Link, descendant of Link,
progenitor of Link -
February 6, 2001 - Chris Jones
Disclaimer: The opinions expressed
within this column are those of the participants and the
moderator, and do not necessarily reflect those of the
GIA. There is coarse language and potentially offensive
material afoot.
"Yes, why do we have to have evil?" "Ah... something to do with
free will, I think."
Don't say we didn't warn you.
There's one big thing I'd like to talk about in intro, but it's just as
easy to respond to a letter about it.
Onward.
| Monetary issues |
| Okay, I dutifully went and made my donation... now when the hell are you
going to start selling GIA t-shirts?
David |
I gotta say, this Honor System thing blindsided me just as much as any
of you. Because I spend so much time working on the column, I don't have a
lot of time to hang out in the staff channel and keep track of the latest
developments - so I wake up this morning to see a big Amazon link on the
front page where the DA link used to be.
I think I understand how a lot of you are viewing this - you like the
site, you'd like to support the site, and you wouldn't mind throwing in
a buck or two every once in a while. But at the same time you're worried
about doing anything with online transactions, or maybe you don't even have
a credit card. And your money doesn't even seem to go anywhere - if you
send in some money, the site stays up, if you don't send in some money, the
site stays up, but either way you don't know how much longer the site will
stay up.
I don't have the answers, but I can say that I know and respect the guys
that are running this site, even if I don't have a chance to work with
them as much as I'd like. I'm positive this thing is above the board, and
hell, I was half-tempted to make a donation myself, until I realized that
I'd essentially be paying my own salary. (Figuratively speaking.)
Honestly, I dunno what else to say. I'll see if we can maybe get
somebody from staff to send in a little more info, but in the meantime, I'm
quite positive we appreciate every cent we get. Thanks much.
| Art House Rant 1 |
| I refuse to accept the assumption that the more
control an artist maintains over his art, the more
"actual" it is. Art is as much about the response of
the viewer as it is about the brilliance of the
artist, which is why you have Jackson Pollock
paintings and Stanley Kubrick movies and a hundred
other intentionally ambiguous creations. Art should
be infectious and life-affecting, and in order to be
that each person must have a personal and meaningful
reaction to it. Why should the artist dictate how we
should appreciate his art? It defeats the purpose.
Thus, considering the nature of gaming, your
insistence that free-form games are "mere simulations"
is also rather myopic. Art cannot be fully realized
unless it makes full of its medium. One of the unique
advantages gaming offers as a medium is the
opportunity for a game player to "step into" a fully
realized creation and interact with it as he sees fit.
If you attempt to hold up games that *restrict* these
options as somehow superior -- if you try to insist
they must be more like conventional forms of artistic
expression -- you are denying their very reason for
existence. What purpose then does gaming have?
Considering the nature of gaming, I feel you are
limiting their potential with regard to the future.
Games are destined to become fully realized
collaborative worlds, something a story or painting
cannot capture. Not superior, not better, not
preferred -- just completely different.
-JOHN FORD
|
Er... Kubrick's last, flawed movie aside, are you somehow under the
impression that he wasn't trying to push a theme or idea just as hard
as Sakaguchi did in the last few FF's? Have you seen Full Metal
Jacket lately?
That rant aside, this is a debate we're not gonna solve anytime soon,
because it's been enacted a dozen different times in a dozen different
media. Some people see the point of the work in the vision of the creator,
some see it in the reaction of the audience. And as a dozen different
media have proven before, there's room for both - even now, gaming
(RPGs, even) encompass both freeform massively multiplayer games and
tightly scripted works like FF8.
All I will argue is that art doesn't have to make full use of
it's medium. On the contrary, the best and strongest works are often
constructed under tight restrictions that give the artist very limited
freedom... which, paradoxically, demands absolute mastery of what they do
have to work with. To put it in gaming terms - if you did have full
control in Metal Gear Solid, you might not have battles like Sniper Wolf or
Psycho Mantis, battles that you just wouldn't be able to set up in a free
roving FPS. It's a tradeoff, but like I said, I personally (without
saying everyone should feel that way) know which I prefer.
| Le Mort de PSX |
| Chris
Hmmmm, it really seems we are at the end of an era. I received an omen
today, a sign that the venerable PS is indeed on its last days. My second
PS died on me today, just as its release list shrinks to DDR, Arc Collection
and FFIV/CT. Suddenly my PS2 gets a good deal of use before the month of
March, and my Christmas purchase is looking better than ever. As for my PS,
its funeral will be held on Saturday, February 10th, at a date and time to
be determined. Likely my backyard late at night.
As for Zelda, I say stick with what works until the GameCube version. These
repeat characters are, for the most part, just showing up in Majora's Mask
(a game using the same engine as before, released in the dying days of a
system), and the upcoming GBC mini-series (a series of games using an old
engine released in the dying days of a system). I suspect we'll see a lot
of new ideas and perhaps even styles in any GC Link appearance.
Justin Freeman |
I agree with you that the clarity of the Game Cube would give
Nintendo a great chance to reinvent the series, but I doubt it'll
happen. Some of the supporting characters' cartooniness might be toned
down, but the blandly attractive N64 versions of Link and Zelda could
easily be extended onto a next-gen system. Still, I'd like to see them
get both experimental and photorealistic all at once, so who knows? Could happen.
| It was Play
something, I dunno... |
| Chris, you great thundering ninny! Nintendo's arcade machine was the "PlayChoice"
(which came in flavors of 5 and 10), not the "Play Station." There were also
"V.S." series Nintendo machines, which linked two copies of a game together
in parallel arcade units and let you play head-to-head. I remember playing both
Excitebike and Super Mario Bros. that way at many a dreary skate rink in my youth.
I still love you, but our prom date is definitely off.
Bereft,
J. Parish |
Yes, ok, fine, you're right. I should have checked that before I put
the column up. At least I got the first word right, tho, and nobody
else has corrected me on the rest of the reply, so I guess I'm still
ahead of the game...
But now my carelessness has cost me the only man I ever cared about...
*sniff*... dammit, come back to me, Parish! I love you, man!
Or I love your
site. Same difference, right?
| Pretentious? Moi? |
| "This was a great letter, and then it just kinda wound down without going
anywhere. You have an admirable grasp of the basics of both PC and console
RPGs, but you failed to use that information to say much of interest.
Bummer."
Jesus!! When did you come a college professor???? All you missed was adding
a big fat F.
H-Box
Who recognizes this all too well.
|
Aside from the fact that I wasn't entirely serious, I'm not gonna
apologize. I look for a lot of the same things anyone does when
they're seriously grading a paper - grasp of the material, conciseness
of presentation, synthesis of new ideas. Obviously if someone's sending
in an email that's meant to be a joke, or just an idle comment, I'm
not gonna hold them to the same standards, but if you present yourself
as trying to make a rigorous analysis and statement about RPGs, you'll
have to finish what you started. And Eightball (who's a solid writer by all
indications) didn't. End of story.
| Taste my anime-style
refreshment! |
| Zelda, the franchise. This series has continued to innovate game play in
many areas over the years. Why then, have the characters remained almost
unchanged?
Though Link has retained his classic look since the beginning, changes in
overall style have been made only whenever a new lead character designer is
assigned to a new Zelda project. The same can be said for virtually all of
the enduring Zelda characters.
The changes made to the characters are usually very subtle, and to the
average gamer, not at all noticeable. On the subject of Talon: well, if
anything bothers me about Talon, it's his 'unobvious' resemblance to Mario.
That's just annoying.
The recent Zelda GBC character art has actually refreshed me quite a bit. A
whole slew of new characters and very interesting bad guys have been
introduced. The new character designs are very imaginative, and I'm glad
that it retains the N64 games' 'anime' style. While it would be nice for
some characters to receive new clothes at the very least, I'm happy to see
that the new races and characters introduced on the N64 are making the
transition to the GBC.
Chris, I think your question revolves more around the style of the
characters, not the lack of new characters. Talon hasn't changed in design
since OOT. That doesn't bother me. What bothers me is that some of the
more integral characters to the game have not seen any noteworthy design
changes since the original Zelda. Link still wears his 'Peter Pan' outfit,
and man, do I hate those similarities. I think Majora's Mask truly
introduces the player to a new design of a classic hero, Oni Link. This
character design should be given his own game. Oni Link could easily become
the new image of our beloved, princess saving, hero.
I don't think we'll ever see drastic changes to any characters, old or new,
in the Zelda series, or any of Nintendo's home brewed games. The franchises
that Nintendo creates thrive because the character designs are engrained in
the minds of the players. While I'd like to see the major characters
receive a costume change, it's more likely characters like Talon would. Why
haven't they? Good question.
Graeme
|
Yup, pretty much what I was thinking, except that there's likely a
strong contingent of gamers out there who'd get very upset if Link lost his
green threads. More than that, there are casual gamers out there who might
not even recognize a Zelda game as such unless Link started out wearing
green, so there are market forces at work here too. And in that situation,
secondary characters are perhaps all Nintendo can change... which is
rather sad, in a way, since the original Zelda broke games wide open with
the introduction of bold new ideas, and now the series seems trapped by
its own past. With that it mind, is it any wonder Sakaguchi seems hellbent
on making changes to Final Fantasy?
| Art House Rant 2 |
| As the person who originally wrote that letter about Fallout 2 a couple of
days ago, I thought I'd write in again to clarify my position and offer a
compromise between current Console and PC RPG styles.
Are player involvement and non-linear, do whatever you want gameplay one and
the same, with no possible middle ground? Certainly not!
Storyline and deep, complex characters aren't necessarily a problem, but
they open up the possibility for problems. Cecil in FF4 was not very
complicated... his quest felt like MY quest. FF6 didn't really have a
traditional "main" character, so it was really the player's quest. FF7 was
good, but with FF8 Square took it a step too far. FF8 seemed like Squall's
quest, not mine... I felt like a bystander. Too much of Squall was created
by Square, so he couldn't feel like your character like Cecil did even
though you didn't "make" Cecil or have the option of going straight to
Zeromus in the first 10 minutes of FF4.
The same can be applied to Rosa and Rinoa. Rosa wasn't developed, so you
could "fill in the blanks" and make her into your ideal heroine. Rinoa was
the complete and total creation of Square with no room to do that. I didn't
like Square's creation, so you could imagine how annoying the "Eyes On Me"
spaceship scene in FF8 was for me.
It's less about "WHY CAN'T I JUST KILL THE GUY" than it is "WHY DOES MY
CHARACTER HAVE TO FALL IN LOVE WITH HER? I HATE HER! GIVE ME QUISTIS OVER
HER ANY DAY! GRRRRR! WHY THE HELL AM I PLAYING THIS GAME ANYWAY?"
An essensial part of RPGs is the feeling of involvement, not really complete
and total control over your invovlement. I see no point in "playing" the
movie that is FF8. I don't like Square's approach of trying to turn RPGs
into playable movies, because then instead of going on a quest like an RPG
should be, you're playing minigames and card games and then watching a bunch
of stuff happen to a bunch of characters who you may or may not care about.
All RPGs have, until FF8, had a personal feeling like you were
involved.
A happy compromise? Have a story that the player must follow... a good,
well-crafted main plotline. Have pre-made characters who are an integral
part of the game world, but leave certain things about them to the
imagination or the player's choice. This'll ensure a top-notch plot that the
player can feel like they're a part of as well. FF6 touched upon this...
perhaps some RPGs should pick up where it left off. I'm not even suggesting
that cinematic and "do whatever you want" RPGs should be done away with in
favor of this, I just think it would be nice if some games took this or an
alternate middle ground. Actually I think they're planning something like
this in Anachronox... if it ever comes out. ION Storm is really gaining on
Working Designs' delay record with it.
-Larry
|
This is well put, but I think you're missing something here - RPGs
don't always have to be about you. Hell, I don't really want them to
be about me - I know me, I know what I'd do in these situations, and
what I'd do does not make for interesting drama or intense
battles. I liked Squall precisely because he made some bad decisions at
the beginning of the game, and spends the rest of the game trying to
make up for them. But he's not a stand in for me, and never will be.
He's his own person, the same as all interesting fictional heroes
are. (As Cecil was, even... remember, Cecil and Rosa were the Squall
and Rinoa of their day, and in a few years someone will likely be
complaining how FFVIII allowed them freedom that FFXII doesn't.)
Beyond that, if we don't start allowing for main characters who are clearly not
like us, then RPGs will always be crippled, because they'll always be
limited to telling the story of their audience - the generic boy who
becomes a man story. I've seen it, been there, done that, and now I
want more.
And like I said yesterday, if you're not involved in FF8, it's not
necessarily because the game lacks freedom - it could be because the
writers haven't done a good enough job in selling Squall to you as a
character, or because he's simply not someone you can relate to. And
that's fine - not everyone relates to Sherlock Holmes or Yossarian, but
they're still worthwhile for a lot of people. If you want free range and
the ability to make your own choices, fine, there are games (the PC games
which you seem to prefer) that will shove it down your throat. But FF8
was a more intense story for me exactly because it was so predestined,
not because I blundered into plot branch #163 by accident. I don't think
either one of us will be able to change the other's opinion anytime soon,
so let's just leave it at that.
| I'm not poor, I'm
fiscally challenged |
| Hey Chris,
As one of the broke people who would benefit from a single console, I would
make this argument: if there were only one console, the cut-throat competition
would still exist since every developer would have their work cut out for them
just getting their games noticed.
Of course, that will never happen, but what the hell.
-Drew |
Right, except that a console system represents a lot more than just an
empty stage to assemble a game on - it's also about architecture and design
choices that affect the very nature of the game. The PSX/N64 schism was a
great example of this, but even now the PS2 and the Game Cube, despite both
being disk-based media with kickass graphical processors, are still very
different machines, which in turn will likely shape the games that get put
out on them. And cut-throat competition or not, that variety's what we'd lose with
a single console system.
| Recent advances in the
field |
| People should stop using Fallout as the only model for PC RPGs.
It's obvious that console RPGs have advanced leaps and bounds since 1997.
Look at Chrono Cross, Vagrant Story, even FF8. None of these even existed at
the time Fallout 1 did. My point is, don't compare the PC RPGs of 1997 to
the console RPGs of today. When you look at the latest PC RPGs, the old
stereotype of "you can do anything, but there's nothing to do" breaks apart
almost completely.
Let's look at Deus Ex, for example. Judging from the countless "Storyline of
the Year" and "Game of the Year" awards, the plot is obviously on par, if
not better than, most console RPGs. Despite this, it was also hailed for its
massive non-linearity and freedom to do anything.
Or consider Baldur's Gate 2, a more traditional PC RPG. Again, the PC RPG
freedom is there, along with a stellar, engrossing plot. The characters like
Minsc and Jaheira are some of the most memorable in recent memory, certainly
outshining the 40+ cardboard cutouts of Chrono Cross.
My point is, there certainly was a time when PC RPGs were shallow,
randomly-generated number crunchers. For anyone who has played the best PC
RPGs of the past two years, that is no longer the case. It's fine to prefer
one style of RPGs to another...but if you compare the two, make sure you
know what a PC RPG is today, not four years ago.
-Ybhan D'Ari
P.S. Become one with Juffo-Wup. |
Ok, point taken that PC games have moved beyond the Might and Magic
design... but I've played Deus Ex, and it's no Vagrant Story. And by the
same token, there are console games that offer enormous freedom built
around the bones of a plot, such as Shenmue. There are unquestionably gray
areas on both platforms, but by and large, it's fair to say that both
still follow the same philosophy that their distant ancestors did.
So stop pointing out the obvious, or I'll send you to the
*basement*.
| CAPITAL LETTERS ARE THE
KEY TO A GIRL'S HEART |
| I'm not overly fond of the style of the recent Zelda games (Don't get me
wrong though, they're still among the best.), but I also don't want
Nintendo to come up with a whole new look for them. I'd like to see a new
game that sucessfully duplicates the look and feel of the original Legend
of Zelda in a 3D world! That would be MADPHAT!!!! The first thing they've
gotta do is bring back the old Link. I'm freaking tired of the Link t
hat looks like he should be doing Extasy with Denise Richards and James
Van Der Beek at an LA nightclub. Where'd my stout, chubby, geeky little
green hero go? They also need to change the design of the enemies back to
their old ways. Did you see the octoroks in Majora's Mask and Ocarina?
Should've called em octorNOTs, cause I couldn't tell that's what they
were till Navi told me. And don't get me started on how badly they screwed
up Zoras. Whilst I'm on the subject of enemies, where are my Moblins,
Darknuts and Stalfoses? They all need to make a come back.
They also need to bring back those NPCs. I don't wanna go into a freaking
town to shop for items. I wanna go to random caves with surly shopkeepers
who burrow their way into my heart with lines like "BUY SOMETHING
WILL YA" and "BOY THIS SURE IS EXPENSIVE". Not to mention the good elderly
folks I'm sure you all know and love.
Of course, the dungeons should probably have more depth and graphical de
tail than the original
Zelda, but I wouldn't mind that, as long as they're filled with Darknuts
and Mummies. But other than that, I think a new Zelda using the style of
the first would turn out quite swimmingly, don't you?
-Melissa Tanchez
PS: Link should also obtain a moped powered by his own sense of self sat
isfaction during the game.
|
Actually, I don't think it would turn out quite swimmingly - I think OoT
was about as close to the original as they could have gotten in 3D (with
the possible exception of the overworld theme). There were Stalfoses,
even., they just had more than two frames of animation this time. All in
all, a lot of what you seem to want to bring back was just accidental
hilarity, not interesting game design.
But we cater to all sorts of opinions here, and chances are you do
represent a large groundswell of opinion, so your ideas are duly noted,
ma'am - thanks for submitting them, ma'am.
| Art House Rant 3 |
| Console RPGs, on the other hand, are heading more towards a
storytelling medium with some interactive aspects. And that's an entirely
different animal, because in the end it is the developer more than the
player who's in control. A lot of people might have a negative gut
reaction to that, but here's why you shouldn't: because when someone else
is in control like that, you have the potential for actual art, as opposed
to a mere simulation.
It seems to me that what you are saying is that the only way games can
become a legitimate form of "Art" is to largely reject and discard the
very thing that defines them as games--i.e. the participatory nature of
the experience.
I'm sorry, but I couldn't disagree more. I think that to discard the
defining characteristic of the game medium in order to ape an existing,
accepted form of art (i.e. the drama of stage and film) is a terrible
cop-out. When motion pictures were newly invented, I'm sure that many
critics scoffed at the idea that this new form of entertainment could ever
be considered Art. The movie directors of the day could have responded to
these criticisms by making their movies emulate stage plays, with curtain
calls and the action confined to the dimensions of a rectangular stage.
But they didn't. They embraced and advanced the possibilities of the new
medium in order to create an entirely new art form rather than copy an old
one.
Likewise, game creators need to embrace and explore the possibilities of a
medium in which the audience is a participant rather than a passive
viewer. I won't say I don't enjoy linear RPGs, but I can't help but feel
that the increasing predominance of games which can barely be called games
is a shameful waste of potential.
--AWJ-- |
Ok, this is my last letter on this for a while - I greatly enjoy
discussing art philosophy in a half-assed, dilettante, armchair manner
(me, not you guys) but if I do too much of it someone will rightly wonder
where all the game discussion went to.
Check your history - when TV was first introduced, it was
essentially used for nothing more than televised plays. But the real
innovations in the field didn't happen because someone woke up one day and
said, "hey, let's push this thing as far as it can go", they happened because
people slowly started experimenting and adding new features to the
existing skeleton of the TV play. One of the greatest TV writers and
producers ever, Rod Serling, was a veteran of innumerable TV plays, and
most of his best work on the Twilight Zone isn't anything that couldn't be
faithfully reproduced on stage or in a short story. But I dare you to tell
me that it's not great television - far better, in fact, than most TV that
does take full advantage of what multiple cameras and editing tricks can
do, like the evening news or "reality programming" like Big Brother.
Likewise, it's not the case that there's no interactivity in games like
FF8 - far from it. And I wouldn't mind seeing a bit more, if it's properly
directed. But still, the core of the game could be put into the form of a really long movie, if it had to be. Doesn't mean it's not a game, tho.
And (I can only say this so many times in a single column)
if that interactivity is put in at the expense of the developer's vision
(assuming it's a worthwhile vision to begin with) then I don't want it in
there. If it becomes the case where I'm just wandering around, being a
knight in a game with several options but no real direction, as opposed to
being Cecil and trying to save the woman I love, then I'll take the latter.
End of discussion.
Closing Comments:
This is a game column, so let's talk about games. For the past few
days I've been thinking that a really good game would be about
more than just hand to hand combat, it'd be also be about planning,
strategy, resource management, and negotiation, all presented in a
wide variety of contexts. In other words, you'd need much more than a
single battle engine to power your game, because the variety of tasks
you'd be doing would be closer to real life than a classic sequence of menu driven
fights.
But is this a good idea, or a bad idea? Would you end up with an
interesting play experience, or a mediocre mismatch of genres, even
assuming the game didn't end up a collection of watered down engines?
And while I'm thinking of it, if you've got a topic for Thursday's
column (which would be published tomorrow) send it in. I'll see you tomorrow.
-Chris Jones, spent the past
4 hours writing this thing
|
