Reflections on the Evolution of Gaming (Part 4)

 

Reflections on the Evolution of Gaming (Part 1) 

Reflections on the Evolution of Gaming (Part 2) 

Reflections on the Evolution of Gaming (Part 3)

  

Difficulty as a feature, not a bug. 

 
Sometimes while looking back at games we can spot obvious flaws once newer and better ideas come along. Other times we see them through rose-colored glasses because we played them as kids or whatever.

There are definitely cases where the developers didn’t factor repetition into the user interface / user experience (UI/UX). One obvious example is having to buy potions one at a time in the original Final Fantasy (up to 99!), something that was corrected/improved in sequels and remakes. Another example is repetitive dialogue in some activity like upgrading armor in Breath of the Wild or getting figurines in Wind Waker and Minish Cap.

There are some things that I think modern gamers look back on older games and see as bugs/flaws instead of features. One example is the ‘knockback’ from enemies in games like Castlevania or Ninja Gaiden. It’s part of a penalty system for getting hit and part of the purpose of game is getting better at timing/jumping to avoid running into enemies.

Sometimes better programming/systems allow for new moves that make older mechanics obsolete. A couple of instances come to mind. In the original Metroid, Samus couldn’t crouch so there was no way of hitting enemies that were shorter than Samus. But bombs and the Wave Beam could hit those enemies, so it took a little practice/skill to be able to effectively deal with those short enemies. But in subsequent games she could kneel and point downward, and this is something that I would suspect that was suggested to the developers as an improvement after hearing player feedback.


The other example is the whip in Castlevanias 1-3. While it was the primary weapon, it had its limitations, but the other sub-weapons could help. Holy water went down, the axe went up, and the knife was longer range. But the whip in Castlevania IV was so versatile and useful that it made the sub-weapons practically superfluous.


Sometimes those limitations are there for a reason and were intended as a feature. Other games have restrictions that help keep the game interesting. Basketball doesn’t let you just pick the ball up and run, football has limitations on who can move before the ball is snapped, and card games like Solitaire or Freecell restrict which cards can be placed on other cards. These rules and restrictions are features of the game, and not bugs. Without such limitations, the games would be unfair to one side and would soon careen into Calvinball territory.

I know most people were frustrated by Final Fantasy’s battle system when they instructed two characters to attack the same enemy, but it happened to be killed by the first character. The result is that the second attacker just swings at air instead of automatically changing targets. This was seen as a programming oversight, but I think it was intentional. It would be similar to a football defense attempting to double-team a star offensive player who ends up not being part of the play, leaving fewer defenders to block the actual one with the ball. Less astute Final Fantasy players got frustrated that there were so many wasted attacks in battle. What it did to smart players, though, was force them to keep a running mental count of how much damage could be done by the characters and how many hit points enemies had so as to not waste turns.


I think sometimes players don’t want the limitations, not realizing that the game would be completely different and/or not interesting to play without them. If Mario could just jump so high that he can skip the entire level, what would even be the point of playing it? Dragon Warrior was single player against a single enemy during combat, then Final Fantasy was four characters against up to nine enemies. But if it was like 28 Light Warriors against 1 enemy, it wouldn’t be fun due to being too easy.

Another example is the ability to save everywhere. While saving after obtaining every star in Super Mario 64 is nice, there's no real penalty for losing all your lives other than having to navigate the menu and castle stairs. In Super Mario World, there were certain levels that prompted a save after completing them (fortresses, castles, and ghost houses). So if you managed to get through a few levels but weren't able to complete the ghost house, for instance, then upon losing all your lives you'd have to re-do those levels. It kinda forced players to 'git gud' enough to make it to a save point. 

I think in some cases, player feedback might open developers’ eyes to something they hadn’t considered, like kneeling in Metroid. But other times technology might be a limiting factor. Yoshi was an idea that Miyamoto-san tried to get going for SMB3, but couldn’t implement without the additional horsepower that the SNES provided, so Yoshi showed up in SMW. 


Limitations breed creativity. We can definitely see instances where the hardware couldn’t handle things. Double Dribble only had 3v3 on either side of the court to prevent sprite flicker, while Tecmo’s NBA Basketball 5v5 was a bit of a mess. But the SNES Bulls v Blazers had no issues due to superior hardware.

Clu Clu Land was based around the concept of swinging around a pole, and the difficulty is getting used to the control scheme and learning how to properly maneuver around the screen avoiding enemies. It was not well received, but if it had been programmed with a “regular” control scheme, it would have been much easier, but it also would not have been unique, and would have been another Dig Dug.

Newer hardware can come with more freedom and more abilities, but it also might take away part of what made something unique/special. 

 

 

 

Grab-bag Post #5

Grab-bag Post #1

Grab-bag Post #2

Grab-bag Post #3

Grab-bag Post #4 

Naming Stuff

One thing that I always found curious when I was younger and reading an article in Nintendo Power was how much time and effort was put into naming certain things. Specifically, things like the names of enemies in games as well as a small back-story for each one. In the case of things that exist in the real world, like snakes, mummies, and bats, why bother renaming them to Ropes, Gibdos, and Keese? And for things that aren’t actually real (like Zoomers, Squeepts, and Skree in the original Metroid) there might be more descriptive names that would be easier to memorize. Some things, such as Goombas, Octorocks, and Metroids have entered common gaming lexicon due to popularity, but I would be surprised if many people knew what all the enemies in a game like Metroid were called without looking it up. I would bet that overall, people called them ‘bats’ more than ‘Keese’ in Zelda games, even if they know what they’re actually called. I know that things need names, moreso in a game like Dragon Quest than in something like Metroid, but I think it’s funny that someone was paid to come up with nonsense names for things and that so much paper/ink was used between instruction manuals and magazines informing people of the names. To me it feels like being the writer on the stuff that goes on the back of food packages that nobody ever reads. 

Copycats 

One of the problems with success is how many other people/companies try to replicate it and flood the market with too much of the same thing. Often it’s a lesser quality product, probably because it’s made with a lower budget and in a shorter time frame.

Some examples include how every FPS suddenly became a Call of Duty clone, or how many World of Warcraft-like games were produced. I think part of the problem is that the “copycats” only utilize the superficial elements without really understanding the underlying reasons for why the original was so successful, and that games that are loosely classified as the same genre start to poach mechanics from the successful one instead of finding their own mechanic.

It also happened with Harry Potter franchise and the MCU. I’ve heard reports that book publishers want to be part of the next Harry Potter-like phenomenon, so when an author submits work for a solo novel it gets rejected because there’s not an 8-book plan. When the success of the MCU hit, the concept of the shared universe suddenly drove DC and Universal to do the same thing, and very badly at that. We should just let some books be solo outings and not every movie needs to be part of a 25-part saga told over 10 years. 




Less is More

On a similar note to the above, I also hate when comic creators make too many variations of a particular character. Spider-Man is a great character, but when there were a few, seldom used variants, it was fine. I’m thinking of things like Spider-Woman (Jessica Drew) or Spider-Man 2099. When the clone saga with Ben Reilly/Scarlet Spider happened, I was mostly fine with the concept even if the actual story wasn’t that great. But now there are just waaaaaay too many Spider-Men now. Spider-Gwen, Miles Morales, Spider-Girl, Man-Spider, and the list goes on. I realize that creativity can be hard, but just make new characters instead of being lazy. It happens with a lot of characters. How many Venom, Superman, Iron Man, Thor, Hulk, and Wolverine variants are there now?

But the most egregious thing is when the new (usually lesser) character is given the same name as the original. Laura Kinney is not Wolverine, Miles Morales is not Spider-Man, Sam Wilson is not Captain America, and Jon Kent is not Superman. 



The Pause Button

What I really need is a pause button on life to play my backlog of games because I weigh time spent/perceived happiness against what this particular game would give me at that particular time. So for example, when I have 2 hour to kill, I would deem that it's not worth my time to play Al Unser’s Racing on an NES emulator, but might be worth it to play Banjo-Kazooie on NSO or to replay Waverace64 on real hardware. But if I had a "pause button" for life that would stop everything and I could just try every game I've ever wanted to play without the rest of the world moving forward then I would be confident that I'm spending my time wisely. Alternatively, I wish I could send my 8-year-old self a fully hacked system that has all of the NES ROMs but they are time-locked to be playable when each game officially releases in the US. One can dream. 





Addendum to "Using up all the Good Stuff" from Grab-bag Post #1

Like X-Men, the producers on the original Spider-Man franchise opted to present the most known and popular set of characters rather than try to re-tell all of Spider-Man’s comics history, by which I mean specifically skipping over Gwen Stacy and Betty Brandt, and beginning with a simplified version of the Mary Jane story. In other words, they have 40 years of stories and distill down to a 2-hour movie so they pick the best parts. 

While I can see that they kinda wanted to put all their eggs into the basket because it was unknown if there would be a sequel or whatever, it also kinda means that they blow their wad a little early. Unfortunately, they kinda use up all of their good stories and characters in the first two movies and don’t have a whole lot to use if they’re successful. 

If they knew that there would definitely be a trilogy or some kind of cinematic universe, then they can plot out when to use the best stories and characters in the best way. Dr. Connors was mentioned in the first movie, then seen as a side character in the second and third movies. Having him become the Lizard in the fourth movie would have been excellent. As it does with a lot of things, it comes down to planning. 

 

Nintendo Related Japan Trip Notes

The original wooden 1889
building.

Near the end of Summer 2024, I finally got to return to Japan and take my family with me. One of the purposes we accomplished was to make a “pilgrimage” of sorts to the Nintendo Headquarters. Because of that trip (along with some helpful websites), I was able to get a far better picture of the history of the company. This post is a summary of my thoughts and what I learned.

 

 

The "left" part of the original
1889 building next to 
the 1933 building. 

I had known for quite a while that Nintendo was started in the late 1800’s as a playing card company, but until I had watched a documentary called Playing with Power (narrated by Sean Astin) about it I didn’t really grasp or appreciate the history. 

 

 

 

 

The 1933 building, which
extends down the block.

The Marufuku Nintendo Card Co., or Yamauchi Nintendo Karuta as it was originally known in Japanese, was founded 23 Sept 1889 in a small wood building in Kyoto, where they made Hanafuda cards which got around the government rules of “Western” cards intended for gambling. As their operation expanded, they built a white brick building with green trim directly adjacent to the original wooden building in 1933.

 

 

 

Eventually the scattered offices were consolidated in a new building in 1959 in Kyoto (which has now become the new Nintendo Museum). By this time the major focus of the company was making toys and board games, though they still made hanafuda as well as themed western decks of cards. The original buildings were abandoned, but still remained standing. The 1933 building is now the Marufuku Hotel which displays Nintendo history, and the original wood building was torn down in 2004 to become a parking lot, and eventually the land was used to add an annex to the hotel. It’s a shame that I didn’t make the trip here when I was in Japan in the late 90’s to see the building myself. Finally, in 2000 their current headquarters buildings were built – two white square-ish buildings about a block from each other in downtown Kyoto. 

 

As part of our trip, we walked to the Marufuku Hotel and took some pictures outside of the building, and then walked around the current headquarters, though we were not permitted to enter any of the buildings. After that, we did, however, go to the official Nintendo Store in a Kyoto mall where I bought some plastic hanafuda cards. 

 

 

Unfortunately, we were unable to go to the Nintendo Museum. Though it was projected to be done in March of 2024, it wasn't finished until around September. Additionally, tickets are distributed in a lottery system so even if it was open there was a chance we wouldn't have gotten to go anyway.  

 

How I Spend time, or Why I'm a Console Peasant

Some conversations I’ve had recently have made me reflect on priorities and how I want to spend my time. Because gaming consoles (and their controllers) are designed to mainly play games, in almost all instances they are pretty much traditionally plug-n-play and easy to use. Excluding cases when additional hardware is needed (4-player adapters, peripheral controllers, VR headsets, etc.) or modern games that require large downloads, pretty much all you needed to do was pop in the cartridge/disc, turn on the TV, and pick up the controller.

But with PC gaming, it often requires checking on system requirements, configuring hardware, and potentially other tasks like moving files. To be fair, platforms/launchers like Steam have made things far easier than it was when I was trying to get WarCraft II to connect to my friend’s computer over a dial-up modem in high school.

What I’m getting at is that while, yes, a PC can potentially have better screen resolutions, better frame rates, and other visual fidelity enhancements over consoles, it requires more time/effort (and often more cash for a better CPU/GPU or larger monitor) than a console does and it’s not something that I really want to spend my time or money doing. If I am chasing the “best possible experience” with regards to graphics, I would be upgrading my hardware on a yearly basis and using all of my budgeted hobby money to do so.

The reason I play games is to spend time having fun, and I want to maximize my priorities to do exactly that, so I want to spend as little time as possible in configuration menus and hardware optimization. I don’t want to spend more time researching/learning about games than I spend actually playing them, nor do I want to spend time/money on something and take weeks to get it set up and never actually play the games I’m intending to play. I admit there is a satisfying feeling of relief knowing that I have the capability to play something (because I have it installed on my 3DS or bought an N64 Flashcart, for example), but if I never actually get around to playing it, what good does it do? 

 

I also don’t want to bankrupt myself in the process, so I don’t need to have the bleeding edge of technology to accomplish this goal. Basically, I’m trying to maximize playing time while minimizing cost and other considerations like fiddling around with settings. Does that mean I won’t have the absolute best possible experience? Yes, but it’s about 95% as good in my estimation, and that’s good enough for me. I believe that the law of diminishing returns applies here, where spending $500 will get you 92% of your goal, and spending another $500 will only get you an additional 3 to 4%. Everyone has a threshold for “good enough,” and mine is low enough that console gaming is fine even if I don’t have 120 fps and VRR. Sometimes the frame rate may stutter a little, or load times might be a bit longer, but at the end of the day, I just ask if the game playable and did I have a good time playing it. It is said that the pursuit of perfection is the enemy of the progress (or in this case, the “good enough”). I would rather play 30 games over the course of a year that are rated good to excellent rather than play only 2 games that are perfect (or put another way, I would rather play 30 games that run pretty well that are fun than play only 2 games that run perfectly). 

Would I like to have the best possible experience playing a game? Again, sure, but if I can achieve 95% of that right now with no additional cost/effort/time but it’ll take hundreds of dollars and hours of my time downloading mods/updates and needing to tinker with settings just to get it to 98%, then it’s not worth it to me.

As an alternative example, would I like to watch movies on a 50-foot screen with perfect sound quality and nobody else around other than my wife? Sure. But I don’t want to spend the money to rent out a theater or buy a big enough house build my own private theater every time I want to watch a movie. Instead, I can spend no additional money to watch my 46” TV from 2012 while lying on my couch and not have to put up with other people in a theater, and that’s good enough, even without modern enhancements like HDR. When my TV finally goes kaput, then yeah, I'll get something that is far more capable than my current setup. But I don't see the utility of replacing a piece of equipment that is still functioning as intended. 

 

There are limited occasions where I will do some of this kind of thing. I spent the better part of a summer trying to get a Philips CD-i emulator to run so I could get a chance to play the Unholy Triforce of Zelda games. It never ran perfectly and would crash during the infamous cut scenes, so the work-around was to skip them and instead watch them on YouTube at the appropriate times. But once I had it running enough where I could experience the game (mostly) as intended, then I was satisfied and haven't really touched it since, having achieved my goal of playing all of the Zelda spinoff games. 

Also, for what it's worth, I did use a few emulators like ZSNES on the computer somewhat frequently because they required almost no configuration and worked without too much effort. Later emulators for the N64 required more work so I didn't use them except for a few times to see how well they perform. And when it comes to the hacking scene for the 3DS, most of the work was done for me and I just had to follow basic instructions to get it work.  

To summarize, I think everyone has differently optimized priorities (“different strokes for different folks”), and mine includes frugality so I don’t feel the need to run out and upgrade my hardware until it’s absolutely necessary as long as the length of play, the ability to play the game, and the amount of fun that can be had outweighs the amount of time/effort/cost to actually play it.