Ignophobia – Nathan Mallory's Weblog

Eventually, I just had to put Odin Sphere down.  I’ve played so many games over the summer, some excellent and others just decent, I felt like I could give even a slightly flawed game the benefit of the doubt.  So it’s with a sad heart that I present my first review in my Summer of Adventure of a game I did not finish.  Hopefully, you will understand why. 

You know when the most immediate connection between a game’s title and its meaning is a gameplay mechanic largely invisible to the characters, you have a problem.  While it is certainly possible that some all-powerful “Odin Sphere” becomes a pivotal element of the plot, as far as I could tell from my playing, it just refers to the layout of the game’s every stage.  You see, each area is broken up into smaller stages, each a flat 2D plane, seamlessly connected end-to-end, circular-like.  (And well-drawn as the backdrops may subjectively be, it also makes for some pretty repetitive and generic locales.  –”Ooh, a snowy mountaintop.”  Next stage: “Hey, isn’t this the exact same snowy mountaintop?”– )  It would be like renaming The Legend of Zelda “The Nine Levels Each With A Triforce Piece of Zelda.”

And for the near-universal praise given to the game’s story, I found myself disconnected and bored with the whole thing.  I realize the Valkyrie girl has some severe family issues, her dad is a philandering scumbag (who oddly gets the other half of the game’s title…), and there’s certainly a major war going on.  But in this day of Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion‘s endlessly explorable game world and Final Fantasy’s cinematic effulgence, a couple short and disjointed cut scenes peppered with generic dialogue from a few random NPCs just doesn’t cut it for plot development, no matter how well voiced.  Not that the also lauded voice acting is really all that great either.  The actors do well enough, but it doesn’t help the story much, and I haven’t heard that much needless echo effect used in dialogue since Symphony of the Night.

The criticisms aimed by reviewers at Odin Sphere, on the other hand, are absolutely spot on, and probably a little forgiving.  Item management is atrocious — what was the last RPG you played that doesn’t even have a menu screen??  Everything from consumables to cooking to which single accessory you choose to equip is done via a few item rings (think Secret of Mana from 1993, and that game had a menu system as well!), and the 10-12 slots you have in those is all you get until you can afford to stop buying health items and drop insane amounts on extra bags.  Before that point, however, you’ll find yourself in a painful dance of item management from as early as the first full area, having to decide which items to keep and which to abandon.

All this might be excusable if the rest of the game was just a ton of fun, but that’s hardly the case.  When you’re not talking to lifeless NPCs or running in circles jumping up and down, the combat is an entirely single-button affair.  You can jump of course, and glide by double-jumping (one actually interesting innovation), but you have just one attack button, which you can chain into combos by — you guessed it — pressing repeatedly.  Okay, so it’s generic, but what takes the game out of the realm of fun is how they then ruin that combat system:

• Enemies who just tear holes in you at Normal difficulty (forcing you to fill that limited inventory with whatever health items you can afford to buy or grow);
• The POW system that forces you not to attack too continuously or Valkyrie-get-woozy and faints;
• The utterly nonsensical system of levels and stat progression: experience is gained entirely through eating (oh, were that true!), enemies release glowing orbs upon death that can be either absorbed into your weapon (which also gains levels, obviating the need for an actual inventory) or into plants to help them grow into more food (which then gives you experience).  Oh, and you can create items as well through yet another system, alchemy, whose overly complex system of mixtures and the inability to create anything until you acquire its recipe (even if you have the components) just serves to further clutter your small backpack.

In the end, I just found myself sitting back and thinking, “I’m not having any fun with this!”  And to me, that’s the point where you put the game away.  Perhaps some will find it fun, and I’m sure the ability to replay the same plot over and over with different characters from other perspectives just makes the story nigh Shakespearean, but frankly at this point I don’t give a damn.  I didn’t make it that far.

Score: 5.5 / 10

As I look back on some of the other games I’ve recently played, I leave with this recurring negativity that sometimes game makers miss the forest for the trees.  They try so hard to create drama, play it safe with what works, or do so much with a plot that players cease to understand or care.  And their single-minded focus on crafting something that looks deep ends up in something hollow: fun in its own way, but ultimately unfulfilling.  So imagine my surprise when Nintendo’s quaint and clichéd platformer turns up to beat them all.

Unlike RPGs like Final Fantasy XII, which hold out all the trappings of a traditional dramatic RPG — war and royal scandal and cruel, power-hungry dictators — yet fail to really grab the player, Super Paper Mario is the polar opposite.  Behind its deceptively simplistic visual guise hides genuinely fun gameplay, a storyline with more real human emotion than its high falutin’ cousin, and some of the most clever, humorous dialogue I have ever witnessed.

For all it does right, the real credit for Super Paper Mario‘s quality goes to Nate Bihldorff’s witty, tongue-in-cheek localization, to which I can hardly imagine the Japanese original can hold a candle.  From the game’s silliest moments, like responding to an computer nerd iguana’s questions poking fun at sci-fi collectors and message board trolls, to its most dramatic, like the tragic reuniting of two lovers long ago parted, the sheer joy of reading the dialogue is the feather in SPM’s cap.  It’s apparent how much care went into breathing piquant life into the cast — Count Bleck speaks in the third-person, with his trademark entry and exit of “BLEEEECK!!!”; his minion, O’Chunks, is a dim-witted Scotsman; his all-business assistant Nastasia is a perfect embodiment of Bill Lumbergh of Office Space.  In Super Paper Mario, characters never die, their game ends.  And when it does, they go to The Underwhere (as opposed to its heavenly counterpart, The Overthere).  It may seem like a kid’s game by sight alone, but any jaded gamer can tell for whom this dialogue was written.

For all that, SPM’s plot itself is probably its biggest weakness.  It knows it’s a game, and the story is mostly there to give Mario and his unlikely companions a reason to visit eight unique worlds of four levels each (you remember, 4-1, 4-2, 4-3, 4-4…).  While the characters may take the story deadly seriously, the saccharine visual style and copious deus ex machina keep you at a safe distance.  Not that it makes the ride any less enjoyable.  By the end of the game, I honestly found myself looking past much of that distraction and genuinely enjoying the character drama — something I found myself entirely unable to do in either of Square-Enix’s recent titles that purport to traffic in emotional storylines.

So what’s there to say about gameplay?  It’s a platforming Mario game, right?  Well, not so much.  Okay, so it’s part of the old Mario RPG / Paper Mario franchise, so it’s Mario with hit points and level ups, right?  Yes, but…
Super Paper Mario sheds much of the RPG elements of its predecessors, keeping only hit/attack points and the experience levels that bring (predefined) upgrades to each.  Entirely gone is the awkward and childlike turn-based combat the series inherited from Squaresoft, replaced with Mario’s tried-and-true platforming… but with a twist.  Mario can flip the 2D plane of the game 90 degrees for limited stretches and move in and out on the world’s z-axis (see screenshot).  That means you can actually go around obstacles and enemies, which generally remain in their 2D form, as well as discover items and nooks that would otherwise be invisible when viewed from the side.  Add to this the small army of helpers Mario acquires on the way — the multi-talented Pixls, which empower Mario with everything from hammers to bombs to the ability to make seen the unseen by pointing the Wii-mote — and by the end you have quite a repertoire at your disposal.  Oh, and did I mention that each of the party’s four interchangeable characters (think SMB2) have unique abilities as well?  It makes me weep for games like Kingdom Hearts II; Sora can attack; Sora can jump and attack; Sora can do a combo of attacks; Sora can do magic and summons and drive forms… all of which are completely unnecessary to advancing the plot or beating the game.

I never expected Nintendo’s cartoony averagely ranked game to be potentially the entertainment highlight of my summer.  Whether my enjoyment will remain intact as the game fades into memory is a valid question, but this is the first game I’ve played in a while where I haven’t emerged from the credit roll with a laundry list of criticisms (as I think my other reviews may reflect).  Super Paper Mario is a deceptively simple game that hides beneath the surface a new twist on platforming, a well done, if ancillary story, and more satirical wit than I’ve been treated to in a long time.

Score: 9 / 10

From a PR perspective, I completely agree that Sony has screwed the pooch on managing consumer opinions, at least within the industry. Outside, however, the average consumer just sees a $499 60GB PS3 on sale.

I disagree with the people that insist Sony is driving for some “magical” $599 price point. If it was, I think the sales spike they will see from this price drop will convince them otherwise. The reality for Sony is that they have a huge number of 60GB systems collecting dust on store shelves. The still-born 20GB is largely vanished, and the 80GB isn’t even available yet.

Now, if Sony was to announce the 80GB system at the same $499 that the 60GB has just been reduced to, how many of those 60GB systems would they be likely to sell, now or in the future? Not many, I’d wager, unless they planned to drop the price on those even further. The company would be foolish to do that, especially since the 80GB won’t be around until August. The smart thing to do — and what I suspect is Sony’s plan all along here — is to release the 80GB at $599 with the no-longer-in-production 60GB at $499 until the 60GB units are either depleted or nearly impossible to find (as opposed to now, where it’s the only thing available!), then get a further PR boost with another price drop lowering the 80GB to $499 as well.

I personally can’t think of a better time than now to invest some dough in the inevitable (for some gamers anyway) of a PS3.  The price has just dropped, and isn’t likely to drop below $499 any time soon.  You might get an extra 20GB for the same price in the not-too-distant future, but at the cost of true backwards compatibility on the system (and it’s not like the the hard drive is very difficult to upgrade way past the 80GB).  If the new price point is still too hot for your blood, that’s understandable, but you’ll be waiting years for it to come far below that, so I’m not speaking to you anyhow.

How concerned are you about possible criticisms that you should have given European consumers what SCEA has given US consumers, i.e. the option to pay a lower price?

Well, they’re not really are they, because what the US are offering from the 1st of August is a USD 599 version with one game. All they’re doing is taking their stock in trade that they’ve got at the moment of the 60GB model, marking the price down and it will all be gone by the end of July.

So once the 60GB is gone, that will be the end of the 60GB then?

In America, yes.

One step forward and another big step back… Can Sony not see that $599 is more than most people are willing to pay, regardless of how almighty its console is? A discount of over 15% brings it slightly out of the realm of insanity (arguably), and will surely convince some fools to take the plunge. But this move just demonstrates that Sony actually has confidence in their former price point. Just like the suggestion that people will want to work a little harder to be able to afford its videogame system, this once again illustrates just how dangerously (for them) out of touch Sony really is.

The king is dead, long live the king.

[Update: SCEA has apparently corrected the story created by the loose-lipped SCEE president.  "As announced this week, SCEA's product offering in North America consists of a 80GB PS3 available in August at $599 and a 60GB PS3 available now for $499. We have will have ample supplies of both models to meet the needs of our consumers for the foreseeable future."  Assuming this is not just some "we have nothing to announce.... right until the moment we have something to announce," it's good to see they haven't completely lost their minds.]

Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess was the next A-list title to fall beneath my hammer of Summer of Adventure goodness.  Unlike the previous, Squeenix-made titles, Zelda has always been much more about the gameplay than the underlying story, so the fact that I have already experienced the core storyline involved here many, many times before is of less importance.  What matters here is how it plays.

And man, does it play well.  Wii Sports may be a fine showcase for what the Nintendo Wii can do for non-gamers and physically active playing, but I can’t think of a better example than Zelda for how the Wii’s novel functionality can be harnessed to service the needs of traditional game genres.  Initially, I was disappointed to learn that swinging the Wii-mote to effect Link’s sword attack is merely a static cue for the system — you can swing from above, from the left, from the right, and your elfin protagonist will do the same single attack as if you had only pressed a button.  I can’t fault the Zelda team too much for this, as it was apparently my mistaken belief that the Wii-mote would act as some divine, simplified motion capture device and channel my fearsome fencing tactics onto the screen.  In truth, only when you delicately aim the Wii-mote at the screen as a pointer does it actually track your precise path; in all other cases, the specific form of your movement serves only to signal the console something like, “Hey, he wants Link to attack!”

Despite this setback, Twilight Princess did a stellar job in following the gameplay style established with Ocarina of Time (and if you didn’t like that, you won’t like this much more), while adding some real diversity to play through use of the Wii remote.  I understand it was originally designed for the Gamecube, and that most or all of the game’s mechanics are faithfully grafted onto the old generation (or well, the reverse is most likely the case), but I found aiming my bow or clawshot with the pointer’s precision to be a joy, and it makes me giddy like a kid at Christmas to think about how good something like Metroid Prime will be.

Also in need of mentioning is the variety and quality of the game design itself.  The levels were all masterfully laid out, and toe very nicely the fine line of challenge but not frustration (most of the time).  If you can look past the macro view that everything in the game is just concocted to give Link nine (or so) dungeons to crawl, each with a main boss and sub-boss, and each with a new gadget to add to your repertoire, you’ll find some of the most inventive and exciting battles I have ever seen, and more ways to use a boomerang than a young boy should be allowed (wait till you see what Zelda does with it!).

On a critical note, while the “mature” visuals made for a markedly darker story, a welcome new direction for the series, it also highlighted some of the less than creative aspects to Twilight Princess.  I love the use and re-use of the classic Zelda theme songs and sound effects, but it can go too far.  The visual style cries out for dramatic voice acting something fierce, and Midna’s babytalk and Link’s overly repeated moans and gasps just dig the knife a little deeper by hinting what might have been.  I think I forgot to mention it before, but this was something Final Fantasy XII did extraordinarily well, and I think I could have enjoyed Twilight Princess‘ plot, which to their credit they did a decent job at making engaging, far more if I wasn’t constantly being reminded that in spite of the visuals, I’m still firmly in Nintendo KiddyLandâ„¢.

I think Nintendo’s strict adherence to its 1980s-established canon, at least in the case of Zelda, is starting to be more of a liability than a benefit, even down to the classic sound effects and synthy music composition.  It doesn’t seem as much so in other franchises like Mario (at least in its Super Paper incarnation), where Nintendo seems to be going in the opposite direction of Zelda — simple graphics and complete mixing-up of the series lore (Mario and Bowser joining forces, etc.).  At some point, I fear Nintendo is going to play the Link-saving-Princess-Zelda theme a little too often, and the storyline will all but completely cease to be at all compelling.

The Zelda games fall on the far outer reaches of the action RPG genre, to the point that the gameplay matters so much more than the story, Nintendo can get away with rehashing the same Triforce/Princess/Ganondorf shtick so much that even the characters in the game have legends about previous titles.  Fortunately for anyone playing Twilight Princess, both are worthwhile and galvanic, even if the puzzles can occasionally frustrate and the story feel a little played.

Score 8.5 / 10

So I was convinced to see Transformers.

You shouldn’t be, if you value your childhood memories even slightly.  There was a mild twinge of enjoyment at hearing Peter Cullen reprise the old Optimus Prime voice, but everything else, especially anything with real people in it (and that’s mostly what it was) stank on ice.  In the TV show, the Transformers were the main characters.  In this, they are just plot devices, including comic relief.  They are characters, but the story is entirely focused on the humans.  They even ruined the nostalgia factor, with copious, and I mean copious, amounts of crap like [Boy to Girl: “No, I don’t think you’re shallow… I think there’s more than meets the eye… to you.”  I wish I were kidding.

But the thing I can’t forgive Michael Bay for is that he ruined the Transformers themselves.  Not content to strip them of real character and turn them into comic relief set pieces, he had to destroy their appearance as well, all in the name of making them “grittier” (or perhaps just greasier in this case).  I can understand extreme detail, even beefing up their coolness to make them seem more realistic/menacing/whatever, but by adding gears and parts and everything including the kitchen sink to them, he made them almost look identical.  You could barely tell Megatron from Starscream, except that Megatron scared the shit out of everyone when he was around.  You know Bumblebee because he has yellow on him, Optimus for some red and blue, and Jazz because he is a jive-talkin’ black man robot.  Other than making Bumblebee the main boy’s pet robot, and building up a last second rivalry between Prime and Megatron, there was no character to any of them whatsoever.  “Oooh, there’s the big tank transformer!  He’s going to cause damage!”  And lo!  He does!

I did swear halfway through that I’d forgive Bay all his sins if he brought in the Dinobots, but alas….  The faux gravitas made me bury my head in my hands; the awful, truly awful attempts at comedy made me bury my head in my hands.  It was a big blockbuster action movie and I was actually bored.  My first words when it was over to the friend with whom I saw it were, “How can something so big budget be so bad?”

Then I remembered Pearl Harbor (24%).  And Armageddon (41%).  And The Island (40%), Texas Chainsaw Massacre (36%), and the unforgivable Bad Boys II (25%).  I never saw a one of them, but apparently with good reason.  And after Transformers, I’ll never watch a Michael Bay film again, ever.  If his name appears with the movie, I’ll write it off no matter how good people say it is (but I’m not holding my breath till that day).

Transformer’s one redeeming grace in my mind was that it set things up for potential sequels, leaving off a bit like how the main TV show ran — the Autobots living on earth and protecting humanity (and presumably the Decepticons can mount a comeback in any case).  If they put a different director on it and actually attempted to make a decent film, which I’m entirely convinced they never set out to do here, this movie will have set that up.  And that’s all it was worth.  It’s like Phantom Menace, but made in the correct order.

Oh, I’m not promising they’d be good.  By all theories of sequels they should actually be worse, and if they stick to the same formula they will be.  But if someone out there sees this for the crap that it was and tries to take it in a new direction, the core fiction of the Transformers franchise is still relatively, albeit Dinobot-lessly, intact.