this makes for fun gameplay (I mean who doesn’t want to knock Zeus down a few pegs) it leaves a rather empty character. For characters to work (especially in video games when you play as them) you need to be able to connect with the character on some level. And unless you’re a homicidal maniac, there’s nothing to relate with Kratos about. So he killed his wife and daughter and though he blames Ares, it is Kratos blood thirst that really brings him to such a point. So how does he rectify this? By killing more people.
Several times throughout both games you meet up with other characters, some needing your help. Thing is if this person needing help doesn’t have large breasts and isn’t at least showing her tatas for the world to see than you can kiss this person goodbye. In fact Kratos often uses a person asking for help to either torture them or kill them so he can progress further through some puzzle. This ultimately leaves you feeling rather alone in the game and perhaps that’s what the creators wanted. Except I don’t feel bad for KRatos at all…not one bit. In fact I’m disappointed that you can’t actually save those characters you come across. You are forced to kill them, which I suppose leads the player into the mindset of this character who doesn’t care about anybody but himself. However it leaves me not caring about Kratos. In fact I in all honesty hope he fails in the third (and final) installment of the franchise on the playstation. At least with his failure it would give the player a taste of what all these ancient tales were about (moral fables and such).
Among the characters you mercilessly slaughter there is one in particular (a boat captain) you you kill a water serpent for, only to take his key and knock him down the creature’s throat to die. Later when you’re in the underworld you use his spirit as a lifting point to get yourself out of there, sending him down to the river Styx. In the second game he’s summoned by an undead man and the guy is freaking out that you’re there. Now this sort of character is funny even if it’s frustrating for the character. The problem is Kratos treats everyone like this.
Kratos has no friends, family, or apparent emotions other than unresolved hate. He’s either very cleverly written or an absolutely dreadful stereotype taken to the extreme. Only the third installment will let us know. I hope he loses. I hope he rots in Tartarus forever.
Of course how many game makers can create such a popular game with such a despicable protagonist (if you can call him that) and have people keep coming back for more. The obvious answer is a large part of the demographic are just people who like violence and don’t give much thought to story. But I think there’s something else there. It says something that I hate the character I play as so much. Perhaps I’ll have to retouch on this issue when the third game comes out. Till then Kratos remains a mystery to me.
When it comes to stories, the more bizarre and interesting a character is, chances are the more I’m going to like them. Let’s look at a couple where the secondary characters sometimes greatly outshine the primary protagonists.
JK Rowling
Not only gifted at creating a sustainable and pretty believable magical world, what I think Rowling’s greatest gift is creating characters that readers genuinely care about. I think this goes doubly so for all the secondary characters that she creates.
Harry- Well the books are about him, and while I do feel bad that he’s an orphan and has to live with the horrible Dursleys, when it comes to his character I just don’t really care about him. In fact in one of the books I downright despised him. I’m not certain which one it is, but its the one where he’s the most angst ridden and annoying. I understand why he’s a main character and it definitely works for the character, but my question is why? His whole story is about how incredible he is at everything without even trying and how he has dead parents. Revenge may or may not be involved. The strongest part of Harry’s story, no doubt, is the incredible friends he makes along the way.
Hermoine- She’s smart and basically has to do all the intellectual heavy lifting of the three. That’s about it.
Ron- Not sure what he’s really good for…that being said he’s my favorite of the three.
What I’m trying to get at is that I think in pursuit of creating our protagonist (more than likely the hero of the story), we end of stripping them bare of any quirkiness, oddity, or anything deviating from the shining hero. Now in my villain series I’ve already talked about how many (many, many) writers do this with their antagonist. Just create a character that has no good in their heart, who seeks immortality or ultimate power, and will basically destroy anything and everything to get it. Sometimes they just want to destroy the world for the hell of it.
Now let’s take a moment to look at Harry Potter’s secondary characters, which are numerous and just about all of them are incredibly rich in character. In fact I don’t think descriptions or reasons are even necessary.
Snape
Dumbledore
Umbridge
Hagrid
Luna Lovegood
Mad eye Moody
Peter Pettigrew
Lockheart
Sirius Black
The list of endearing characters goes on and on. Now while I think Harry Potter is obviously integral to the story (hence his name being the title for the series), I would argue that it is really the secondary characters that make the story. Let me rephrase that, it is the secondary characters and their relationship with Harry that makes the story.
Now I’m not chastising those that make heroes who are full of goodness and who seem to match the status quo, because I’d be a hypocrite for saying that. Perhaps it’s hard to create a protagonist that is too different from the mold we know as the hero. Of course on the other hand people have made stories involving off characters that would have usually been saved for a supporting role. For example:
Jack Sparrow- A brimming example of a secondary character taking the reigns of the leading man. He’s goofy, delusional, hardly trust worthy, but also absolutely hilarious and honestly makes the movie.
Now how did they manage to pull that off? I suppose one answer is that he’s not the hero, he’s more the antihero. If that’s so I’d like to pose another question. Can the antihero exist with only themself? For all of Captain Jack’s craziness he has the incredibly dull Will Turner and Elizabeth Swan. In this story they take the role of the hero who is uhphasing and emotionally solid (at least mostly). So the writers give the whole switcharoo and the secondary characters take the role of the hero and the primary character takes the role of the wild card.
But even as I write this I can think of a story where there doesn’t seem to be a hero at all. In fact just about every character is either evil or an almost psychotic antihero. I would of course be talking about Alucard from the anime Hellsing.
Alucard...does he have any redeeming qualities other than he's unstoppable and a nut?!
Hmmm. This has got me thinking. And I’m still not very sure to what the answer is. Perhaps its all based off the individual story and the ability of the writer to craft a character that is off kilter yet lovable enough. I’ll try to give this more thought and see what else I can come up with.
I recently became entangled into the torrent of a debate that is: Is RE5 inherently racist? Unfortunately I said some things that I thought were fine at the time but later learned were very antagonizing. A few people attacked back, most of them not very nice words. What I’m thankful for though is that the author of the original post took time to call me out, talk with me, and help me see through the eyes of another.
Needless to say I learned a lot. Though my blog has not been and probably never will be a scholarly pursuit, I’ve decided to go back to my roots and just have fun pointing out the humor and absurdity of things. In the meantime I’ll be trying to update my posts to reflect what I’ve learned.
Now I’m saying all this because we’re all human and life is a learning process. If you take no time to help others (who are also learning) and merely cast them aside or throw bitter words at them, nobody is learning anything. In fact I would imagine both groups would be regressing instead of progressing.
So please take the time to be civil to one another, help each other learn, and show people the unique lens in which you view life.
Now I know, and…
Today I was driving along and my eye met the bumper sticker of the car in front of me that went a little something like this:
Which got me to thinking of grade school. Back then we were taught that plants and trees were living things too. The very fact that they can die and rot I think proves they are alive. So technically eating any kind of vegetable, fruit, or grain is murder too. Is it not considered murder if the living thing can’t scream in horror and pain? I think a jury would argue otherwise.
Essentially eating is murder. Man cannot survive without killing. So to the few non-meat eaters who proclaim their innocence of eating to the masses, lets be honest with ourselves. Instead of being a killer without biased you are more of a serial killer. But we’re all murderers none the less. 
