ToriJ's Reviews Q&A Session

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Eye see you.

Welcome to the first ever "ToriJ's Reviews" Q&A session. While everyone else is doing Top Lists, Bottom Lists, Let's Plays, and Tournaments, I decided to do something a little different by opening the floor for questions involving reviews, video games, and the gaming industry as a whole, and by different I mean stealing borrowing the "Ask me Anything" concept and limiting it to a specific category. Basically, as long as your questions have to do with games, ask away. You can ask as many questions as you want in a single post.

For those of you who are either new, or returning, and don't know me very well, I've been a member on these forums since October 2013. I've been writing reviews since November 2011, and I just recently hit my first huge milestone with my 100th review yesterday. I was inspired by the "Angry Video Game Nerd" and the "Nostalgia Critic" to do my own reviews, but since I didn't have the equipment nor the desire to do actual videos, I decided to stick to what I'm good at and just write them on my blog, and share them on the forums I regularly frequent. Variety is a big thing for me, so I reviewed games from several different genres and platforms over the years, and will try anything at least once. If you're interested in checking them out, a link to my blog is underneath my sig. I look forward to your questions.

Alllrighty, let's come up with some questions. >: D

How long do you believe a formula can work in a game series? When is it time for a breath of fresh air? For instance, most people seem to agree the original Mega Man series topped out around 2 or 3, despite there being, depending on how you count, at LEAST 8 main titles appearing in the series afterwards. It doesn't seem likely Capcom stumbled onto something in 2 or 3 that could never be recaptured, unless that something wasn't mechanical but instead entirely internal to the consumer. It seems likely the formula was just becoming dull to people around MM4, an idea reinforced by the overwhelmingly positive reaction to MMX, but at what point do you feel this 'dullness' is reached?

And when that point is reached, how should a developer recognize and react to it? Taking a look at the Rush series of games here, the second and third games, excepting the potentially ignorable wings in 2049 (not that I understand why anyone would -- they make for the most glorious death spins), feel fairly similar, while L.A. Rush mechanically felt more like Midnight Club. If it had not been called 'L.A. Rush', I'd have never associated it with the series in the first place. What made Midway decide to ditch the old formula, and did they make the right choice in stepping away from it or should they have stopped the franchise at 2049 regardless of fan demand?

This also brings up a question of brand identity -- how heavily should brand identity weigh on game designers, and how much should it weigh on consumers? That is, how much should developers be expected to keep elements of a series standardized, and how much should fans expect that standardization? Consider the Paper Mario series, where the first two games were more traditional RPGs, while the third was a platformer and the fourth was a . . . unique attempt at an RPG (maybe)? Undeniably the aesthetics are now solely what define the series, but should the series' RPG roots have weighed more on the developers during development of the third and fourth titles or were they completely correct to break away from those roots to make original(ish) experiences? And as consumers, is it right to poorly receive a title because one feels betrayed when a series that was previously one thing suddenly becomes another? I bought my 3DS FOR Sticker Star, thinking it was a return to the first two games, and now regard the game poorly both for its mechanics AND because of betrayed expectations -- is that latter part at all justifiable?

As a developer in a large company, how much innovation should fan reaction and expectation force upon me? What if I really LIKE making traditional Mega Man games, but people are claiming the formula is old? Do I forgo my desire and follow the dollar, delivering innovation to the fans regardless of what I want, or am I justified in refining and recycling an old product because it is something I enjoy doing?

What about fans in general, how much sway should they have? Consider the overwhelming negative reaction people had to the ending of Mass Effect 3 when it came out and the outcome of that outcry. Is this an overall positive or negative thing (as an event, not so much regarding the changes made to ME3)? What about when developer vision and fan vision do not align? That is, what if I want a certain event to occur, but no one else does? Samus' character in Other M was, in the case of every person I've ever talked to on the subject, poorly received, but that's how the developers wanted her to come off. Should the developers have been forced to change how she was portrayed to match fan expectation? Should Nintendo ignore possible future work with Team Ninja on the series due to negative fan reaction? Should Nintendo reject Other M's character contributions on this basis while working with the character in the future? Where should the line be drawn between fan expectation and input and developer intention and vision?

And, finally, what is your opinion on crowd funded games? And the power threatening to remove funding gives supporters?

How do you Feel about Frocobo's? do you think they should become a series staple?

How long do you believe a formula can work in a game series? When is it time for a breath of fresh air?

I think it can work for as long as the consumer make it work. If the vast majority of your audience is tired with a formula then obviously something needs to be changed otherwise you risk losing consumers' interest and performing poorly in the next game. Obviously there was something about the Mega Man formula that stuck with people because they made eight freaking games about it. Call of Duty is another game franchise that gets a lot of flak from people for basically being the same game with a few updates ever since COD4, but it still had its loyal fanbase and was making a profit so the developers had no incentive to shake things up. That only changed in recent years when even fans of the series was getting tired of the same formula, and Activision needed to do something to get interest going again. That was their motivation going into Ghosts, and it looks like the game that would actually shake COD up again would be Advanced Modern Warfare.

AMW had probably the longest story campaign by Call of Duty standards, a solid voice acting cast, and even managed to bring people who were alienated with Call of Duty to give it a chance because of the changes they've made. Even Pokemon, which is a series I love, is guilty of a lot of the criticism that Call of Duty faces on a daily basis. After a while it was basically the same game with just a few updates every now and again, now we can have two Pokemon out during a battle and there are megaevolutions. Then Pokemon embraced 3D technology and wowed people with its graphics and next time I turn around everyone and their mother is playing Pokemon again. Mario has been more or less the same game for 30 years, and while he been put in different kinds of games, he's always been the Italian plumber that jumped on enemies and saved the princess, and Mario fans for the most part are content with that. Unlike Sonic who did try shaking things up by adding more characters and making the story darker to where its fans wish they'd just go back to the original formula where Sonic was running around at high speeds rescuing animals.

And when that point is reached, how should a developer recognize and react to it?

You have to look at it in the long term. If the re-imagining fails and you throw the old concept out the window entirely then you're going to be up trout creak without a paddle. The most recent example I can think of to prove my point is with Devil May Cry. Capcom wrote themselves into a corner with the Nero character in DMC4, so what did they do? They rebooted. They threw the old Dante, and everything to do with him out the window, and made a new game that a large part of the fanbase did not like, and they did not want. And while I enjoyed the new game, it did horribly financially. It made less than the last game that Capcom thought was a flop. It didn't help that Ninja Theory was more arrogant than the Dante character himself that pissed the fanbase off even more when they were already against the product being made. So now they don't know what to do. Do you make Devil May Cry 5 or do you try to fix the problems with a DmC 2?

I find it ironic because I think Capcom approached the reboot idea better than most developers do. Going back to Mega Man again, they made Mega Man X take place so far into the future that it didn't interfere with the established canon that was already there, so if it failed they had the old games to fall back on. Luckily for them Mega Man X didn't fail and they were actually able to have the original Mega Man and the new Mega Man run side by side, and they did it again with Mega Man Legends, and they did it again with Battle Network. Whereas a game like Castlevania threw out 24 years of lore out the window and made Lords of Shadows. With Capcom's Mega Man you could always go back to what worked before. As for recognizing it, unless it's obvious that the vast majority are tired of it, you may have to look at sales figures which can be a difficult thing in and of themselves because there are fans who will buy your games anyway and then complain that it was the same thing as the game before so you're still making a profit. Unless you do a survey or something.

As for Rush, I have no idea what possessed Midway to change the formula. I am a newcomer when it comes to Rush and only played the first game. If I had to guess, I think the appeal of Rush was because it was so over the top that a more realistic racing game in L.A. Rush completely ruined that experience for a lot of people, and the fact they had most things locked forcing you to do a campaign mode to unlock it, put a lot of people off. Which is a crying shame because the explosions already looked like something out of a Michael Bay movie, I can only imagine how over the top and fun they could have made it on the PS2 or the PS3 if it survived that long.

This also brings up a question of brand identity -- how heavily should brand identity weigh on game designers, and how much should it weigh on consumers?

I think it depends how the changes are implemented. Some people criticize Mass Effect for steering away from its RPGs roots and becoming more of an over-the-shoulder shooter game, but that style was more positively received and a lot of people will tell you that ME2 gameplay improved vastly upon the first game and they are a lot more drawn to the shooting aspect of it, and I think for Mass Effect that works more than being like a JRPG. Then we have a game like Resident Evil that tried to be action, but it also tried to be horror and by RE6 you could tell trying to please everyone was not working. As much as I dislike Resident Evil 4 for everything its done to the series, it was a success. The problem came when they didn't know how to follow it up, so what did they do? They made the same exact game, changed some things around while completely missing the point of why people liked RE4 in the first place. People like Resident Evil because it doesn't take itself too seriously, the moment you take yourself absolutely seriously and cross the threshold into melodramatic (which a lot of Japanese games are guilty of doing) you completely lose the experience that lured us in in the first place.

So it depends, and I haven't played the Paper Mario games you're talking about so I can't comment how well the changes were implemented, and how they mesh with the brand, but Mario, for a fat guy, is probably the most flexible person in the game industry. It's been a platforming game, it's been a racing game, it's been a party game, a golf game, a tennis game, a fighting game, a cleaning game, a space game, a ghost game, and a RPG. Super Mario Bros. 2 was originally an entirely different game, but despite its roots it still felt so much like a Mario game that it actually felt like an improvement to the first game to where when the third game came out it felt like a step backwards. So if anyone can survive shaking things up it's Mario, and if he can't do it then I don't know what to tell those people.

As a developer in a large company, how much innovation should fan reaction and expectation force upon me?

I think it comes down to what your motivations as a developer are. If it's because you love Mega Man and want to honor the gameplay from the original games, then you may have to accept that your games might be a niche and only appeal to the people who are the same as you, and trust me there are seven billion people in the world you're going to find people who feel the same way you do. If your goal is to make money, you may have to consider changing things up but still having a plan in place for if that fails, because gamers are fickle and we say one thing and do another. Pretty much like people in general. But you also need to think of what we're talking about in terms of innovation. How is it different from what else is out there? How does it improve the games you're already making? Just because something is innovated, doesn't mean its good. You could say Final Fantasy II innovated, and you could also argue (Don't kill me Pike, I like the game) that the innovations sucked. Where the gameplay is involved. You have things like fists doing more damage than weapons, shields improving evading, and all sorts of stuff that doesn't make sense and a lot of people couldn't figure out on their own that's why we have walkthroughs taking you through step by step on how to enjoy the game and not punch yourself in the face.

What about fans in general, how much sway should they have?

Fans have more sway than they should, and less than they think. I think in the case of Mass Effect 3 it was a good thing, because the endgame there was to get people to buy more DLC. They wanted you to pay more money for the game you already bought to get the most out of it, and that's bulltrout. If I'm paying sixty bucks for a game it better be a complete game. I shouldn't have to have DLC, I shouldn't need patches, it should work and everything that needs to be there should be there. I'm not against DLC as a bonus if the prices are reasonable, but I should not NEED DLC to get the overall experience I want going in.

Other M is something I can't really comment on because I have not played the game, so I have no idea what changes they made to Samus and how they fail. Art is subjective. You can get into pages of debate on whether or not a creator's vision is the right thing for the character or vice versa. A creator can intend one thing and to another person be interpreted completely differently. Just look at how George R.R. Martin looks at Littlefinger on the TV series compared to a fan. To GRRM, the creator, Littlefinger on TV is nothing like his book counterpart. To a fan who read the book he is every bit Littlefinger as the one they read in the books. Is the fan right or is the author correct? Obviously you're not going to tell the man who created the character that his interpretation is wrong, but why would you tell the reader that their interpretation is wrong? It's up to the imagination that's why it's art in the first place. I know a lot of people have trouble looking at games as art, but I think we've come to a point where you can do that now. And a lot of times people who study art don't care what the creator intended, and that's a whole other discussion.

But ultimately it goes back to whether you're in it for the art, or are you in it for the money? If you believe in a vision, and have good arguments for that vision, then state them. And if you can't come up with good reasons for why you made the decisions you did, then maybe you should at the very least consider what your critics are saying moving forward, but if you believe in that vision stick with it. Just understand that it's probably going to cost you from a financial standpoint, it's probably going to cost you fans, and in the industry today that can be toxic. Because look at how much money is being thrown into AAA games. If it doesn't make back what it owes, then it isn't a worthy investment and that's why most developers today don't take risk, and they don't innovate, because they need to stay in business. Then there's the point that Nintendo has been surviving off it first-party titles for decades, and if they start changing it so much that fans don't recognize it, it can really hurt them.

And, finally, what is your opinion on crowd funded games?

I think it's great. I think it's a way for people to put their money where their mouth is and support the kind of games they want to see made, and Kickstarter has given a lot of people the opportunity they wouldn't have otherwise had, and a lot of good games came from starting at Kickstarter. As for the power thing, once again it's good if its in the right hands, but it can be abuse if it falls into the wrong hands. I don't think it's going to be something you can regulate, obviously you just have to hope for the best and hope people don't be dicks.

How do you Feel about Frocobo's? do you think they should become a series staple?

I hate to think just how much bird poop is hiding in Sazh's afro by the end of FFXIII. I found it amusing, but I don't know if I'd want to see it become a series staple, not because I hate FFXIII, but because I feel it's something unique to that character. It makes him stand out for good or for bad, and giving it to more people would just diminish what impact it had, because now you've seen it again and again so when you get to where it started you're like “Oh, okay. I've only seen that a thousand times, but whatever. Cool.”

If Fear 3 was released as "Weird Shooty Co-Op Game!" instead of having the title of a series you enjoy attached to it, how would you have felt about it?

If Fear 3 was released as "Weird Shooty Co-Op Game!" instead of having the title of a series you enjoy attached to it, how would you have felt about it?

It should have been a “Weird Shooty Co-Op Game” instead of having any ties to the “F.E.A.R.” franchise. I think this goes back to what we were talking about about brand identity. I don't think the changes implemented into F.E.A.R. 3 worked for the series, as its own game? Maybe. I still would have considered the story to be all over the place, I think that's something we actually agree on, but like you I wouldn't have cared because it wouldn't have been the ending of a trilogy, it wouldn't have been the conclusion to buildup that started in the last game like going from Command & Conquer Firestorm to CnC 3. Because there isn't an expectation or any established lore to put into consideration, this is something that I can concede I have been guilty of on several occasions, and I think many fans are. Whether you're aware of it or not, after you're introduced to the series and they continue that series, expectations grows in you, and that can make or break a game for that individual.

I didn't have any expectations going into Darksiders, and it quickly became one of my all time favorite games. The same with Game Dev Tycoon, Dust, and a bunch of other games I never experienced before. Had I started off with the third game like you, I can concede that my opinion would probably be the same as yours for the most part, because no matter what, the first entry of a series shapes you as a fan to that series, and becomes the standard in which all other entries are judged, whether you play them in order or not. I'll use Ocarina of Time as an example. Most of us who started with OoT thinks it's the greatest Zelda game to ever be made, bar none. I'm generalizing to prove my point, not trying to assume anything, but to us it was original, fresh, and had a lot of neat ideas. Now, to someone who started off with the original Zelda, or has played “A Link to the Past” they have an entirely different perspective, because OoT did borrow elements from ALttP. And a a longtime fan can see those elements and have an entirely different experience, because their perspective is different.

The same thing goes for FFVI and FFVII. People who started off with FFVII think it's the greatest game ever made, and nothing will ever top it as long as Square Enix exists. Those who played FFVI once again have a different perspective. They can see the things it borrows from FFVI. The first boss is taken from the snail in FFVI, Sephiroth's god form is taken from Kefka's god form at the end of FFVI. They've already seen these things before so it isn't original to them, it's more of the same thing and it doesn't affect them in the way it would have if they played FFVII first. This is why I never (or at least try to) insult someone for liking or not liking a game. Different strokes for different folks. I take my anger out on the game itself, usually for comedic effect. Like “Haha, he didn't like the game and he's all angry over something trivial.” Because it's fun to rip things a new one when you don't enjoy them, and it's fun to talk about what the game does right and why you enjoy them.

What are your overall thoughts on the potential of video games as a storytelling medium? How does it compare to other media, both in theory and in practice? Do many games come to mind that utilize the capabilities of the game medium to tell a story in such a way that other media couldn't quite imitate?

What was the hardest game you've ever played?
What was the hardest game you've ever beaten?
What is the most fun minigame in any game you've played?
What was the longest you've ever played one game, not counting multiple playthroughs or MMOs?
What games you've played were totally unexpected gems?
How many visual novels have you read/played?
Which Blizzard games have you played?
What games in any given genre were so good that other games in that genre could really go and learn from the things those games did so well?

What are your overall thoughts on the potential of video games as a storytelling medium? How does it compare to other media, both in theory and in practice? Do many games come to mind that utilize the capabilities of the game medium to tell a story in such a way that other media couldn't quite imitate?

Games has the unique ability to present a story similar to how a film or television series would, while having the length of a novel. The longest anyone will sit down to watch a movie these days is probably three hours, and while television has a lot more time to tell its story and develop its characters, they're either divided by an hour, or a half an hour per week. A game can be something along 10, 20, or 40 hours of uninterrupted narrative. And you can interact with the world being created in a whole different way than you could with a movie or television show, again kind of like a book. Because you're becoming this character, whether they're custom created or a default character. I think it takes the best of all three of these mediums while offering something new.

As for games that come to mind, I think Final Fantasy VI, Metal Gear Solid, The Last of Us, Beyond: Two Souls, and Telltale's The Walking Dead, The Wolf Among Us, Tales from the Borderlands, and Game of Thrones, and even visual novels like Phoenix Wright, are perfect examples. Final Fantasy touched on a lot of mature themes with respect, even suicide, and that's something I don't see a whole lot of unfortunately. Suicide is usually seen as “the coward's way out” and if you commit ut then you're a terrible person, and all of that, but that wasn't the case in FFVI. We knew why the character went down that road, we sympathized with it, we hoped a miracle would occur and we didn't think less of the character when they did it.

Metal Gear Solid was probably the first game that gave us the “cinematic” experience in a video game that influenced games like Final Fantasy X, Xenosaga, and The Last of Us. And it was able to fit all of that onto two discs. Convert that into a movie and at best you'd probably have a three hour trilogy that still cuts a lot of things out. Because I timed all the cut-scenes in that game, and watching it all with no gameplay is over three hours long. The TV would give it more of a chance to tell the story, but just the Briefing scene alone uncut is thirty minutes. So, outside of a book, a game is really the best medium you could have something like that on because games can be as long as they need to be. The people working on The Last of Us film is probably going to learn that lesson the hard way, because how do you condense all of that into a two hour film? You just can't. Not without losing a lot of the “magic” if you will.

Then Telltale Games come along and show that games can be just like a television series, an interactive television series and there's a market for it because now we have developers like Capcom and Square Enix coming along wanting a piece of the pie. The Elder Scrolls, in terms of world building, is probably the “Lord of the Rings” of video games right now. Because of just how large the world is, how many games it spans, and how many hours you can put into it. It can be that because of the nature of video games, it doesn't need to condense itself into a two hour featured film, or break up various parts one hour each. Not every book out there can be “Lord of the Rings,” “Harry Potter,” or “Game of Thrones.” They have to find a balanced length for their novel or they risk losing readers. Games can afford to be that long a lot more, while having the same visual techniques you'd see in a movie.

What was the hardest game you've ever played?

I'm sure there are people waiting for me to say Dark Souls in answer to this. Well, I'd hate to disappoint but the hardest game I ever played, that I can remember, is Shadow of the Beast. Because of how fast the frame rates were making enemies come within a blink of an eye, which I go into more details in in my review on my blog. But it was ridiculous. You could duck and still get hit, punch the enemy and still get hit, jump and still get hit. No matter what you did nine times out of ten you were going to get hit by something and go back to the beginning. At least Dark Souls had checkpoints. There are no checkpoints here, if you die it's right back to the beginning again. That's why very few people have ever completed Shadow of the Beast to the end.

What was the hardest game you've ever beaten?

I assume you mean fairly because Monster Rancher was so hard I needed to use cheats just to see the ending of the game. I'm going to say... BattleTanx. The original BattleTanx for the Nintendo 64 is probably the hardest game I ever beaten. The campaign mode is a huge pain in the ass. You're getting blasted from all sides, and you have landmines, and other trout coming at you, and you can't even turn your main gun while driving like in the second game. By the end I was running to the finish line with my heart racing trying not to die, and then BOOM! I die, and I have to start all the way at the beginning of the level and try again. I haven't forgotten you, Dark Angels. Oh no. I haven't forgotten. One of these days we're going to go. The final battle! Just me and you, and no one but a select few are going to get this reference. You know who you are! smurfing Dark Angels. You think because you were a big, bad show on FOX that you can take on me? Well, you're going to learn the hard way that when you step into this dog house you're going to get bit! I'm sorry, next question?

What is the most fun minigame in any game you've played?

Hmm... I mostly curse at it now, but when I was a kid my favorite minigame were all the arcades in Final Fantasy VII. Mainly the motorcycle ride. I just like slicing those assholes tires and watching them die a horrible death (okay, so I didn't technically slash their tires, but a kid can dream). It reminded me of Road Rash in a lot of ways because that was mainly a race to the finish on motorcycles where people whacked each other with blunt objects when they got too close. Good times.

What was the longest you've ever played one game, not counting multiple playthroughs or MMOs?

No idea. I'm one of those weird kids who don't keep count of how long I spend on a game. It'd either be one of the many wrestling games I played a bunch of matches on for trouts and giggles, or one of the many RPGs I played like FFVII or FFX which I did play to the end. So, probably one of them. No idea how long it took me. I probably spent a lot of time on FFXII with all the running around I did. Kept getting lost. I don't have very good sense of direction and can't read a map to save my life.

What games you've played were totally unexpected gems?

Dust: An Elysian Tail. Beautiful world, beautiful artwork, fun characters, a good story, and great voice acting. For a game that only cost fourteen dollars it's a pretty good investment. Had I not known going in that this was an independent game, I never would have believed it.

How many visual novels have you read/played?

Not a lot. Maybe a little over four, or close to ten. The main two I played was the first two Phoenix Wright games, then I played some romance stuff that was only available online. It's not a genre I've done too much digging around in for some reason. I'm still trying to find the rest of the Phoenix Wright series. Whenever I have money again...

Which Blizzard games have you played?

World of Warcraft, Diablo, and StarCraft. I played a free trial of WoW years ago and enjoyed it a lot. I avoided getting hopelessly addicted to it by being too cheap to afford the monthly subscription after my free trial ended. I played the first Diablo with my brother on the PlayStation and had a lot of fun with that, too. And I've done reviews of both StarCraft games and loved them. The story in StarCraft 2 was better than I would have expected it to be for an RTS title.

What games in any given genre were so good that other games in that genre could really go and learn from the things those games did so well?

In RTS games that goes to StarCraft 2. The campaign was non-linear, had interesting characters right off the bat and lots to do just outside of the usual missions, and the missions were pretty varied. Even Command and Conquer could learn some things from it, and I loved those games.

When it comes to the fighting genre, I have to say Evil Zone and Mortal Kombat. Evil Zone showed you could have a good story in a fighting game and plenty of characters who are tied to each other. Mortal Kombat showed you could have entire story arcs. I know a lot of people didn't like most of the 3D games after MK4, but the story arc that carries over from Deadly Alliance to Mortal Kombat IX was amazing, and I loved watching it continue on from game to game. It got me excited to see what would happen next.