| UnstableGriffin said: Oh, did I also happen to mention that the cover is unofficial? |
Wrong, it's legit. I got it from Nintendo's E3 press site.
Rhonin the wizard said:
Wrong, it's legit. I got it from Nintendo's E3 press site. |
I wonder who the other face on that cover is though
Leatherhat on July 6th, 2012 3pm. Vita sales:"3 mil for COD 2 mil for AC. Maybe more. " thehusbo on July 6th, 2012 5pm. Vita sales:"5 mil for COD 2.2 mil for AC."
SaviorX said:
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The one top-left? It's Adam Malkovich.
VGC forum 1 : Rhonin 0
Finally, 9th page.
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The Big Picture The ‘Big Picture’ is that Nintendo is openly disrupting Sony’s move to 3d gaming. Why do you think Reggie talked so much about how bad ‘glasses’ are and movies and all showing the ‘evolution of 3d viewing’ with it culminating with the 3DS? Since when has Nintendo been interested in movies or movie history? Nintendo has maintained control of the handheld market because it doesn’t let competitors get their hooks in yet. Nintendo’s business movements have all revolved around Sony. The Wii was made like it was and released at exactly the same time as the PlayStation 3 because Nintendo wanted to dethrone it. When Sony made the move to User Generated Content by buying that LittleBigPlanet company (that Reggie said Nintendo was also trying to buy), Nintendo showed off Wii Music at E3 2008 while Sony showed off LittleBigPlanet. Unfortunately for both of them, no one cares about User Generated Content. Now that Sony is moving to 3d with goggles and all, Nintendo is making a 3d handheld that requires no glasses. Before Sony makes their move, Nintendo has made them obsolete. I did not expect the next disruption to be the handheld disrupting Sony’s console plans. Disruption is crappy products for crappy customers. From Sony’s point of view, the idea of a 3d handheld is a crappy product. Who would want to look at that for 3d movies? And the customers for that are not the big spending movie goers. The 8th Generation will likely be known as the 3d Display Generation as the 7th Generation will be known as the Motion Control Generation. This is savage Nintendo ripping and clawing Sony’s heart out… Do not let their ‘aw shucks’ style of the executives and their happy themed games fool you. Nintendo is a very dangerous adversary in business. The Spectacle ’The Nintendo Babe Moment’ was a fantastic way to end the show, way more fun than Microsoft’s crazy circus, and didn’t cost Nintendo anything. It reminded me of an old Mario commercial where the salesman is on stage with tons of babes.
Having young women come out on stage with 3DS systems chained to them definitely excites the imagination more than Microsoft’s crazy circus. It is a good thing I do not run Nintendo because I would put out calendars of the girls with various Nintendo hardware (like the car calendars). Reggie must have greatly enjoyed himself at that moment. Everyone laughed when Bill Trinen talked about interference about people’s wireless devices because they thought he was spoofing Apple’s goofed up conference. Prior to E3 2010, I joked how I had found a 3DS at a Seattle bar. Ever since Bill Trinen made the comment about the wireless interfering with the event, I am being inundated by emailers who are convinced that I wasn’t joking but actually did find a 3DS in a Seattle bar! Nintendo’s E3 2010 was, without a doubt, better than E3 2009, 2008, and 2007. However, I don’t think anything can top E3 2006 with the unveiling of the Wii and the long lines and stampedes to the console. Most interesting is how Nintendo is making game journalists obsolete. Iwata Asks has Iwata interview his own developers and ask all the more interesting questions. On Nintendo’s website, interviews with full video were shown where they describe the products. This means Nintendo is bypassing biased game journalists who often ‘write against’ whatever Nintendo does. Nintendo seems interested in taking their stuff directly to the consumer. What I think is most interesting is how right after the conference, Nintendo starts having people play their games. Nintendo anxiously wants everyone to get an experience with 3DS. This is very different from Microsoft with Kinect. Playing is believing. It was true in 2006 and still true in 2010. The Games I’ll get into the games more specifically later and look at 3DS software later as well. But as for Wii momentum, only two pieces of software stood out as moving momentum. Surprisingly, the first is a third party game called Epic Mickey. I keep saying how content is so very important. Epic Mickey has the content. Everyone knows what Mickey Mouse is, everyone can identify with it, and the game world is already richly textured with the world of Mickey Mouse’s previous films. Interesting content makes interesting games. The key is whether Warren Spector and Disney can make the gameplay compelling. Seeing how Warren Spector was in charge of some of my favorite games, Epic Mickey has high potential. Reader, you may not know who Warren Spector is, but he has a good track record: Wing Commander (1990), ORIGIN Systems
What I’ve found about games made under Warren Spector is they have a large amount of replay value in them. Epic Mickey’s focus on playstyle will have that replayability. But I’d like to see more of the game to get a sense of what the gameplay is. When you look at Warren Spector’s history, there is no giant turkey among them. Those are some sweet classics. A second reason why Epic Mickey will be big is that aside from the talent above, Disney is very serious about making quality games. This hasn’t been noticed yet, but it will soon. So aside from developer talent, they have the company behind them in making the game truly good. (This doesn’t often happen in video games.) The third reason why Epic Mickey will be big is because I think gaming is cyclical and that the reasons why games were successful in the past are successful today. In other words, Mario 5 sells well today for the same reasons why Mario 1, 2, 3, 4 sold well decades ago. Has there been a successful example of Mickey Mouse in video game form? There has:
The fourth, and most important, reason why Epic Mickey will be successful is because the develoeprs read Malstrom’s fantastic website. I probably shouldn’t say this, but I did get a ‘thank you’ note from them over ‘Birdman and the Casual Fallacy’. If you notice at E3 2010, Epic Mickey was never described in ‘casual game’ terms. Even though the game is from a cartoon, no gamer thinks of it as a ‘casual game’ as they do Kinect type of games. I suppose making a game on the Wii made the developers wonder if they should ‘dumb the game down’ for the Wii audience because, as we all know, only ‘casuals’ play Wii. If you notice, they didn’t do this. And this is why there is excitement about Epic Mickey from regular gamers. It is a game even I might buy. It is definitely a game I can see parents buy for their kids… where the parents will also play! But this depends on if Epic Mickey has compelling gameplay which we will see in time. Epic Mickey could become a very nice hit. The other game that will help drive Wii momentum is Donkey Kong Country Returns which will be labeled on this webpage as ‘Donkey Kong Country 4’. I can see why Retro would want to make DKC 4 as DKC was a fun game in its day. It was not Mario 5, but DKC stole the thunder away from Sonic. When Donkey Kong Country came out, the game was sold out and single handedly made SNES beat Genesis in the 16-bit Console War. So, no doubt, DKC 4 will sell big. Not Mario 5 big, but big. There is enough demand for 2d platformers for a 2d Mario to be released every year. Having Mario 5 one year and DKC 4 the next will be as satisfying. With the rumor about Retro working on Donkey Kong, I was worried would be some gimmick driven game with 3d (like using the Wii mote to swing on vines in first person view). 2d platformers are always welcome. When asked about what Retro was up to, Reggie Fils-Aime once responded, “They are at a project that appeals to their strengths.” What is Retro’s strength? We would all say adventure and creating a rich 3d environment. This is why everyone thought Retro would make a 3d game of some sort. Retro making DKC 4 goes contrary to what Reggie said. I really like Retro making DKC 4. If DKC 4 is successful (meaning if Retro did a good job on it), this fundamentally changes the company’s worth to Nintendo. Consider this: when DKC 4 comes out will be when Sakamoto’s crazy Metroid game comes out. I can already tell you that DKC 4 is going to clobber Other M in sales. It won’t be a contest. Now consider the year 2013 (or around then). Retro Studios could release the first true sequel to Super Metroid, i.e. a 2d Metroid game on the home console. We know Retro knows how to make Metroid games. But if DKC 4 proves Retro knows how to make 2d platformers, I insist that Retro be assigned to make a 2d Metroid for the home console. It would be glorious. More updates will be coming. Feel free to email me. |
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Hello Malstrom, hope E3 is providing as much fun and rowdiness for you as it is for me. Wow, Microsoft really struck out horribly, didn’t they? From your perspective, will they have *any* luck at all bringing their angular 360 Slim to their target demographics? I think the camera has potential, but that selling it without perfect software (like Nintendo) will be a nightmare. Lots of R&D costs that will not be returned…
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None. I am suspecting that the glue that holds the ‘Core’ and ‘Expanded’ Markets together on Wii, and is integral for the Expanded Market being successful in the first place, is Old School value gaming. Mario Kart Wii was a bridge game. It definitely fits in that old school tradition. Mario 5 also definitely fits in that old school tradition. They are both bridge games. Oddly, Nintendo just declared they were bridge games. But it makes you realize that the early 2d Mario games attracted this early ‘Expanded Audience’ (as Pac-Man and Donkey Kong did) way back in the 80s. That same ‘Expanded Audience’ was playing NES sports games like Golf or Tennis. Wii Sports really replicates those classic old NES games. There seems to be stronger and stronger evidence that what we call ‘Old School’ games are really the new ‘Expanded Audience’ games. I, myself, fit in the ‘Expanded Audience’ category as I was a gamer that drifted away from Nintendo. Microsoft cannot understand the Old School values. Neither can Sony. Nintendo has found a monopoly. Neither Microsoft or Sony or any third party can replicate Mario Kart, for example (even though they keep trying). They cannot replicate 2d Mario. The only company that could was Sega, and Sega is no more. If Nintendo keeps true to the Old School values, they will keep the Expanded Audience and people will keep getting excited about their stuff. They won’t end up a N64 again. I also believe that game quality to reach the Expanded Audience is more demanding than the Core Audience. Making a Core Game is easy for developers because developers are already core gamers. It is making a game they already like, making a game like a movie, etc. But making a game for someone else is much, much harder. With the Kinect route Microsoft took, it appears Microsoft thought ‘lesser quality’ would work because they aren’t really gamers, they are ‘casuals’ which is an inbreed form of gamer. They really believed in the Casual Fallacy. Nintendo, on the other hand, really seemed to place a lot of eggs in the 3DS basket – but I think they will have an easier sell. Rather than try to sell 3D as a “just like in cinemas” feature that takes a *lot* of money, time and looking into and learning the tech, Nintendo is selling a “first step” in 3D that not only is optional and upgrades old games, but offers 3D photos. It’s nothing mindblowing, but it won’t be expensive and it will be an automatically attractive feature for lots of people.
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How do we know it isn’t mindblowing? We would need to see it for ourselves. But the nature of the games they have announced for 3DS leaves me impressed. That is some terrific value in the early software they are offering. . But Zelda… Wow, Link – the scorpions has eyes in its claws! Do you think that’s the weak spot, Link? Perhaps if you stab it in the eye, you can defeat it!
They seem to have forgotten that Zelda is about experiencing Hyrule and exploring it, learning about why its important to defend but not having to talk a lot with NPCs (before TP, exchanges with NPC was much faster, optional and charming) or going through a lot of dialog.
Now, I am getting Super Mario Galaxy vibes all over the place. They’ve spent a lot of time on controls and “clever” puzzle solutions, and still we have to wait until 2011. I don’t want “realistic” or “cool” graphics, but they seem to have mixed WW with TP and created something pretty unimpressive – it looks worse than both in the relevant aspects. It looks less detailed and rich than TP, and less expressive and unique than WW. Combat looked gimmicky, not fast and arcadey. All the exploration seemed to require something gimmicky to do first. And don’t get me started on the *horrible* HUD taking up EVEN MORE space than the one from TP! The only step forward was item selection and mid-combat potion drinking.
Zelda was not impressive. If there was any character other than Link being clunkily controlled by Miyamoto, people would have laughed. I don’t give a toss about Goldeneye, either. I don’t think Wii Party can be a bridge title either. Why take Mario out of Mario Party? Why not just have Mario Party with Miis? It would probably be stimulating (and symbolic) for both “hardcore” and “casuals” to have Mario and the others shaking hands and competing with Miis.
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Zelda was definitely the weakest part of the conference. And it wasn’t because of the control interferences they had. . For the Nintendo people reading this amazing blog, I will tell you the real reason why it held disappointment. . Content! . Content! Content Content! I am a broken record on it. But content from the consumer’s eyes is different than the game company or platform holder. In our eyes, content is the adventure. . How can you tell when game controls are broken? When gamers think about the controls when playing. (They shouldn’t be thinking about the controls at all!) How can you tell when the gameplay is broken? When gamers talk about the gameplay. (Fun games have people play constantly. When gamers are having fun, they never talk about the gameplay. They only talk about the gameplay if the game is not fun.) . Likewise, I kept asking myself during the Zelda part, “What is this game about?” Yeah, we get that it uses motion controls. But what is the game about? Yes, I know it is Zelda, but what is the game about? What is the adventure? This is why I have someone emailing me thinking that Zelda: Skyward Sword is going to be a puzzle centric game because no content was shown. We are given an impression that the game revolves around using motion plus to open up doors and do other funky things. But is that it? Is the game just sterile with the typical Zelda theme? . Gamers do not play games, they play adventures. If you ask someone to describe Zelda, they would likely describe the the rich overworld, all the items, the story of Zelda and Ganon, and basically they are trying to communicate the adventure the game illustrates. Just as controls and items are not the core of the Zelda experience, rotating tetrads that fall is not the core of the Tetris experience. (Tetris would not be Tetris without the love of Russia found in its music, in its themes, all throughout.) From a developer’s point of view, they would see Zelda in its ingredients such as gameplay or items or control methods just as a cook sees a fantastic dish in its ingredients. But the consumer does not see a ‘dish’, the consumer sees a meal. . The Zelda showing failed to excite because Nintendo only showed off the ingredients and did not show off the meal. In prior Zelda show-offs, the reason why video trailers were effective is because they gave a sense of what the meal was. If someone just showed you buns and mayonnaise and talked about how it is different mayonnaise and buns than you have ever seen before, you wouldn’t care. You see only the context of the hamburger instead of some ingredients of it. You would ask, “Where’s the beef?” Where is the content? Does Zelda: Skyward Sword have any content? Is the game an adventure or is it just some linked puzzles with cutscenes in between? But the rest of the conference was pretty much a triumph. Just off the top of my head, Retro Studios seemed to understand DKC, Kirby looked really stimulating, Other M looks exciting (but I agree they’ve missed what Metroid is about – it’s brand misuse) ad Kid Icarus looked magnificent.
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I thought Other M looked bad. But then again, I’ve always thought Other M looked bad. My view probably is not the best to ask about Other M. But if you notice how the trailer tried to emphasize the gameplay parts rather than the cutscenes. I think Nintendo suspects there might be trouble with that title. . Kid Icarus looked very interesting. I very much cannot wait to learn more about it. However, I despise the voice acting of Pit. It is horrible. I want an option to turn it off. It would be a shame if voice acting ruins the Kid Icarus revival. . What I find most interesting about Kid Icarus is how fast the combat is. In the post E3 interview, the main dev dude for it said he had to make combat on land and air which sounds very interesting. But in all things, I need to see more about it. . But God, that voice acting… . But I think Zelda is heading downhill, based on my gut instinct. They don’t understand why people play Zelda games, and instead focus on controlling Link and solving puzzles in “novel” ways. If you don’t get what you expect from a brand, the brand’s attraction and positive associations disappear. The focus on mechanics and “novelties” from the DS games (I don’t like using the word “gameplay” – it makes no sense to me and is a lazy umbrella term) seems to be moving over to stationary Zeldas. A real shame.
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But, I am losing cohesion and brevity, and you must be getting tons of email. .
What do you think? . Zelda is in decline. I am more excited over that Ocarina of Time for 3DS and I do not even like Ocarina of Time! But I understand the tremendous value that Ocarina of Time has. It is a time tested game. And Ocarina has content. The game is an adventure. Since I haven’t completed it, maybe a handheld version of it might lend me to bother finishing it. . Skyward Sword looks like exactly what I suspected the Zelda Wii was going to be. It is nothing more than the Old Zelda Formula, the Aonuma Formula, but with motion plus controls. And motion plus controls are going to make ‘new puzzles’. Oh boring. Zelda is not about puzzles! And at the end of the trailer, we see Link fly like Peter Pan. Now, I know that is in there not for any content reasons, not to expand the Zelda mythos, but because Aonuma is making games for his son. . This is why I think the Zelda AFTER Skyward Sword is going to be a restoration of Zelda. Skyward Sword was too far in development to make the necessary changes. I was hoping they would ‘dump’ this game out this year (I’m sure Nintendo was unhappy about me using the term ‘dump’ haha) and get it out of the way, but they want to ‘work on it more’. . One thing I know for sure is that Skyward Sword will not be the Zelda that becomes mainstream. In the past, Mario was the big thing. Next up was Zelda. With 2d Mario, Mario has somewhat returned to his former glory. But what about Zelda? The people who play Zelda today are not new Zelda fans. They are OLD Zelda fans. They are Ocarina of Time fans or LTTP fans or earlier. . I think the major concern that every Zelda fan is concerned about is what condition is the overworld in? What is it like? Is the overworld a rich environment or is it going to be static and empty? . As usual, thanks for making interesting posts and showing how business and marketing not only is relevant, but worthy of interest and study.
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And I make no money for it, alas! But, at the very least, when Nintendo goes off the reservation I can write fun things on the blog. Imagine if we could have done this fifteen years ago. “Nintendo, WTF you doing with that Virtual Boy? And that N64 controller with its three prongs! I do not have 3 hands! And where is my 2d Mario for the N64?” If we backwards engineer our typical consumer reactions, we might be able to provide Nintendo a compass so they can get back on the reservation. But they did pretty well this E3. |
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It’s a nice headline. I am sure people will flood you right now with mails. It’s so nice how Reggie himself talks about technology as the tool, and that experience is their goal. Their only flaw right now is that they are calling “franchises” what should be called “series”, I smell some Industry-speak there. I am sure this E3 will be remembered, just like the year the Wii was presented, forever. I don’t mind being flooded with mails right now. I am curious to hear everyone’s reactions. I think Nintendo easily had the best presentation of all of them. However, I must admit I bowed out of the Sony Conference because it was too damn long. It just went on and on and on. If I want to see something that goes on and on and on forever, I will just read myself. But when I turned away from Sony’s conference, got some coffee, stumbled into a wall because I was put in such lethargy from listening to Sony, I discovered that while Nintendo had stopped their conference, they had not stopped announcing games. “What is this!?” I snapped awake. Where did all these 3DS games come from? Mario Kart? Starfox? Pilotwings? Street Fighter IV? Ocarina of Time? Holy cow! In a business sense, it felt like Nintendo was not content to knock out Sony, but with Sony clearly down Nintendo kept delivering more and more punches. You had that urge that you want to go and pull Nintendo back as you would pull a man back who is constantly punching someone who is down. I hope never to be on Nintendo’s bad side. They are ferocious. And their actions are really ripping Sony shred to shred. |
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This email comes from a journalist who is walking the ground at E3 2010. The 3D that everyone is clamoring the get their paws on at E3 is a Nintendo handheld, not an all-powerful PlayStation 3. The lines are shades of ’06 (seriously it took one guy I follow 2 hours to get there, and he’s STILL not playing with one at E3). Don’t people ever learn? This is history and disruption repeating! Sounds like 3DS really is bringing in the excitement. This really could be an ’06 moment if E3 wasn’t as closed off as it is. While I expect this journalist who emailed me to deliver his impressions and all to his real job site, I wouldn’t mind any other things you see at E3! Tell me things you see there that you cannot print in your publication! hahaha Things the Industry doesn’t want you to say! |
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While the reader does not see the names of these emailers, I do. This emailer has been unhappy with modern Zelda. Today, he says: Hi there Sean, You’ll be getting a lot of e-mails right now but here is what stood out for me with Zelda is that it isn’t getting released in 2010 but in 2011. Then we hear about Aonuma going on about bringing Zelda back to it’s roots and was it me or was that Zelda demo very combat focused? .
What i’m trying to say is this: it looks like the game is getting delayed to receive some extra work in order to bring Zelda back to it’s former self.
. And thanks for homing in on Kid Icarus a few weeks ago, looks like they listened.
. On Kid Icarus, I don’t know what you’re referring to or that this site had anything to do with it. We know Nintendo has been looking to resurrect Kid Icarus since before the Wii launched. It appears Nintendo shopped Kid Icarus around at different studios to see how they would undertake it and went with the current studio they had. But about Zelda, you’re right there is much more to the combat than there was before. We just need to see more. It felt like Miyamoto was trying to show off too much and the interference didn’t help. Something about Skyward Sword doesn’t feel right. It feels like they are trying to make the image of Zelda from a ‘Spirit Tracks’ type of clay. The game started off with the Aonuma design, and I can feel that everywhere from what I saw. This is why I think the most important thing will be the state of the overworld. Will be it static like Twilight Princess or non-existent like Spirit Tracks? If anything is to bring Zelda back to its roots, it would be a rich, fun, and dangerous overworld. |
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Nintendo definitely seems to be heading back to its roots more and more overall. In the Iwata Asks video for Zelda Wii (Skyward Sword), Eiji Aonuma even mentions “back to basics” about looking at old core gameplay from the original titles. This new block system with Link and the enemies excites me, and it makes me think of Zelda 2 in 3D for some reason combat-wise. Also, they brought back the sword beam in a properly balanced way for a 3D game.
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Now, I remember you saying a while back (I’ve been reading your articles for quite some time now) that Zelda Wii will be infested with tons of Motion gimmicks to kind of make up for the lack of game titles that use the Motion . They seem to be doing that a bit, but aside from that flying beetle thing, none of it looks too..bad. We don’t really know how the full overworld is going to be, and I don’t know how puzzle-infested it might be (although none of the gameplay shown looked overly puzzle-orientated, from my point of view), but I do have a somewhat positive feeling that this game will be better than all the other 3D Zelda titles, at the least. If nothing else, it is nice to hear that Miyamoto and Aonuma have the words “back to basics” stirring in their minds. Perhaps that is a good sign. .
Now, up until this point, I haven’t even asked you a question yet, but I first wanted to relay my impressions of the game to you before I started. I suppose my overall question is: What do you think of what we have seen so far from the new Zelda title, and do you think there are any good signs that Zelda may be returning to its roots in the future? Is it too early to tell? . I also have one more question that comes a bit out of nowhere, but how would you feel about Retro Studios working on a Zelda game?
. As you can tell, reader, most of my emails so far have been about Zelda. And last I looked at my email, it looks like more emails are going to be responding to my responses on Zelda emails! With all the 3DS excitement and all going on, interesting how people want to talk to me about Zelda. . About Retro, I think they were at one point making a Zelda game or showing Nintendo a prototype. Apparently, it didn’t go over too well. . About Zelda… well you are the second person emailing in happy they are saying ‘getting Zelda back to its roots’. I suppose we are missing too much information. Showing off the motion plus items and all is the ‘micro’ part of the game. But what about the Big Picture? The ‘Big Picture’ of later Zeldas are very different from early Zeldas. . In early Zeldas, the overworld was vast, rich, interesting, but very, very dangerous. I believe one important element to entertainment is to have an interesting villain, and in order to feel like a hero one must make the world feel dangerous and even feel a little evil. The reason why Mario 5 climaxed so beautifully was that World 8 felt very dangerous, even evil, and Bowser was very dangerous at the end of the game. When I think back as to why our original experiences in the old school games like Metroid and Zelda and other games were so memorable was because the games felt dangerous. . If you play an early Zelda, you will die if you just stand around. The world is not a friendly place. And it felt very empowering for Link to grow stronger and to overcome the ‘evil world’. Link growing stronger did not just mean Link getting heart containers and getting better armor, sword, and items. Link growing stronger also meant the player mastering the arcade gameplay. Some people are so good they can beat Legend of Zelda with just three hearts. A game like Mario 5 doesn’t have any ‘puzzle gameplay’ but it is very addictive because you know ‘just one more try’ and you will eventually beat the level. You feel your own skills increasing. . This is probably why I think the ‘puzzle gameplay’ in modern Zeldas doesn’t create the empowering feeling. I can just look up the answer online and whooo, the door opens. Big deal. But with the older Zelda games, even if you had the map and hundreds of strategy guides, none of that was enough. You had to acquire some skill. I mean, there is no way to beat a game like Zelda 1, 2, LTTP without really mastering Link’s combat skills. . What I fear is a Zelda that has the same structure as say Twilight Princess with motion plus controls used to ‘make new puzzles’. In metaphor, my fear is that Motion Plus Controls will be like new food inserted into an old dirty dish. I swear, if I have to talk to Grandma in this Zelda… and raise chickens because some NPC needs some eggs… That isn’t what Zelda is about. I don’t care about Grandma. . I don’t want to see Link kick ass. I want to see me kick ass. So I get my sword and go out into a dangerous world. If the world is not dangerous or evil, how can I feel like a hero? . In previous Zelda games, it was fun to die and come back. I believe with Ocarina of Time, it was never fun to die. Maybe it took too long to get back where you were. But the old Zelda games were hard and they were fun to keep coming back. . With Wind Waker, Nintendo made Zelda so easy that the game ceased to feel dangerous (so you ceased to feel like a hero). And Zelda games have been ridiculously easy since. . We just need more info about Zelda. We haven’t seen enough to say whether or not they are truly going back to the roots. |
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It is amazing to me how neither Sony or Microsoft “get it”. Competing with Nintendo on motion control is one thing, but doing it by simply taking Nintendo’s best sellers list and copying it is absolutely retarded. Do they really think they are going to capture marketshare away from Nintendo? Do they really think they are going expand any market? Or were they just satisfying shareholder demands to tack on “better” motion controls and sell to some grannies? It has to be that because why else would they just phone it in like that? I think they are trying to fail just so they can say “See, casuals don’t buy games! Make more Halo!”. It is just retarded. It was something like this:
The modern equivalent to that commercial are forum dwellers saying things like ‘Time to increase sales for this console. Let’s bump up the advertising.’ Yes, just like that. It sounds like Sony and Microsoft’s business response to the Wii is identical to forum dwellers. “Let’s just make a ‘BETTER’ Wii-mote.” “Let’s trump the Wii by using your ENTIRE BODY by not using any controllers at all!” “Yeah!” “Yeah!” And they high five one another. If you gave the average forum dweller a hundred million dollars and told them to make a response to Wii, they probably would have made Kinect and Move exactly. As for hardcore being driven back to PC gaming, well, let’s see once these devices are released to the public. |
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What is with NOA and the desire to cram as many Samus Arans as possible onto the box art?
Now look at Corruption:
More multiple Samus Arans. I wish they would one day put a Metroid on the cover of the Metroid box. |
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During, and after watching Nintendo’s press conference, I kept on thinking that “damn, these guys are working just how Malstrom said they will”. Here is something I found odd. In E3 2009, when Mario 5 was unveiled (we did not know it would be Mario 5 then, we only knew it was New Super Mario Brothers Wii), many people dissed it. Yet, these same people are very excited about DKC 4. So what happened? One explanation is that Nintendo’s E3 presentation of Mario 5 was poor as it was only on 1-1 (and 1-1 is not the most exciting of levels), and it didn’t fully convey how fun four player gameplay was. Another explanation is that marketers for competitors instantly recognized Mario 5 for the threat it was and moved swiftly to ‘neutralize’ it the best they could. Rumors began spreading that Mario 5 was just a ‘DS port’, that Mario 5 was a ‘casual game’, and so on. Strange enough how I am seeing some game sites say that Nintendo showed ‘core games’ for E3 2010. Now, wait a minute. A year ago they were calling Mario 5 casual. Yet, games like DKC 4 and Kirby are now ‘hardcore’? This makes no sense. While Nintendo and the disruption guys have clear definitions of ‘expanded audience’ and ‘core audience’, the way how game journalists are going about it is that core games means ‘games I want to play’ and expanded audience means ‘games I do not want to play’. A generation or two ago, people once called games like Halo and Grand Theft Auto III as ‘casual games’. E3 2008 had Wii Music (bleh) and Animal Crossing for Wii (too similar to the Gamecube version). They really didn’t have much. And apparently the reaction was bad enough for Iwata to publicly apologize for the E3 show. At E3 2009, we got some more UGC and hardcore games and, of course, Mario 5. I was ecstatic over Mario 5 because I knew what that title meant. But I knew the hardcore titles and UGC wouldn’t do anything. It does feel as if Nintendo’s software offering is far more centered correctly. True, there is something for everyone. But it felt like software I would want to buy. And I am seeing this response from many other gamers. The 3DS launch software seems very much stuff I want to get or at least interested in learning more about. Even back at E3 2006 and E3 2007, it felt like Nintendo divided all gamers into ‘your Expanded side’ and your ‘Core side’. Yet, at E3 2010, much of the software felt like ‘bridge games’. So what happened? One change I think occurred is that we didn’t see any of the software portrayed with actors such as when Wii Sports launched. Traditional gamers responded negatively to these ads even though they were necessary to demonstrate how the controller worked. I think the negative reaction might have been that it was in the plastic happy smiles and how the attention of the ad wasn’t on the game. Everything was portrayed, more or less, as a game. Only Let’s Dance 2 made me cringe due to the montage they showed. The game is OK, but the montage seemed over the top. But do you know the real reason why Nintendo E3 2010 was so well, well ahead of E3 2008 and E3 2009? It is an answer you will only read at this page. Lean closer reader, and I will whisper the answer to you. No User Generated Content software was shown for Nintendo’s E3 2010. I consider this significant. At both E3 2008 and E3 2009, UGC software was shown. There is something about UGC software that not only has disinterest but repels consumers. I believe this is because gaming, like novels, like movies, like music, is a content business. When people go to the store and hand over their precious money, they expect professional content. They do not want to pay money to play unprofessional content. We saw how rapid a decline Wii’s momentum had. Something about that software created a negative reaction. Consumers were recoiling. I believe the lack of UGC software is a very big reason why E3 2010 went very well for Nintendo. So on behalf of your customers, Nintendo, I thank you for not inflicting UGC on us any further. But UGC did do something very important. It humbled Nintendo. With the success of the DS and especially the Wii, some of the Nintendo execs seemed to be getting a head. UGC really showed that fortunes in the market can swiftly turn. I would prefer Nintendo to be humbled by bad software as opposed to a bad console. Note that 3DS did not have any UGC elements advertised in it. Maybe it is still there, but Iwata never mentioned any of it. The DSi had things where you could manipulate music or manipulate cameras. While you can take 3d photos, and there may be some DSi features carried over, Nintendo did not focus on it at all. Nintendo didn’t offer any software I would find ‘repelling’ (but I didn’t know Wii Music was Wii Music until I played it). I don’t see any ‘turkeys’ hiding in Nintendo’s offering of software. Someone like me who wasn’t a N64 gamer, the Goldeneye game doesn’t interest me much, but I know how well loved the original game was, and I’m happy N64 gamers get a game they liked. Why? Because I am getting some games I like such as DKC 4. BTW, where the hell is Pikmin 3? Is Nintendo planning to ‘surprise’ that on us later on? |
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Dear Malstrom I will keep this short because you are probably have tons of emails to go through. Anyway, what do you think about Nintendo not showing either Zangeki no Reginleiv or the wii vitality sensor? Thanks for your thoughts. Vitality Sensor is still coming but will be more geared for the Japanese market. For Reginleiv, I knew the game wasn’t coming as soon as they moved the Other M release date back. NOA toyed with the idea of bringing over Reginleiv over. Sales for Reginleiv were not that hot in Japan. Japanese players who played it told me some of its problems. The biggest problem with the game is that it was not local multiplayer. The EDF games were fun because they were local multiplayer. And Sandlot really screwed up as they were given a nice budget, and they spent it on cutscenes. What the heck? All the voice acting and cutscenes doesn’t make translating it any easier. I still wish Reginleiv would come over though. I do not want to return to the NES/SNES days of watching cool looking games get released in Japan and not get released in America (or Europe). But I’m more than happy with 2d platforming such as DKC 4. |
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Hi, I have to ask if you’ve been watching the same E3 conference that I’ve been watching. You always say that content is the most important thing, the one thing that video game companies are in a habit of ignoring, and this is a point I’ve always particularly identified with. Going into Nintendo’s conference, I was thoroughly disappointed to see only one original IP (Epic Mickey) mentioned in the entire showing, drowned out by the unusally exceptional number of franchise sequels and remakes. Even Kid Icarus, the one franchise that hasn’t been touched in so long it may be called original, was a blatant mimicry of a sci-fi shooting game (*coughSin&Punishmentcough*), going so far as to have a mythical castle SHOOTING LASERS! It couldn’t even stay consistent with its own Greek mythological content. After a long period of time, releasing an update on an old series is considered a ‘new IP’ by publishers. IF you read my website, you’d know I do not fault Mario 5 that it didn’t add anything really new to the Mario mythos. It has been 18 years since a new 2d Mario on console. That length of time made even old content seem fresh. My worry is that with Mario 6, they cannot just have ‘mountain world’ and ‘ice world’. They need to be more imaginative and add something to the Mario continuum or else Mario 6 will come across as ‘flat’ and ‘stale’ no matter what gameplay innovations they put in it. Let us look at the Kid Icarus Uprising trailer together, shall we?
That voice acting is just horrid. Bad! Bad! This is how Kid Icarus ended:
Note the laser beams coming from Pit’s sword and Meduce’s ‘eye beams’. Then there are blocks falling from the sky. So I don’t see anything in the trailer contradicting the original game. Except. The. Horrid. Voice. Acting. Not sure where you are getting the Sin and Punishment gameplay from.
I love how Reggie says ‘Retroid studios, FROM TEXAS, has…’ because it was very important to know that Retro comes from Texas. Most people do not realize that Texas is the third biggest state in terms of game development. From my standpoint, all my favorite game companies have come from Texas. Origin. Simtex. id. And others. The reason why Retro games are so good has to do with a combination of Atomic Fireballs and Texas barbecue. (If any journalist asks, Retro will confirm this is the truth.) DKC 4 is the new Mario 5. There hasn’t been a new DKC game in 16 years. Even if DKC 4 has the same exact content as DKC 1, it won’t matter since it has been 16 years since everyone forgot DKC 1 content. And we don’t know what content DKC 4 will have until we see more of the game. If DKC 5 comes out a few years from now and has similar content, then there will be problems. But after 16 years, DKC 4 can do whatever it wants. With Zelda, we didn’t see any content. How do we know if they are using old content or new content if nothing was shown? Aside from Other M and GoldenEye, there were no sequels shown at this E3. There were series revivals such as Kid Icarus and Donkey Kong. But no sequels. Unlike Mario 5 and DKC 4, Kid Icarus NES was so primitive that its world is as undetailed as the original Super Mario Brothers or Metroid. Kid Icarus is going to have to define its game world which will be interesting to see how they do it. There is a much wider diversity of content displayed here than there was a year ago with just Galaxy 2, Wii Fit, and Other M. As I said before, publishers consider a revival of a decade long sleeping series to be a ‘new IP’. The theme of E3 2010 could be ‘revivals’ from Kid Icarus, Donkey Kong, Mario Sports games, and Kirby. Seeing Nintendo make games outside their usual three legged stool of Mario, Zelda, and Metroid is welcomed. |
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Hi Sean, The 360 slim isn’t about attracting “new customers.” They’re just saying that because they need to prove to investors (who want MS to drop its consumer entertainment division entirely) that they’re going to take over Nintendo’s market. The reality is that it’s about stopping the 360 from bankrupting them. The Xbox 360 is a very, very poorly designed piece of kit. Have you seen the motherboard? It’s disorganized, and there are so many capacitors and inductors that I suspect they had some serious problems figuring out how to keep the voltage steady. The PS3 and Wii were both much more professionally designed–you can tell Microsoft isn’t a hardware company. The main problem with the 360 was heat transfer–the interior of the case was so cluttered, they couldn’t effectively pump air across the heat sinks to keep things cool. Everyone knows the red ring problems are related to heat, and every patched-up version they released failed to fix things. Well, this version has the CPU and GPU on a single, much smaller chipset, so it won’t generate as much heat, and allow the guts to be completely redesigned. If they did their jobs, you won’t hear much about red rings any more. It’s really nothing more than that. The jazzy new case and OMG KINECT READY is something someone in marketing thought up, but the real story is to just get the thing to stop breaking all the time. Very interesting info. Thanks for sending it in. Yeah, I believe the idea of Kinect began with the video Casamassina had of video camera boxing at GDC 2007. Casamassina goes to Reggie and says, “zOMG!! Do you know about this? It is so amazing!” And Reggie laughs and says, “We know about it.” At that time, there were people who thought it was ‘amazing’ and would ‘replace the Wii-mote. Apparently Microsoft marketers saw this and bit. Microsoft isn’t a hardware company but isn’t a software company either. Microsoft is a marketing company. Their crazy E3 really should cement that. So you think Xbox 360 Slim is nothing more than ‘Xbox 360 version that doesn’t break’? Someone emailed me asking about whether this new slim would be covered by Microsoft’s warranty of the Red Ring of Death. I haven’t heard anything about that with the Slim so perhaps Microsoft thinks it has phased out the problem. Be damn funny if another hardware problem pops up for the slim. Tee hee hee. |
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i cannot believe i watch through that entire bullshit. They said and use casual as a category over 90 times, and had that kevin butler dude to same some memorize line about gaming. all the games for move are either sequel that never drove sales, or a nintendogs or wii sport rippoff. except the fact they have steam on ps3 was interesting though i wonder what kind of profit deal they made with valve? i love the fact they annouce the entire move controller set at 100 dollars. I watched some of it before I almost passed out. I did see the Kevin Butler thing. At one point, I was thinking about naming the post as ‘Sega’s E3 2010 Conference’ due to Sony itching at battling Nintendo. But Sega knew how to make cool games so that would be dishonoring Sega’s memory. In appreciation for your services for undergoing the torture that was Sony’s Press Conference, I hereby award you with a flamingo.
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Hi Mr. Malstrom, sorry to keep bombarding you with emails, especially since you’re probably swamped right about now.
I’ve noticed something since Nintendo’s press conference. More people are talking about the Ocarina remake on 3DS than they are Skyward Sword. From what I’ve observed, the general consensus on Skyward is “it looks like it could be cool,” whereas even people who never played Ocarina of Time are pretty much soiling their pants at the idea of a 3DS remake. If that’s not indication that there’s something wrong with modern Zelda, I don’t know what is. . Ocarina of Time is a known value. Skyward Sword is an unknown. All that we know is that they showed off motion plus controls. But that wasn’t too effective due to the interference. I don’t think we have much information to judge Skyward Sword in any way… yet. The only thing we can see for sure is the art style. Note how there was no sword last year for Zelda. Yet, a sword is now in the subtitle. We could be wrong about this title and that it is in massive transition. Miyamoto seems to be throwing his whip at Aonuma. |
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Hello there, Malstrom.
I’m glad we agree that Zelda’s content is one of its major flaws. I would go as far as saying content and not “romanticism” (as you put it) is the virus affecting Zelda. Why? Because The newest Zelda games don’t have the same content as the old ones. Zelda I & II, Link to the Past and Ocarina where based on the legend of King Arthur (with the sword in the stone and medieval themes) with a little Tolkien thrown in. They where fantasy adventures. But what about Windwaker? It’s about the sea, tropical islands and pirates. Not the same. Twilight Princess seemed to go in the right direction, but it mixed Zelda’s old content with things like werewolves, imps, dark creatures and even some “technological” or “sci-fi” stuff. In my opinion, it didn’t mesh. All of those things aren’t “Zelda”. That’s also the reason why a “futuristic Zelda” probably wouldn’t work. So… What about Zelda Wii? As you put it, we don’t know enough to tell if its content will be good. However, Miyamoto and Aonuma -do- talk about a “back to basics” approach to Zelda (here: http://e3.nintendo.com/iwata-asks/) and the demo seemed fairly focused on sword combat. There is potential, but you are right… there probably won’t be enough time to really fix things.
If not Zelda Wii, I really hope that the Zelda after that brings the series to its former glory. Glad you’re posting on your blog about all these E3 news… the next few months are going to be really interesting. Keep up the good work. Regards, Mr. Reader . What you’re really asking is for Zelda to return to its mythical sources, to feel as epic and powerful as any myth. The sources you listed are more western. When the Second Revolution occurred (NES Era), it was a total invasion of content from Japan. It wasn’t just video games, it was Japanese culture and content coming in. Aside from video games, another thing that arose was anime. I remember Robotech from 1985 and thought, “Wow!” I had never seen a show like that. Of course, anime became lame and western interest in it faded (somewhat how it is occurring with video games). Zelda didn’t do anything that out of the ordinary for the mythical realm. You had the hero Link, the Master Sword in LTTP, the dual world, and basically a grand adventure. The Triforce, above all, I recall as being the source of great interest and intrigue. If you notice the Zelda cartoon show of the 1980s focused much on the (then) two Triforces. As the Star Control 2′s Pkunk would say, they were like Pyramid Power, “Pointy Power” the mystical birds would say. Sometimes clues to Zelda’s content can be found in events and things occurring at that time. Let us take the Zelda cartoon for example…
I’m always puzzled why later Zelda fans have hatred for this cartoon. When all there was is Zelda I and II, there wasn’t anything this cartoon contradicted at the time. To this day, I find it entertaining. The love triangle between Sprite, Link, and Zelda makes for some hilarious dialogue. “But Sprite, you’re only six inches tall.” “What!? You don’t like short girls?” Link shooting beams with his sword is the correct thing to do, and he did this in the first three Zelda games. Ganon was a pig in the cartoon, and of course Zelda had a nice butt. “Hey princess! You look really good from over here!” says Link in the very first episode, seeing Zelda from an angle when she is in her night gown. It’s hilarious. I loved how the season ended. Zelda was growing closer to Link, even falling in love with him (she could see him when he died), but at the very last episode when Ganon had both the Triforces, Link pulled Zelda away during a cave-in after getting the Triforce of Wisdom back even though the other Triforce was sitting right there next to it. Zelda is furious at him because he messed up Hyrule getting both Triforces. The show ends with Link turning to the camera and saying, “Well, at least I still have a job.” hahaha. I can relate to this Link. I’d act just like he did if I was stuck in that Hyrule. One thing the intro makes clear is that the Triforce is integral to the core of the Zelda experience. Zelda I was about the Triforce. Zelda II was about the Triforce. Link to the Past was about the Triforce. Note a pattern? Part of my real life existence is to study myth. I can talk on hours about the subject. My studying is not about myths as substance, as in studying them, but in getting to the roots of myths. I am not talking theory junk. The myths we read on paper were not on paper. They were oral songs. Where did these oral songs come from? It goes back before the invention of writing. It goes way, way, way back. Thousands and thousands of years. What will really bake your noodle is that the really, really old oral songs… are exactly the same across the world. This means either there was global transportation back then (not impossible) or/and everyone was using the celestial sky for the source of much of these myths (also extremely likely) and they used it with the precision of a computer. Those ancients were damn mathematical. And they were obsessed about the calender. Anyway, early Zelda games had so much power because the conflict in the story was about the Triforce being broken. Zelda being captured and the land falling into monsters was the consequence. Ganon gaining power was the consequence. Link’s entire purpose was to correct the Order of the Universe, to correct the order of the Triforce. In Zelda I and II, this meant collecting the Triforce. Look how Link to the Past starts:
Note how the very first thing that appears is the Triforce. And note how the story is about the Golden Land being defiled and now regular Hyrule being defiled. The conflict of the game is not about characters. The conflict is in the Triforce. Ganon took over the Triforce and thus a Dark Age begins. In ancient myths, the pattern is that the calendar is overrun by a monster which causes chain events of horrible things. A hero appears who not only defeats the monster but corrects the calendar. Link does not just defeat Ganon. He restores the Triforce. And by doing so, Link restores the world. While there are NPCs in Link to the Past, they are all trivial. The conflict is not about NPCs, and definitely not about power or politics. The conflict in Zelda is the conflict of heaven itself. It is conflict of the Triforce who dooms the world to a Dark Age unless Link can save it. When you watched the intro to Link to the Past, did you feel its power? Did you feel the power of myth? A story that revolves around the conflict of the heavens? Let us look at Zelda I:
First thing you see is the Triforce inside the logo. When the ‘story’ starts, what does it talk about? It talks about the Triforce. The conflict of the original Legend of Zelda was the Triforce being stolen. The conflict of Zelda is not Link versus Ganon or Hyrule versus Ganon. The conflict of Zelda is between Heaven versus Evil. Triforce is representative of that ‘Heaven’, Ganon represents the evil, and Hyrule is just caught up in it all. Link is the ‘hero’ not because he defeats Ganon but because he corrects the ways of Order, he returns the Triforce from the monsters who have messed it up. Here is Zelda II’s intro:
What do we see? Well, we have the sword in the stone. But the story talks about waking Zelda from a sleep with the third Triforce. In other words, this game is all about the Triforce as well. Back in the 1980s, I remember some critic at a newspaper somewhere remarking that Zelda II was Nintendo’s take on ‘Sleeping Beauty’. I thought that was an interesting way to put it. Now, when Link dies in Zelda II, Ganon returns (with a very scary game over screen). Again, the game is about the conflict about the Triforce and evil, between heaven and evil. It is not a soap opera about NPCs. Ocarina of Time also falls into this pattern. In fact, it utilizes the pattern of myth the best. In Ocarina, it is time that is disordered with Ganon’s evil in the future. Time as a linear concept is a very modern notion. To the ancients, time was cyclical. The concept of ‘time travel’ could not occur to them. The monster would ‘mess up’ the calendar and the hero would ‘restore’ the calendar. That may sound boring but the calendar was THE UNIVERSE to the ancients. It is perhaps why Ocarina has the strongest power of myth of all the Zeldas. Note that this same power can be seen in a game like Chrono Trigger, for example. The Ultima series was the golden RPG and each game held a tremendous power with them. Like Zelda, Ultima used spiritual conflict as the source of conflict in the game (after Ultima III of course). The ‘chosen one’ in Ultima was the Avatar. Instead of the Triforce, you had the ‘Virtues’. The conflicts that occurred in Britannia, such as Blackthorn becoming king, or the Fellowship taking over, or people falling into despair, they were never about the characters or NPCs. They were all reactions from the spiritual conflict of the Virtues being overthrown by some evil or some other sinister creature. Miyamoto says Zelda is about its characters. Is he really sure about that? The main characters of Ganon, Link, and Zelda are all puppets of the grand conflict that is occuring with the Triforce. The disorder that occurs to Hyrule is because something happened with the Triforce. The conflict of the story cannot be character based; it must be spiritual based. If not, then the game loses its magic and the bad guys are nothing more than thugs. But if Ganon is evil not because he is Ganon but because he overthrew the Triforce, then Ganon turns into a sort of Devil if you will with Link becoming a Savior with a sword. Let’s return to your email for a moment. You mentioned some things like the future elements not being part of the fantasy. But wait a moment. Let me tell you a small little story. During the NES Era, I was obsessed over Final Fantasy. The game seemed magical. I could not figure out why. The game starts off simple enough of warriors saving a princess from a bad wizard. But the game got increasingly more and more mythical. At Chapter Two, I woke up a sleeping prince who was put to sleep by a Dark Elf. In Chapter Three, I went through a rotting land, full of disease, snakes, and undead, to kill a vampire and then to descend into an abyss to kill the Earth Element type lord. I sail east and travel by canoes into rivers. I descend into a volcano, full of fire and other hell spawn things, to kill the Fire Element lord. And then I enter some ancient ice cave, drop through floors, and acquire something called ‘floater’. I canoe to some forgotten desert that has nothing there and use the ‘floater’. Lo and behold, a ship rises from the sand. It rises because it has propellers. I can now fly across the world. At this moment, that I have technological stuff, is the myth shattered? To the contrary, I got more immersed. Note that there is no such thing in Western myth about ‘airships’. They are totally something from the East. The fact that Super Mario Brothers 3 uses airships made that game seem even more mythical. (It is technological yet didn’t destroy the myth of Mushroom Land. Why is that?). As Final Fantasy goes on, I travel my airship to the north continent that has no ports. Apparently, a great civilization once lived here but was destroyed. I eventually acquire a submarine (!) to travel underwater to some sunken shrine/castle full of water monsters to defeat the Water Element guy. Kraken. At one town, I discover a meteor has fallen from the sky and discover that it is a robot (!). Apparently, the robot came from the Floating Castle. I travel to the Floating Castle which is full of nasty air enemies and defeat the Air Element boss (Tiamet or whatever). Then something really strange happens. I go back through time. I must defeat all four fiends again when they were at a younger age (and more powerful). And then I must defeat ‘Chaos’ who is the end boss. In the story, there is some sort of time loop going on where the Element Monsters send themselves forward and backward through time and to this day I could never get it straight. Apparently, the universe got so fu**ed up that the Universe created the Light Warriors to fix it all. Hell, I don’t know how those Light Warriors appeared. It is the most amazing fantasy story really ever put in video game form. And it was called ‘Final Fantasy’. Now, we know why the ‘time travel’ elements worked to make the content epic (for the same reason why it works in Ocarina, in Chrono Trigger, and so on). But why did futuristic technology work? Why did flying castles work? The nature of myth holds that a Golden Land or Golden Civlization fell in the past. You have heard of the Golden Age and then the Silver Age and then the Bronze Age and so on and so forth. Science Fiction and our more modern sensibilities think that things in the future get better. The further in time we go, the more technological we get. But in myth, it is the opposite. In Final Fantasy, the technological civilization is not in the future but in the past. And the technological civilization of the north has fallen into ruin. It is destroyed. It is a fallen Golden Age. While shows like Star Trek were science fiction, they often deployed the powers of myth as well. Remember that gateway that if you walk through you could instantly transport yourself through the galaxy? (Federation always blew up these gateways.) Note how it was from a ‘fallen civilization’. The series called ‘Babylon 5′ was only science fiction in its first and second seasons. After that, the show became mythical. And JMS admitted he designed the intros and all to be ‘mythical’ (Note the ‘sword’ that appears in the logo. Out of place. But JMS is a King Arthur nut and was spending thousands of dollars on King Arthur books from Amazon at that time period. He wasn’t writing sci-fi then but fantasy). Let me mention Final Fantasy IV for a moment. The game’s plot is incredible. The game starts off with airships and an airship empire. But soon you are in the underworld with dwarfs manning tanks. There are ancient towers that are extremely technological. Most incredible of all is summoning up a whale shaped spaceship from the ocean (from prayers) where you fly to the moon to defeat an ancient evil. It is not everyday that I fly a spaceship in the shape of a whale to the moon in a fantasy game. What the hell was going on? And why didn’t these technological elements hurt the fantasy? What is even more amazing than that is the fact that there are ancient myths in India that detail spaceships having battles on the moon. And there are airships, not unlike SMB 3′s doomships and Final Fantasy’s airships, that fly around. How the hell did this happen? How did these ancients think of this? The best reason we can assume was their fascination of the celestial sky. They obviously sailed around in boats so it is no great feat of the imagination to think they could travel boats through the nightly sky… even to the moon. But how did Final Fantasy end up with this? How did SMB 3? I assume the developers found it by looking at things around them such as movies and anime and all. And those sources probably found it from Japanese’s own mythology and folklore. And where did Japan get it? It traveled from India. I have noticed most myths originate from there. Did you know Homer’s Illiad and Odyssey originate from there, reader? It’s true! There are almost exactly similar scenes in some India myths too close to be coincidental such as when Odysseus returns to his home. Over time, much of our folklore and myths traveled around. But back to Zelda, the original games held such gravitas because the ‘story’ wasn’t about a soap opera or about an ‘evil empire’ or ‘evil wizard’. The ‘story’ was really about the heavenly Triforce being corrupted which corrupts the land and corrupts the usurper as well. So powerful was Zelda to children that as they grew up, many would tattoo the Triforce to their body. Someone at Google even placed Triforce images in Google banners. Why would someone do this? It is because the Triforce represents something more than a fictional element in a video game. The Triforce was the source of the conflict, and the actually object you save, in the early Zelda games. The story of Zelda is not the story of Link, it is the story of the Triforce. Link’s appearance on the stage is when he is summoned to save the Triforce. Link’s disappearance off the stage is when the Triforce has been restored. It is about the Triforce, not Link. Not even Zelda. Zelda could be sleeping through the entire game for all we care (like Zelda II).
So I disagree that technological elements harm the fantasy. Technological elements work when they come from some ‘GOLDEN AGE’ civilization and not from ‘science’. For example, in Twilight Princess I found the cannons to be annoying. It didn’t fit in the world. All that technological gadgetry was really an NPC knowing science. However, the City in the Sky I thought fit extremely well in Twilight Princess and was a highpoint of the game. It reminded me of entering the flying technology castle near the end of the original Final Fantasy.
The City in the Sky is annoying gameplay-wise, but its atmosphere and eerie feeling it gives is incredible. Come to think of it, Sanctuary Fortress in Metroid Prime 2 also gave similar feelings. Much of our interest in the ancients is because they were once technological nations that fell. Egypt. Rome. And all the rest. Is it hard to believe our fascination with these dead civilizations as we marvel at their ‘technology’ and ‘engineering’ back could have been mirrored by people way more ancient than either the Egyptians and Romans? While Final Fantasy IV shows a civilization sleeping on the moon, it is not inconceivable that ancients could have thought there were people on the moon in sleep and waiting. Anyway, I believe young people, especially, and perhaps some old crave the power of the myth. We are attracted to the tales of the Illiad and Odyssey today and will continue to be so thousands of years from now. Young kids are fascinated with dinosaurs, for example. Why? Because they were powerful and they are extinct as if they came from some magical Golden Land in the past. Novels and Hollywood used to celebrate the power of the myth. They no longer do that. This is why novels and Hollywood are in decline. There are less movies being made today than there used to be. I often wonder how a show like Star Trek could have become so popular (when it had no right to be as it was so freaking cerebral compared to the rest of TV). But would you agree that Star Trek celebrated the power of the myth? It most certainly did. And Hollywood despised Star Trek and science fiction in general. Science fiction and fantasy are today’s modern vehicles to celebrate the myth. But those are in decline. And then there are video games. Children were obsessed with them. Could it be that part of the power of the myth was harnessed by video games? And analysts wonder why people keep buying games like God of War or Castlevania. Zelda games don’t seem to be about the Triforce anymore. And they most certainly lack the gravitas that the early Zelda games do (I’m including Ocarina in this group). If we want to increase the intensity of a game like Zelda, perhaps they should pin the conflict directly on the Triforce. Hyrule then becomes ripped by the evil powers from the Triforce being usurped. Monsters appear not because they are monsters but as consequence to the Triforce being corrupted. Ganon is evil not because he is Ganon but because he screwed up the Natural Order of the Universe. |
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Orson Scott Card has the M.I.C.E. Quotient he talks about in regard to storytelling. When people talk about video games and ‘story’, I suspect they think of ‘story’ in a certain way. Let use explore ‘story’ a little more. Reader, you are being tested! “Who? Me?” asks the reader shyly. Yes, you! You think you can just sit there and read all day? It is time to make you work! The test is simple. I am going to unfold the M.I.C.E. Quotient before you, and you will tell me which one best fits the medium we call ‘video games’. Are you ready? “Uh huh.” Then let’s get started! Milieu – The Milieu is the world–the planet, the society, the weather, the family–all the elements that went into creating that special world. Idea – Idea stories are about the process of finding information. Character – The Character story is about the transformation of a character�s role in the communities that matter most to him or her. Event – Event stories focus on events which rip the fabric of the universe or disrupt the natural order and cause the world to be in a state of flux. But do not answer yet, reader! Hold thy tongue! Let me elaborate on these points further so you can make a better decision as to which best fits the video game medium: The Milieu Story The whole point of the story is to discover this strange, new world. Arrival – A Stranger from the outside arrives (by purpose or accident); he is unwelcomed and imprisoned, but gradually proves his worthiness. Initiation – Stranger is formally welcomed into the society; taught the culture & language; shown sharp contrast between stranger�s world and present one which challenges the stranger�s own belief system. Departure – Stranger rejects or is torn away from society, & returns home with greater self awareness. An example of the Mileu Story would be a typical episode of Star Trek. Other examples include the Jules Verne novels. The Idea Story The whole point of the story is the process of discovering information by those who do not know. A Question – The idea story begins with a question, and a scientist, a detective, or some other inquisitive character seeks to find an answer. Quest for Knowledge – Central character(s) gathers information from a variety of sources; he may even employ the scientific method or a form of deduction to reduce the number of variables, but attempts to find an answer are complicated by many failures. The Answer – Gradually, repented failure leads to vindication, and the question is answered. Examples of the ‘Idea’ type of story would be, as you guessed it, your typical mystery novel. Who killed Mr. Greene in the ballroom with the candlestick? You gain clues, and you figure out the story. But this type of story can also be something atypical. Atlas Shrugged is an ‘Idea’ book that revolves around the question of ‘Who is John Galt?’ and after countless pages later the answer alone takes like sixty pages. The author even had difficulty finding a publisher for it originally (despite previous best seller and a hit on Broadway) because it was an ‘idea’ novel. They are uncommon. A science fiction example of the ‘idea’ story would be 2001: Space Odyssey that asks the question of what is the Monolith and what signal did it send to Jupiter? What is that gigantic monolith doing floating in Jupiter’s orbit? And 2010: Space Odyssey is an ‘idea’ story whose question was: “What the hell happened in 2001?” The Character Story The whole point is about the transformation of a character�s role in his community. Crisis – Central character becomes so unhappy, impatient, or angry in his present role that he begins the process of change (either consciously or unconsciously). Conflict – Others resist the central character�s change, and attempt to change him back. Climax – Character either settles into a new role (happily or not) or gives up the struggle and remains in the old role (happily or not). The character story is the most common story you will find. It dominates the book medium, the television medium, and the movie medium. All Milleu, Idea, and Event stories all have characters, those stories can work regardless of the characters’ reactions. This is why those type of stories can work very well even if the characters are two dimensional or non-existent. The Character Story is about a character who transforms and will affect other characters around the person. The first Matrix movie was well received but not the second and third ones. What happened? The first Matrix movie is very character driven. Neo makes character choices. Neo transforms into something completely different at the end of the movie than what he was at the beginning. And he affects all the other characters. The other two Matrix movies were not character driven. They were more Event driven. Characters begin to act like robots as Neo became a puppet to the ‘events’ because the plot demanded them. However, in Matrix Reloaded, the best scene in the movie was with the architect. Why? It is because Neo made a choice, and it was based on his character. The Event Story The whole point of the story is about the restoration of the proper order of the universe. Departure – Heroic figure hears the call to adventure (and sometimes refuses call): he is called to restore order to the universe; he receives aid from a wizard, an elder, or supernatural force (usually in form of a magical weapon), and undergoes first trial by fire. Initiation – Hero undergoes more trials; he falls for a goddess and is tempted by a temptress; he meets his dark father and is wounded; he finds great riches. Return – Hero restores order by defeating evil king & returns home, older & wiser, to empower others. James Bond is an example of the Event driven story. James Bond is a character who doesn’t change. The story moves by events. Bond undergoes tons of trials. The TV show ’24′ appears to be an event driven story. Terrorists act out events and Jack Baur responds to them. Ancient myths are all event driven. Myths tend not to be ‘character based’. The story is all the same with some monster overthrowing the Natural Order and a hero arises to slay the monster and restore the Natural Order. Most interesting is that many plots religious are event driven. David kills Goliath not based on David’s character or because David had an idea. It was because he had the Power of God. Christ dies on the Cross to restore the Heavenly Order. Christ’s character on the Cross is no real different than he was when he was a boy. Now that you know the M.I.C.E. Quotient, reader, what is your answer? Have you picked one of the four? I cannot see how video games can be anything but Event driven stories. Like the ancient myth, each video game starts with the Order of Society being usurped by some monster. You, the hero, are supposed to destroy the monster. Once you destroy the monster, order is restored and peace once again reigns. And the game ends. Let me throw up a NES classic. When the ‘story’ scrolls you can see that it is clearly an ‘event’ driven game. The monster has messed up the Natural Order of things and you, the hero, are to eliminate it. This is how most myths and legends are.
But the reader protests. “Come on, Malstrom, that is a space shooter. What story could those have?” Then let us look at this game. There is characterization, but none of it matters. The game is entirely event driven.
The monster [Kefka] messed up the Natural Order of Things [the goddess statues of magic] which resulted in the destruction of the world. The game ends not when Kefka is destroyed but when the goddess statues power of magic leaves the world resulting in a fulfilling of the Natural Order again. And birds, and bunny rabbits, and peace reign. The end. You see ‘event’ driven story in all video games. In Castlevania, the bad event is caused by the return of Dracula. Simon Belmont kills Dracula. The End. In Dragon Quest, the world is suffering because of the Dragon Lord. A hero arises. You kill Dragon Lord. Peace returns. The End. What has been the story structure of Metroid? Space Pirates (or Metroids) [i.e. monsters] are ruining the Natural Order of the Universe. A hero arises [Samus Aran] who kills the monsters. Then peace returns. The End. While this seems like a very ‘primitive’ story to game developers today, it is actually extremely complex because the player is enacting the role of hero in a myth. This type of event story differentiated video games from other mediums and its power of myth attracted many people. Much of the ‘story’ takes place in the hero’s journey. The events that occur to the player, that the player does (such as jump on Goomba) end up becoming the ‘story’ that the player will tell to other gamers. “You should have seen this. I was on 2-1 and this stupid Goomba thought he was king of the mushroom platform. But I showed him! I jumped on him, and he was no more.”
The events that take place when many people play Mario 5 creates an interesting story. The story is the events of the players. But is this any different from the ‘story’ that is created from playing a game of real life baseball?
The ‘story’ of a game ends up emerging from the actions and choices the player makes. Civilization is interesting because of the ramifications your choices make from your first city to the end of the game. It tells a ‘story’ even though there are no characters and no true plot. My favorite target of derision is Sakamoto’s “Other M”. This is because “Other M” is being designed as a ‘Character’ game instead of an ‘Event’ game. The game is about exploring Samus Aran’s character. Will this work? Has there been any character based video game story to work? No. Does Sakamoto believe he can overturn this all completely by himself? He probably does. It won’t work. Why must video games be event driven? One reason could be the input. The player can only input his actions into the game. He cannot input his emotions or ideas. Perhaps in a hundred years, players will be able to input emotions or ideas. But not today. When a gamer plays a video game that is designed to be something other than event driven, I believe the gamer will interpret the game as ‘event driven’ even if the game designed not to be. All the stuff that is not ‘event driven’ will be interpreted as ‘bloat’ to the game experience. Let us pretend an art seeking game developer made a game with tons of cutscenes depicting scenes and emotional reactions. What will the gamer’s response be? Gamers will play the game as event driven and express annoyance about the ‘bloat’. The gamer’s complaint will be vocalized as ‘there are too many cutscenes’. Is the problem the cutscenes? After all, Pac-Man had cutscenes too and no one complained about them. But Pac-Man wasn’t trying to be something other than an event driven game. When a gamer complains about ‘bloat’ in a video game, this has to be an indicator that there is ‘junk’ bouncing around in the player’s experience. If it is true that players will experience video games as ‘event driven’ no matter what the developers do, then ‘idea’, ‘mileau’, and ‘character’ driven events will be interpreted as ‘bloat’. From the developer’s point of view, the cutscenes of characters and all is very rational. But to a gamer whose brain is wired for event driven responses (because his input consists of button presses and waving a controller around), he can only consume the cutscenes as ‘bloat’. A very common complaint against modern Zelda is ‘bloat’. In one Zelda, I am talking to Grandma. Why? I don’t know. But I must do so in order to continue the game. In another Zelda, I am herding ram. Why? Who knows. In the same game, I must wrestle a Goron off the mat. Why? Because I have to do it. All these things get interpreted as ‘bloat’ to the gamer. Miyamoto gives us a major clue as to how the bloat might be made. Let us listen closely to an answer he game in ‘Super Mario Galaxy 2 Iwata Asks’… Iwata Miyamoto You can apply it to figuring out the difference between interesting TV shows and uninteresting ones. Rather than wondering whether the general scenario is interesting or not, what’s important is whether the characters that appear in it are realistic. Iwata What kinds of characters appear in what kinds of situations. Miyamoto So even though a television drama may feature a general milieu that would usually be of no interest to you, if the characters that appear in it look like real people in your own life, the show will resonate, and you’ll be able to get into it. I think video games are the same way. Iwata Today’s discussion is a little deep. (laughs) Miyamoto It’s something that has been interesting me greatly these days. (laughs) Along with how games are unique for their interactive nature. What we can gather from this is that Miyamoto is looking at games from a ‘milieu’ point of view. What does milieu mean for a video game? Well, looking at the definition above, a ‘milieu’ game would concentrate on the player being a ‘stranger in a strange land’. It would focus heavily on the natives of the strange land not trusting the player. But the player will do things to win their trust and respect. And this is the pattern we keep seeing in modern Zelda. When you start a game in Zelda, you get stuck in the beginning village and must talk to the people. You start off not as Link the Warrior but as Link the Dumb Kid. And Link the Dumb Kid only becomes ‘Link the Warrior’ by doing something to win the villagers’ trust which will win the sword from Grandma. Or you could be stuck on an island and you must win the respect of a bratty kid gang. Or there are some Gorons who do not like you. They will not let you pass unless you wrestle a Goron off the mat (using your steel boots of course). And once you save the Goron chief, the Gorons then begin to like you and respect you. Over and over, there appears to be a pattern in Zelda where… 1) Link travels to new place. This is the milieu style of story telling. When the developers are brainstorming and coming up with ideas, I am sure this all sound very appealing. But is it fun to play? When you play Zelda, do you really want to talk to Grandma? Do you want to ‘win the respect’ of bratty kids? Do you want to wrestle a Goron on a mat? Or when you play Zelda, do you want to slay dragons, explore ancient caves, and save the world? Let us pretend for a moment these milieu events occurred in the early Zelda games. In order for Link to cross the ocean with his raft, he must first win the respect of the natives in the town. In order for Link to get Master Sword in Link to the Past, he must first solve a sliding puzzle. In order for Link to slash the curtains in Hyrule Castle that leads directly to the wizard about to send off princess Zelda to the Dark World, Link must get the approval of a small mouse who has sewed up the curtain so tightly that Link must do what the little mouse says. You can see where this is going… It is becoming clear to me that Miyamoto and his developers are speaking a different language than gamers are. We are speaking different languages. When the gamers say, “Remove the bloat! Remove the cutscenes, the constant dialogue, and everything else that doesn’t belong,” this does not make much sense if you are looking at the video game from a milieu context. As Miyamoto expressed in the Super Mario Galaxy 2 Iwata Asks, he thinks it all adds to ‘resonance’. I’ve been trying to conjure up what Miyamoto exactly meant by ‘resonance’. But now it appears ‘resonance’ is the same way as saying ‘milieu’. But let us use Galaxy 2 for an example. When you get done with a level in Galaxy 2, you get to talk to our big purple POS called Lubba. And you get to ‘relax’ on a spaceship that looks like Mario’s head. If players consume the game in the context of event driven way, they will see the dialogue with ‘Mario’s new friends’ and spaceship Mario as “bloat”. They will do their best to ignore it as they go on to the next level. If they complain, it will be worded as ‘bloat’. Miyamoto is talking the language of milieu but gamers can only play with the event driven form of story. The more milieus Miyamoto creates, the more the gamer scratches his head and wonders why it is there. It would be like in the middle of Super Mario Brothers, once saving a castle, Mario would have a conversation with Toad. “It would add to the resonance. Milieu adds resonance,” Miyamoto says. But Mario does not need to have a conversation with Toad. The player is ready to go to the next world. He doesn’t want to read conversations between Mario and Toad. The gamer would try his best to ignore the conversations and, if the gamer complains, he will label it ‘bloat’. “Can’t you cut that out?” he asks. But the “Can’t you cut that out?” sounds very different to a milieu perspective. From the milieu point of view, cutting it out sounds like deflating the milieu. If players interpret video games only through an event driven story basis, then the best video games would be focused on event driven story. Who makes most of the events? Why, the player. This is why the gamer is a player and not a viewer. This is perhaps why gamers love ‘replayability’ in their video games. When they say ‘replayability’, what they are really asking for is for the game to be event driven. The game should shift and twist based on the events you perform. A game like civilization is different every time because the events you do in the game echo across time. 2d Mario is very much liked, in one great part, because it is event driven. Each level can be played differently each time. But 3d Mario tends to require the same type of play each time you get the same star. What is the most common request for a Zelda game? It is for Link to start with a sword and have him pick a direction to explore. This request is really for Zelda to be event orientated. It is for the player to create an event such as exploring that cave in the south and the game’s story shifts because of that event. (By story, I mean what the player will talk about his adventure when he is done playing.) It is never fun to talk to gamers about your game experience when everyone has the same exact play experience. This could be the smoking gun reason behind why Zelda games continue to have so much ‘bloat’ and Nintendo keeps leaving it in. Miyamoto is interpreting his games to be milieu driven when the customers are expecting the games to be event driven. |
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There are already a hundred E3 emails I need to get through. I will try to get through them tomorrow. Maybe by then Nintendo will stop announcing new 3DS games. I’ve thrown up my hands. I cannot keep up with all the titles. And somewhere in the distance… Iwata: (laughs) |
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I don’t know if you saw after you woke up from your boredom induced nap, but Sony revealed a new Twisted Metal at the end of their conference. I only mention this because, in my opinion, it’s probably the closest thing Sony has to old school arcade like gameplay. This is probably entirely by accident and they’ll think any success is due to franchises and brand recognition or other buzzwords, but I thought it was interesting. Other than that, the conference was a gigantic meh of course. I don’t really get Sony’s game here. They seem to mostly be staying the course and churning out the required yearly sequels to the “hardcore” games, but also stretching themselves thin with new 3D(because features that require a $2000 TV will work THIS time) and ripoffs of last year’s Wii games. Sorry to talk about boring Sony, but I’m way too pumped about Nintendo’s new stuff to talk about it rationally! Sounds just like Sony’s behavior to the Walkman when the iPod was out for several years… |
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First of all, I would like to thank you for taking out the time to answer a question that I asked quite a while ago. It was a very insightful response. It was very appreciated. Now I would like to ask you another one. I realize that you have high expectations for The Legend of Zelda (and you have reason to), but I do not think its fair that you judge Skyward Sword prematurely like that. I also know that of course, it is your blog and you can say whatever it is that you please, but I feel that you have not given it much of a chance to prove itself. Maybe you are right and it will not be great, but maybe it will be. Who knows? I say wait to read more impressions, see more trailers and gameplay videos, and read new information about the game before dismissing it. In my humble opinion, I think it looks cool. But who am I to say; I have never experienced the game. I hope you will consider my thoughts. Thank you for your time. I’m not dismissing it. I said that we haven’t really been shown much. But I do think the game was too far along in development to really put in the necessary changes. We can only judge based on what Nintendo decides to show. If all they show is a little tutorial area with some mushrooms, we will ask, “Uhh… what is this game about?”
Only two environments are shown in the trailer. The tutorial area and the generic lava area. Yawn. I’ve been around games enough to know that one of the single biggest things that makes a game feel ‘epic’ and ‘non-repetitive’ are diversified environments. Blizzard admits it is why Diablo 2 was successful. I think it is a very important reason why the original Super Mario Brothers was successful. Mario wasn’t just fighting in one environment. He was in the ocean. He was in the sky. He was in the castle. Future Mario games would diversify that further. The original Zelda games were also strong with their diverse environments. However, most of these were just sprite changes due to the primitive 8-bit systems. One thing I recall was LTTP having more weight because the environments were really diversified, including the dungeons. The desert dungeon felt very different than the water dungeon. The forest area felt very different than the Dark World forest. All this diversification of environments really removed repetition from the game, sparked gamers’ imagination, and is probably one of the oldest tricks in the game developers’ handbook. Sure, I assume Skyward Sword will have more environments than just the tutorial area and the generic lava area. But if it is out of sight, it is out of mind. While Nintendo is showing off the motion plus controls, it would be very exciting to have a peek as to the majesty of the game world. Imagine that instead of Skyward Sword, the year was 1985 and Nintendo showed off the original Super Mario Brothers. The demo would have Miyamoto show off the controls of jumping up and down, getting a fire flower, getting a star, and all. However, you would only see stage 1-1. People would not get excited. Super Mario Brothers was exciting because the game was not just 1-1 replicas. 1-2, 1-3, 1-4 are all very different environments. 2-2 and you are underwater. Nintendo made the same goof in E3 2009 with NSMB Wii. What was showed off was 1-1 and 1-3. By not showing off the different environments, the scope of the game, the audience reaction was ‘meh’. It was only until later footage came out that showed NSMB Wii underground, in ghost houses, in castles, that people began to be excited. It is hard to get excited about an adventure if you only show off the tutorial area in your trailer. |
| DrJay said: Oh but he has. Several times. Scott Anthony (co-author with Christensen on those disruption books) even goes to say that Nintendo's strategy has been one of their favorites.
Check it out from way back in 2008: http://blogs.hbr.org/anthony/2008/04/nintendo_marches_on.html |
Oh thanks, I looked through a lot of the site but didn't see that.
Tease.
"Nintendo made the same goof in E3 2009 with NSMB Wii. What was showed off was 1-1 and 1-3. By not showing off the different environments, the scope of the game, the audience reaction was ‘meh’. It was only until later footage came out that showed NSMB Wii underground, in ghost houses, in castles, that people began to be excited.
It is hard to get excited about an adventure if you only show off the tutorial area in your trailer."
And look how NSMB Wii turned out lol
When it is explained this way, it seems deliberate. Nintendo leaves people out of the loop and only gives a basic taste as to what it is going on, only for people to be taken by storm later when they actually get into the game.
Leatherhat on July 6th, 2012 3pm. Vita sales:"3 mil for COD 2 mil for AC. Maybe more. " thehusbo on July 6th, 2012 5pm. Vita sales:"5 mil for COD 2.2 mil for AC."
"When it is explained this way, it seems deliberate. Nintendo leaves people out of the loop and only gives a basic taste as to what it is going on, only for people to be taken by storm later when they actually get into the game."
Shit. They're like the velociraptors in Jurassic Park!
A flashy-first game is awesome when it comes out. A great-first game is awesome forever.
Plus, just for the hell of it: Kelly Brook at the 2008 BAFTAs
Squilliam said:
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These even an interview with Scott talking about the Wii, he even pulls out a Wiimote during the interview
Also, check my sig
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