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 (where the names are displayed onscreen) 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 being forced to be made with a lower budget and in a shorter time frame by a corporate higher-up.

Some examples include how every FPS games 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 the Fox X-Men, the producers on the original Spider-Man movie trilogy 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. And then if there are more stories, they either have to make massive changes (like meeting Gwen after already being engaged to Mary Jane and having it mess with Peter's relationship) or start shooting from the hip and invent all new stories (which hasn't gone well, traditionally).

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. But we didn't see him until the Andrew Garfield reboot. As with a lot of things, it all comes down to planning. If you fail to plan, you plan to fail. 

X-Men '97 is the best example of this. The series itself was excellent, and the best Marvel thing made for D+ to date. It kept the spirit of the original series and tried to bring back as many voice actors as humanly possible. But my only problem was that because they had 10 episodes and uncertainty of a second season, it seemed like the writers were trying to speed-run all of the major plots from the Chris Claremont 1980's X-Men run into one season. Stories like the Mutant Massacre could have easily been a 3-episode arc, but it was the B-plot of episode 4 instead. 

 

Grab-bag Post #6 

 

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? 

A good comparison is that I can either watch the Lord of the Rings trilogy, then watch all of the behing-the-scenes material, then the extended editions, then watch the movies 8 more times with the director commentary, the actor commentary, the music commentary, etc. Oh, and then I need to get the Blu-Ray version and then the 4K version (and a new TV) and watch those. Or, I could watch the movies once every couple years, and in the meantime, go through other classic movies that I haven't watched such as Bridge on the River Kwai, Stand By Me, and Chinatown, while keeping up on some current movies or TV series like Yellowstone. At the end of the day, I would feel more "culturally enriched" by having a wide breadth of movies and shows that I have seen. What I'm trying to say is that I would rather spend time playing a wide variety of games rather than replay the original Metroid, but now with modern controls, widescreen, and 60 FPS. 

 

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. But I wouldn't do this for most games - it was only because it was a Zelda game. 

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.  

I also think that the games/equipment that I grew up with has an impact on how I see things these days. Louis CK had a great bit on Conan's show that perfectly illustrates my perspective. When I first played Nintendo games at home, I had 3 games on a 13" Black-and-White CRT with an 8-bit system that sometimes struggled showing more than 8 sprites. Because I now have a system with a controller than can turn it on remotely and play 3D open-world games on a 46" widescreen TV, I think we're doing pretty good, even if it's only 95% as good as the experience I could be having if I spent 10x the money.  

 

Another thing that influenced me to my position is that back in the 80's and 90's, comparing PC games and console games was like comparing apples and oranges. Due to the nature of PCs having disk slots, keyboard (and later mouse), and hard drives, it meant that games had to be both programmed and played differently. It allowed for games like Zork and King's Quest to accept typed commands, and for games to have larger sizes because they could span across multiple disks or use hard drive storage. Controllers were available, but they were expensive, and many games didn't support them, and even when the option was available it meant hours of configuring and troubleshooting them by trial-and-error messing with DOS and BIOS settings because Google didn't exist. The monitors were also an issue, as many early computers had monochrome screens, and having a graphics card installed was seen as a bit of a luxury, so graphics were necessarily simpler with lower color bit-rates. But the worst part was loading, something that was almost unheard of when it came to console games because of slow disk read speeds. 

Due to these limitations/factors, computer games tended to be more slow and intellectual games with poorer graphics. "Computer games" and "console games" were seen as two different things in most people's eyes. Sometimes you would find a port of Street Fighter 2 or Mega Man for PC and they ran terribly and looked worse. 

By comparison, consoles ran games like Ninja Gaiden and Super Mario Bros. which had fast action, better graphics and sound, and a controller that worked well - all which was just Plug 'n' Play as long as you had a TV. But while there were some educational games or things like the Miracle Piano game that kinda teaches how to play piano, they weren't very good and would be much better suited on PCs back then. Likewise, The Oregon Trail or the various Chess games were much better on PC than it was on a console for a myriad of reasons. 

Another reason I tended to lean more to the console side of things is that often the family computer was being used for school work or budgets, which took priority over playing Doom. But since a console was solely focused on games (which had a dedicated TV), I never had to stop playing to let someone type an essay or print a flyer. This is one of the reasons I love the Nintendo Switch - because I can play on TV if it's available and handheld when it's not. 

To summarize, I think everyone has differently optimized priorities (“different strokes for different folks” and all that), 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. Also, when I did the majority of my growing up, PC games were different beasts than console games, and it was much easier to get time on a console with games that didn't need hours of configuring settings before playing. 

 

 

What I Wish I'd Done . . .

As a different kind of retrospective, this is a, “What I wish I had done,” kind of post. Knowing what I know now about how the video game industry has turned out, along with what is important to me and how I’ve learned to take better care of things as I matured, this is all the stuff I would do if I could meet my younger self and convince him to do a couple of things differently (along with some money to buy the stuff I wish I had bought all those years ago).


NES/Gameboy Era

First and foremost, I would have been very careful with the boxes and manuals, and kept them in good shape in a bin or tote in my closet so I wouldn’t have had to buy replacements for the Zelda stuff, and I would have also had original copies for all the other games. I also would have kept the issues of Nintendo Power in good shape as well, or perhaps had a subscription for two copies each month - one to use, abuse, and read on the toilet, and the other to keep on a shelf in pristine condition. My friend Michael got that one right.

I would have also been more careful with the actual hardware and games. I wouldn’t have let my mom mark up our games with a permanent marker, nor put the address label on the back side of them after convincing her that I was being very careful and responsible with these items because they were precious to me. I would have kept them in a better state of repair (cleaning gunk off of them and making sure they were put away carefully so the labels don’t get ruined) and put Zelda II away when Michael borrowed it so the basketball didn’t chip the corner off.

I didn’t know at the time how easy it was to replace the door on the original NES, so I could have kept it and fixed it. Even after the system stopped working entirely, I still should have kept it to pull out and possibly repair now. For all I know it was just a 72–pin connector that needed fixing or by disabling the lockout chip it might still be working.

I should have also kept one of the three Gameboys for myself when I moved out to go to my first year of college, and then also kept one when I moved to Utah, and perhaps told my mom to let me know when she was planning on throwing them out so I could take possession of them instead of just relying on my Super Gameboy as a way of playing the games.


SNES/VB/N64 Era

Like before, I should have kept boxes and manuals in good shape. That’s not really much different. By this time, I did keep the actual hardware and games in better shape so there’s not much regret in that department. The only real thing that I wish I had done is keep the Virtual Boy stand and the clip that connects the unit to the stand. It was the "leg" joint on the stand that broke, and these days people can 3D print replacement parts for that particular piece. But I cannot attach the Virtual Boy to a new stand or anything without that clip, unfortunately. However, new replacement stands are now available from stoneagegamer now. 

Overall

I would have left a pile of money with specific instructions to purchase particular things (like hard-to-find games) and directives to become members of certain things. So for example, I should have purchased a Game Boy Color when they came out to play the DX version of Link’s Awakening, as well as bought a Game Boy Pocket when they released. I have been able to find working models of these handhelds through eBay, but it would have been cheaper to just have had my own copy for the past 25 years. Ultimately, it hasn’t been a huge deal because their prices haven't gone up that much over the years but having to find the alternate version of Twilight Princess has been more difficult and expensive (I originally only bought the Wii version and haven’t had the GameCube version until very recently). I also wish I had been a Nintendo Power subscriber (or maybe a Club Nintendo member) so I could have gotten the Collector's Edition disc and not had to pay an arm and a leg to get it last year.

One big thing is that I had the perfect opportunity to acquire some Nintendo history while I was in Japan, but didn’t have the funds (or the inclination) to do so. I really wish I would have purchased both a Famicom and Super Famicom and just shipped them home to wait for me. I could have also landed a N64-DD there in person along with a bunch of games. I had the opportunity, just not the foresight that I would become a collector of such things and the money would have taken to purchase them and ship them home. While I’m at it, I might as well have gotten a second version of each Zelda game to get to keep new in the package to sit and look pretty on the shelf.

First!

There was a joke/meme in early internet forums where the first person to leave a comment usually just left, "First!" to leave a record that they were the person to pull up the article the soonest after its publication. Ultimately, it’s just human psychology, but we put a great deal of emphasis on being first. First person to win a race, sure - that’s obvious, but what I’m talking about is something like first person to discover penicillin, first President of the US, first person to do a 900 on a skateboard in competition, etc. What’s funny and/or interesting to me is when further distinctions and qualifiers are added so that there can be more firsts, especially when the motivation behind the qualifiers are easily discerned.

The best example of this is how in school I learned who some of the American “firsts” in space were, including Alan Shepherd, John Glenn, and Sally Ride. But names I never learned were Laika, Yuri Gagarin, and Valentina Tereshkova - Russians who did it before the Americans. That’s when I realized that the qualifiers were there to make me feel better as an American, since we weren’t actually the first. However, that distinction is never made with Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin - they’re never listed as the first Americans on the moon, but as the first humans on the moon.

What brought up this shower thought? It’s been a bunch of things in recent pop culture history. It seems like everyone in politics and Hollywood (which, let’s face it, are almost the same thing these days) is racing to become the first at something. Since she wasn’t the first dwarf portrayed on screen, or even the first female dwarf as she claimed (that credit goes to some actresses in the Hobbit movies), Sophia Nomvete had to correct her statement to be the first female dwarf of color to be shown on screen. They’re just tripping over themselves to be the first at something, and each time the “accomplishments” get more and more insignificant with each qualifier, and they all seem to be centered around some identity characteristic - the first black person of Caribbean descent to host the New Year’s Eve countdown on NBC, the first Latino to dance the box step in the Ed Sullivan Theatre in the month of February, etc.

Instead of being just some interesting footnote in history that is destined to become the answer to a Jeopardy! or Trivial Pursuit question, they all but break their arms patting themselves on the back about this momentous occasion, thinking they’re basically the same as Jackie Robinson when it comes to breaking down barriers. Once I noticed this, it dawned on me that it was akin to the stupid stats that bored sports commentators bring up during a lull in the game, such as the fact that this team has never lost when playing on Halloween while wearing purple uniforms when there’s a full moon. So many qualifiers means that they’re reaching to make a big deal out of essentially nothing. In a world where justice "frontiers" are increasingly rare, everyone is clamoring over recognition of being the first to stand against vanishingly small incidents of "oppression," in other words. 

But to really answer the question about what brought this on, it was Jennifer Lawrence’s statement about being the first female lead of an action movie (as if Aliens, Terminator 2, Red Sonja, Kill Bill, Charlie’s Angels, Underworld, Resident Evil, and Tomb Raider didn’t exist).

But putting politics and Hollywood aside, it did actually cause me to think about primacy when it comes to certain things in video games and other pop culture. The thing I realized after contemplating this is that sometimes being the first isn’t the best but it lingers because it makes an indelible mark on the human mind. It's called having a Primacy Bias.

There really are “original absolutists” who will argue till they’re blue in the face that no matter what, it’s better just because it came first. The Adam West Batman theme has been a staple in pop culture ever since it was on TV, but the upbeat, surf rock song pales in comparison to Danny Elfman’s far superior theme used in the Michael Keaton movies and the Animated Series. But solely due to being the first official Batman theme, the music from the 60’s has stuck around, even more so than the music used in the Nolan-directed movies. Basically the same argument can be made for the original animated Spider-Man theme ( . . . “does whatever a spider can” . . ) as being the default theme despite (again) the existence of a much better Elfman theme.

There were previous Superman themes from various radio and television productions, but John Williams’ composition for the 1978 Christopher Reeve movie was so perfect that it should have been the de facto theme for all things Superman going forward (and was for the Brandon Routh movie), but it has been replaced by inferior themes in animated series and the Snyder-directed movies. Not sure how much of it was ego and how much was copyright as far as reasons to not use those themes, but clips of Henry Cavill flying to John Williams’ music are much more inspiring.

Other examples of the first one not necessarily being the best are Terminator 2, Portal 2, Street Fighter 2, The Dark Knight, The Empire Strikes Back, Aliens, the aforementioned Danny Elfman Batman theme and John Williams Superman theme, John Ottman’s X2 theme (and while we’re at it, X2 as a movie), Spider-Man 2, and Mega Man 2.

I honestly think that if the Twilight Princess Hyrule Field music (which is iconic in its own right) had been the music for the original Legend of Zelda, that’s what would be called the “Zelda Theme” and have little musical references to it in future games. While I love the original theme song, I think future musical themes were objectively better (both in terms of composition and because of improved audio technology) but the original has stuck around just because it’s the original. The same can be said for the first Super Mario Bros. music and the Phoenix Wright music - the original ones are the ones that are thought of as THE theme for their respective franchises.

Something similar happens to movies/games that are changed or updated - a debate over original or “new and improved” inevitably ensues. I kinda hate when changes are made to something and I like the new one better, because it makes me wish they had just done it right the first time so there wouldn’t be a debate over original vs. improved versions. A great example of this is the Gerudo symbol in the Zelda series. It was first introduced in Ocarina of Time along with other symbols for the various tribes like Deku, Zora, and Goron. But what made it more prominent was its inclusion on all of the various floor switches that Link presses to open doors or whatever. The original symbol had a crescent moon and a 4-pointed star. However, because of its similarity to the Turkish Flag it was changed to avoid drawing the ire of the Islam nation (along with the Fire Temple music). I like the new symbol just as much as the original, but it bugs me that it wasn’t made right the first time. I did like the original Fire Temple music better, however, and the updated version that uses a re-worked version of the Shadow Temple music is inferior.

Another example is the Special Edition of Star Wars: A New Hope. There were at least 15 major changes, and quite a few other minor tweaks made to the movie. Most of them are ones I agree with, but a few I would leave out (Han shot first, in other words). But I have the choice of watching the original theatrical version, or the one that has enhanced visuals and sound but includes Greedo’s badly aimed shot. Many people prefer the original theatrical cut of the film and consider it to be the superior product despite its flaws/limitations just because it was first/original.

Even Tolkien went back and revised the story originally told in the Hobbit about how Bilbo acquired the ring so it would work better for the Lord of the Rings, and basically just made the original story (where he won the ring fair and square) the one that Bilbo told people in order to hide the truth and make his claim on the ring stronger. It just also happens that a publisher made the corrections to the manuscript and the Hobbit has been published with the updated story ever since, and only the first couple of printings had the original tale.

Ultimately, being a fan of something means that we’ll get into pointless internet debates over which version of something is better, can an elevator lift Thor’s hammer, etc. But I weary of the weight given to something just for being the first (sometimes also called the Anchoring cognitive bias) over all of the other characteristics that would otherwise make comparisons easy and straight-forward.

Grab-bag Post #4

 

Grab-bag Post #1

Grab-bag Post #2

Grab-bag Post #3

 

Why physical games are better

Whenever possible, I get physical versions of games. As convenient as it is to have a ton of games all on one microSD card, I prefer to have physical copies of games. Now that I have 3 different Switch consoles (OG, OLED, and Lite), I don’t want to pay $20 to download Portal onto each one or mess with account sharing. By contrast, I can pop my Metroid Dread gamecard into any of them and play without problems, and also let my kids play the game on their Switch as well. Another reason is that there have been times when publishers retract games that have been paid for on certain platforms or the shop just gets taken down entirely (this has also happened with digitally bought music and movies). If I have a physical copy, Nintendo can’t stop me from playing the game even if it gets pulled from the digital store, and they can’t barge into my house to take the game back.

I also tend to avoid games whose main draw is the multiplayer aspect of it. Once that server goes down and the ability to play multiplayer goes with it, the game loses all value and interest (see various versions of Call of Duty). Meanwhile, if the single-player game is the main focus, when the multiplayer gets taken away most people don’t notice (see Phantom Hourglass, for example). This is similar to why I also strongly dislike the, “games as a service,” model, since the games can’t be preserved for future generations unless someone also makes a fan server, which only happens to the biggest games.

It also goes for physical games which require many gigabytes of updates to make it playable. 

 

Being a hardware minimalist

This is a little expansion of something I mentioned on the Collecting post, but I have usually been a hardware minimalist for the most part. And what I mean by that is my priority has always been about being able to play the games themselves. When the SNES was announced, I knew I needed the new hardware to play the new games. By contrast, when the Game Boy Pocket or Switch Lite was announced, I didn’t see the need because they were just smaller. When I got the Game Boy Advance, I knew I could play any original GB game, GBC game, or GBA game on this device. Even though the SP added a backlight, it didn’t allow me to play anything I couldn’t already play on the original model. I skipped the DS and DSi and re-entered with the 3DS, but that allowed me access to all previous DS and DSi games up through that point. So in theory, I could have played any Nintendo handheld game ever made and I was happy with that (until I got the idea to get one of everything).

Obviously this doesn’t apply to the home consoles as much, as there are fewer revisions, but I didn’t feel the need to get a SNES Jr, or a Wii Mini because they didn’t allow me to play any new games.  

 

 Collector's Editions 

In a similar vein to being a hardware minimalist, I usually don’t go for extra bells and whistles when games are released. Some games have Special Editions that include a book, a map, a carrying case, a steel gamecase, or some other collectible. I just want to play the game, and don’t need the extra junk, especially if it’s some kind of guidebook, because I prefer to discover things for myself. But I can see the appeal to people who like those sorts of things. I did buy the collector’s edition of Twilight Princess HD because it came with the Wolf Link amiibo, but only because 1) I hadn’t yet discovered NFC-215 tags yet, 2) it was supposed to unlock new content for both TPHD and BotW, and 3) it was Zelda stuff. The same goes with movies that used to have special editions. I remember kinda wanting the $80 Lord of the Rings Extended Edition sets for the extra junk, but ultimately I just wanted the movies and the other stuff would probably be collecting dust in a cabinet.

 

 Pop Culture Loss

I suppose this might fit better on the Evolution of Gaming series, but I don’t have enough to say to warrant its own post.

There are both positive and negative aspects to the various facets of progress, but one I’ve noticed is that with a lot more choice comes a loss of connected pop culture. Back when I was a kid, (insert uphill both ways joke here) most people had the same console (NES), and then later one of two options (SNES or Genesis). Because of that, it was almost always possible to find someone to trade games with, and at some point we all kinda played each other’s games so we could all share in a common experience. Likewise, with only 4 real TV channels (and PBS), we could all talk about a lot of the same shows.

But I fear that these days we have lost the major aspect of pop culture – that being popularity, by which I mean seen/played by a good majority of the people. When it comes to TV, due to different cable packages or streaming services, someone might have a completely different set of shows they watch than their friend, and so they have less in common. The same might go for someone who owns a PlayStation and a Nintendo console with a friend who does only PC gaming. Plus, in both cases there is now so much content and so many games that it would be impossible to keep up on all of them. With a lot of streaming shows, we never know if our friends are “caught up” or if they’re waiting for the season (or series) to end and to binge it all at once, and it can somewhat stifle conversations at work/school that would normally bring us together after having had a common experience in order to avoid spoilers.

Grab-bag Post #5

Grab-bag Post #6 

Zelda Games (Collection Part 2)

Zelda Manga (Collection Part 1)

Once my Zelda Manga series was nearing completion, I turned my sights closer to the original source material: the games themselves. Now, I have (almost) always had all of the games in some form, and some way to play them basically at all times. The few exceptions are getting the original Legend of Zelda after owning A Link to the Past, a 6-month gap between Four Sword Adventures coming out and getting it for Christmas, and not being able to play the DS games due to not having a DS. But what I prioritized was being able to play a game in some fashion, and not necessarily having every version. Like comics, I was less interested in the merch but was into the puzzles and story, so I didn’t rush out and get Ocarina of Time 3D when it first came out just because of some quality-of-life improvements and upgraded graphics. There wasn’t any new content or more Hyrulian history to learn about so I didn't feel compelled. Likewise, if Four Swords hadn’t been included, I might not have gotten the GBA port of ALttP.

As another example, I didn’t really feel the need to own the Zelda Collector’s Edition because it seemed redundant due to still owning the original hardware and cartridges in working condition (and being able to also play them on the Wii VC). Nor did my wallet feel the urge to get both the Wii and GameCube versions of Twilight Princess, because it was basically the same game other than being mirrored. I only bought the GBA re-releases of the NES games because my son had a GBA and I didn’t feel like hooking up the NES.

So once I set my sights on obtaining a complete collection, I started off by making a list and noting the things I was missing. These were things like the GameCube version of Twilight Princess, the Wii U version of Breath of the Wild, a physical version of Wind Waker HD (I only had the digital version up to this point), and the Collector’s Edition disc. All of this would be a bit of spending so I gave myself a $100 per month limit, both to avoid putting us in the poor-house and to make the collection process more fun by spreading it out over several years rather than all at once.

This would complete the games, but to make them a bit more presentable, I found a shop that specializes in making reproductions of the original game boxes as well as the instruction manuals. So I added those to the list of things to buy. Luckily, I still had all of the boxes and manuals from Ocarina onward, so I really only needed to replace the boxes for the NES games, ALttP, both versions of Link’s Awakening, and the GBA re-releases of the NES games.

I figured I might as well do the same for the spin-off games as well, so I imported the 3 Tingle DS games from Japan, got the 3DS and Switch version of Hyrule Warriors, bought a Game & Watch Zelda, and found a seller who made physical copies of the BS-X games along with custom manuals and boxes. Unfortunately, the CD-i games were prohibitively expensive, so I resorted to making my own versions of the discs and jewel cases, knowing full well that they would never be played. My work was . . . adequate, but then I learned of a British place that made much better replicas, so I ordered some. And for the three other games that only got digital releases (FS:AE, TMTP, and MNP:TP), I made custom cases using Photoshop and some cheap cases I got from a used game store.

In addition, I also got Japanese versions of the first six games (including both disk and cartridge versions), the Japanese FSA (because it has Navi Trackers), and a set of the Barcode Battler II cards for ALttP. The only thing that doesn’t have a box is the Nelsonic Game Watch. I could buy one with the packaging, but I’m still a bit too cheap at the moment and would rather spend my money elsewhere. Perhaps in the future, maybe. But all of this wrapped up in April of 2022 with a complete Zelda game collection.





What’s next? I’m glad you asked . . . (Part 3)

Deep Mode instead of Hard Mode

Many games include a hard mode, which often is just a matter of increasing enemy health/strength/accuracy, and decreasing the player’s health/defense. Occasionally it will also include more/harder objectives (like 00 Agent mode on Goldeneye007). Several of the Zelda games can be pointed to with their “Hero Modes” that don’t give the player recovery hearts on top of the aforementioned enemy buffs. Capcom apparently thought that Mega Man 2 was too difficult for the NA release, so it had an easier mode labeled as “Normal,” which lowered enemy hit points, with the original mode called, “Difficult.” While I appreciate that developers include these options, I also think that the way it’s done for most games is kind of a lazy way of doing it. What we need is a Deep Mode for serious gamers who have hundreds of hours to dedicate to the game, and a Casual Mode for those who only want to spend 5-10 hours (or less) on a game and be done.


This is similar to the oft-repeated argument that there should be a “dad-server” of sorts for those of us who want to play and enjoy a game without the necessary 300 hours of practice needed to “get gud.” This is beneficial to those who only get a couple hours a week for gaming or for those who dump 10-15 hours into a game before moving onto the next one. To give a sportsball analogy, it would be no fun to show up to a neighborhood pickup game of basketball and have Steph Curry or LeBron James on the other team, which is why they have their own elite league. Nor would it be any fun if a game of chess required that both players to know what the Benoni Defense is before being allowed to play (full disclosure: I have no idea what that is - I just googled it). 

In Dark Souls, when a new weapon is found, the player is greeted with a page of statistics about it. By comparison, Breath of the Wild whittles the weapon stats down to one number, so it’s easier to compare which weapon is better. That works great for small kids (who don’t need a 16-point breakdown of every item) and dads (who don’t have as much time). The thing is, there actually are those stats in BotW but they’re just not shown to the player. Croton on YouTube has done several videos breaking down hidden stats of each weapon and shield, like its breakability, shield-surfing speed, and how the game calculates what Link can and can’t block. Personally, and because I’m such a Zelda aficionado, I would have liked a deeper weapon/armor rating and upgrading system, but I can see how for a lot of people, less is more, and its simplicity probably contributed to its mass appeal. On the flip side, for something I’m not heavily vested in (like Dark Souls), I would appreciate some simplified gameplay and a better tutorial. I know that the point of the series is to be insanely difficult, but a casual mode would open doors for a wider audience that might not have discovered their love of the games if there is always such a steep learning curve.


Besides weapon/armor stats, here are some other ideas I had for Casual Mode;


Weapon Crafting - Weapon crafting was simple in the fishing game on 3DS Mii Plaza (Ultimate Angler) - Rod A combined with Rod B produced Rod C and there was a simple chart showing how that happened. Games like Fallout or The Outer Worlds have a whole page of stats for weapons and the crafting system is deep and intricate. Games that have crafting could have an option for either a simple or detailed system.


A Standard Ending - Instead of having 8 endings depending on choices made or completion time, have a “regular” ending for those who only want to go through the game once and not try every class/combination of characters or speedrun through it. 


Streamlined Skill Tree - While some people enjoy tweaking every little decision with characters and their abilities, games could have just a “normal” path that takes some of the decision-making out of the ordeal.

There could be other things, depending on the genre. More narrative-driven games could have more obvious in-text clues, or in adventure/exploration games there could be a companion guide of sorts. 

So what I’m proposing is that in addition to a difficulty selector (one that increases enemy health/accuracy), there could be a second option for Casual Mode that is good for kids/dads/beginners who just want to have fun or Advanced Mode for serious players who are already veterans of the series/genre.

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Grab-bag Post #1

Grab-bag Post #2

JRPGs vs. WRPGs. 

Growing up, I would have told you that I like playing Role Playing Game video games. Specifically, I liked games like Final Fantasy and Dragon Warrior IV. They were a video game version of something akin to Dungeons and Dragons, but where all the dice rolling, stats sheets, and scenarios are handled by the program. But I learned that there are kind of two major divisions of video game RPGs. 

Japanese RPGs tend to have a character who goes on their journey and you as the player get pretend to be them for a while. So if you play Final Fantasy IV, you are Cecil, or if you play Octopath Traveler you are Olberic (or whoever you chose). In Western RPGs, you craft a character that you choose and, in a sense, insert yourself into the game. So in Fallout, you're you in New Vegas. Personally that doesn't appeal to me as much. I'd rather pretend to be Link or Wedge Antilles for some escapism rather than be, well, just me. I know it's a personal choice and other people prefer the WRPGs, so to each his own. 

One reason I didn't really like regular tabletop DnD is because of all the stat-keeping that's required (at least, I'm assuming it's still this way - I've never actually played it). I'd much rather leave the program to handle all of that for me for simplicity's sake. But even with the computer taking care of it, I don't like opening up a menu and seeing pages and pages of numbers for each item and character. I think it works much better when it's simplified down to one or two numbers per item.  

Future Proofing

The problem with designing games around extremely specific hardware is that it’s hard to preserve them for future generations. I’m all about future-proofing and preserving. If I could, I would make it possible to play every game (even the bad ones) perfectly from all major consoles and PC releases on modern hardware either natively or through emulation. 

The topic came up a few months ago when it was announced that the NSO would be receiving Nintendo 64 games. That’s all fine and dandy, but the N64 has a very specific problem - the controller is weird by modern standards. Hell, it was weird by contemporary standards when it came out, despite being a trailblazer for certain conventions still used today.

While the most obvious thing that stands out is the 3 lobed approach Nintendo took, the other problem is the handling of the C-buttons. They're usually assigned to the right stick of a more modern controller, which does kinda work, but also doesn't because they're not actual digital buttons, and modern right sticks are below the face buttons. While pretty much all other controllers can be mapped onto a modern Pro Controller pretty easily, the N64 remains an odd duck.

Other past features that are hard to work around currently are things like the fact that the original Famicom had a microphone built into controller 2 (which was used to kill Pol's Voices in The Legend of Zelda), which the DS and 3DS could handle, but a Switch cannot. The touchpad controls of DS games could be handled by a Wii U Gamepad, but I'm not sure how well a Switch could do with it. And speaking of the DS, a specific puzzle in Phantom Hourglass required the player to close the DS so as to transfer something from the top screen to the bottom screen. This can't be emulated on a 2DS or Wii U Gamepad, so the solution is to put the game in sleep mode and the wake it up. 

A few early NES games had things that could only be done by controller 2, which required the NES emulator of the 3DS to put in a feature to switch between virtual controllers. The GameCube's L and R buttons had pressure sensitivity that hasn't carried forward to controllers made ever since, and a half-ass work-around had to be implemented for the Switch version of Super Mario Sunshine. Motion controls are their own ball of wax. And nothing will really be able to emulate the 3-D effect of the 3DS on modern hardware. All of this is to say that it's going to take some work to make sure to keep consoles and accessories in good working order because it won't show up perfectly in future hardware. 

The new innovation also can discourage 3rd party developers from releasing ports or original games on the new system because it would entail completely re-working the controls. In the case of something like Call of Duty on the Wii, it entailed making pointer controls and other adjustments. Alternatively, first party developers are probably railroaded into finding a way to awkwardly implement the new control scheme into the game to justify its existence, like in Star Fox Zero. 

The flip side of this is that by choosing to basically keep the same control scheme for 20 years (like Microsoft and Sony), it's much easier to have modern controllers emulate older hardware, but you also don't get certain creative innovations as a result. 

Nintendo vs. Sega Advertisements in the 16-Bit Era

While it's normal for two rival companies to promote their product over the competitor's, it seemed like Sega’s commercials were more often a direct dig at Nintendo than the other way around. I didn't mind when it was just straight product promotion, or when they featured celebrity endorsement from sports figures like Tommy LaSorda or Joe Montana. Sega had the advantage in sports games and they pushed that, and I had no problem with it. But what I'm talking about is more like the following examples:

• Famously, the Genesis launch commercial's tagline was, "Genesis does what Nintendon't."
• A Game Gear ad starring Ethan Suplee implied that Game Boy users weren't very bright
• An ad showing Sonic's speed as compared to Super Mario Kart
• The salesman who can't sell a SNES when it's side-by-side with a Genesis
• There is no Nintendo CD, thank the goddess.

As I recall, only Donkey Kong Country had direct pushback (NOT on Sega), and StarFox only did if you recognized what they were alluding to (Why go to the next level when you can go lightyears behond?). Sega’s tactics felt like playing dirty to me. 

I pretty much agree with James Rolf’s assessment of the two systems. But in my mind the graphics, sound, and controls are the 3 most important things, and the SNES won all of those. The look of the system and game boxes are nice additions/features, but even if the system looked like a V-Tech toy but played Metroid 3, I wouldn’t care so much. What it shows is that with a 1½ year head start, a star-studded ad campaign promoting speed and how much cooler a new system is, it can compete with a system that is heads-and-tails better.

As a side bonus, here's a couple of pages from Nintendo Power issue 49 from June of 1993 where they tried to educate the public about some of Sega's claims.

Grab-bag Post #4

Grab-bag Post #5

 

Grab-bag Post #6