Demi
BACKER
I might’ve said this in my review of the PSP remake but the sad truth with this game is it was made to be an ambitious and bold experiment in an era of looking forward for the future of Megami Tensei. This has become evident to me (a “megaten maniac”) with the fact that no video game company nowadays would throw away a system they built upon to make a spinoff that boldly would try and do something so risky like being cinematic (based on interviews this seemed to be the main goal). Sadly this creates a tedious gameplay experience that hides a genuinely good story and one I feel like is the most “wow I need to go outside and live my life now” Persona game I’ve played honestly. Whether it’s having the best use of a hidden video game character for legitimate thematic relevance, the crawling darkness of peering deeper into the mind, the absorbing darkness and coolness of the music, or the inner reflection on loneliness in a genre that’s kind of all about playing a long as game by yourself. I think Megami Ibunroku Persona was a great and interesting experiment.
https://youtu.be/2DYqwhSTeGQ?feature=shared
https://youtu.be/2DYqwhSTeGQ?feature=shared
2003
A sculpture made out of broken car parts with a tiny plaque that says "madness" that has no other description besides what you can look up online
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TVF7Z3Pj_-I
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TVF7Z3Pj_-I
2007
Easily defeated
Observing:
What it means to realize and keep on living? What it means to understand yourself even when we scare ourselves everyday? What it means to tell someone we love how we feel before it's too late?
In the seconds of everyday life, in the shadow of Their ever-present movement towards "perfection"
What it means to realize and keep on living? What it means to understand yourself even when we scare ourselves everyday? What it means to tell someone we love how we feel before it's too late?
In the seconds of everyday life, in the shadow of Their ever-present movement towards "perfection"
2016
Not that I've played a lot of video games that have detective stories that have 0% of gameplay that consist of assaulting evil dudes who are not trying to hug you, but this game genuinely feels like a REAL mystery of unraveling crime even without any sort of literal way to interact with the narrative.
What this means is that you are absolutely supposed to pay attention while being forced to feel alienated/confused the whole time, something the game does incredibly well to an extreme benefit and disadvantage to itself. There are times where you are just reading and times where you are just solving some puzzle for some reason (even with the game poking fun sort of at the adventure game aspect of that). The mere fact I finished this game initially and had so many questions/misunderstandings but I can go back and slowly shift the pieces in my mind to where I feel like I have a mental cork-board with 30 photographs and string is enough to make this game enjoyable to me, but obviously that's less gameplay design and more narrative design if anything.
What this means is that you are absolutely supposed to pay attention while being forced to feel alienated/confused the whole time, something the game does incredibly well to an extreme benefit and disadvantage to itself. There are times where you are just reading and times where you are just solving some puzzle for some reason (even with the game poking fun sort of at the adventure game aspect of that). The mere fact I finished this game initially and had so many questions/misunderstandings but I can go back and slowly shift the pieces in my mind to where I feel like I have a mental cork-board with 30 photographs and string is enough to make this game enjoyable to me, but obviously that's less gameplay design and more narrative design if anything.
2021
Putting my point into the pavement:
----------------------------------------------------------
I just don't get why No More Heroes really needed to keep going (besides for ATM-related reasons). I love hanging out with Travis Touchdown (hell TSA to me was a good NMH sequel and that game is literally just about hanging out at times), but I didn't just love the first No More Heroes because of how wild the world was, it was because of how the game started off wild and ended on a raw note. There were moments where I saw a way for this game to keep the spark going but Travis Strikes Again really felt like it did so much of that heavy lifting for this title but even with that game I felt some skepticism about where the series could go.
More of what you love (Gameplay):
----------------------------------------------------------
The gameplay here is simple yet addicting with the same sort of frantic pacing of the first game that I felt where I'm just running around and trying to clear up as many enemies as I can, it's satisfying just to see Travis suplex and drop kick a bunch of dudes and really this is enough to just say "this game is pretty alright" to most people who are here because it's a new No More Heroes game. I can't really say anything too flattering about the other aspects outside of the fighting here honestly (even as someone who has written cheesy as hell reviews for games like "The Silver Case" and "25th Ward: The Silver Case").
Idk (Presentation):
----------------------------------------------------------
I'm gonna be crazy here and mention something that I don't ever want to do in most of my other reviews but wow this game somehow looks worse than the first game when just looking at the basic presentation of when you're playing the game. On a positive note, I find it interesting how a bit of Killer7 is here (that TSA had as well) with the enemy designs, mixed-media animation/format, and even going back to the combat I'd say it even has more weird one-off guys that shake up what you're doing, and I hope this is something Grasshopper Manufacturer brings to their other games.
Robin Atkin Downes is so good at just putting a lot of passion into his acting as Travis here and I'd say the voice acting in general in this series is still great.
One-Sided (Story):
----------------------------------------------------------
Travis Touchdown is a 39-year-old man in this game when in the first game he was 29 and entering the “Garden of Maddness” where at the end of that journey, it was laid out that violence would be consistent in his life if he stayed in that “paradise”. Part of the story in this game feels like it really was going to dive more into Travis being older and how things are changing because (spoiler for being alive) time changes people which to me is something TSA actually played into at times.
While I believe this game isn’t a complete failure, I just don’t see anything new here that wasn’t already in the first game or TSA, it’s more twists on the foundation that was made but if the narrative is just going to talk at me the whole time and not let me feel it out, then what is the point. The story here has some nice moments but the fact it couldn’t do anything productive with Bad Man, Shinobu, Bad Girl, etc. besides having cameos that were on par with what you’d get in a Marvel movie just shows how messed up the priorities were here.
I’m a mega fan of Grasshopper Manufacturer but I just find it hard to sit around and think this is anything but middling and too self-indulgent. I’ve read an interview somewhere where Goichi Suda mentioned how if a character from The Silver Case named Sumio Kodai was alive he would be 40-50 and he wanted to continue his story because that passage in time is incredibly interesting ESPECIALLY for that character. The fact that Travis Touchdown barely gets any sort of moment of realization, reflection, or anything new here is enough to go back to my core statement, why did we need another No More Heroes especially after Travis Strikes Again? This game had to answer that question, and it was ignored.
No More (Conclusion)
----------------------------------------------------------
I’ve met so many great people who love the series and the characters, I absolutely get the appeal of seeing more of them but at the end of the day I’d rather see how a fan interprets a character than to have to see said character idle around in a story just so the word “new” can be slapped on to ship out copies. I’m looking forward to seeing what the future holds for Grasshopper Manufacturer, but I want to see them challenge themselves, to push their style and structure and get more people to understand why fans like me adore their games rather than idling and taking the easiest route to appeal to them until they leave.
----------------------------------------------------------
I just don't get why No More Heroes really needed to keep going (besides for ATM-related reasons). I love hanging out with Travis Touchdown (hell TSA to me was a good NMH sequel and that game is literally just about hanging out at times), but I didn't just love the first No More Heroes because of how wild the world was, it was because of how the game started off wild and ended on a raw note. There were moments where I saw a way for this game to keep the spark going but Travis Strikes Again really felt like it did so much of that heavy lifting for this title but even with that game I felt some skepticism about where the series could go.
More of what you love (Gameplay):
----------------------------------------------------------
The gameplay here is simple yet addicting with the same sort of frantic pacing of the first game that I felt where I'm just running around and trying to clear up as many enemies as I can, it's satisfying just to see Travis suplex and drop kick a bunch of dudes and really this is enough to just say "this game is pretty alright" to most people who are here because it's a new No More Heroes game. I can't really say anything too flattering about the other aspects outside of the fighting here honestly (even as someone who has written cheesy as hell reviews for games like "The Silver Case" and "25th Ward: The Silver Case").
Idk (Presentation):
----------------------------------------------------------
I'm gonna be crazy here and mention something that I don't ever want to do in most of my other reviews but wow this game somehow looks worse than the first game when just looking at the basic presentation of when you're playing the game. On a positive note, I find it interesting how a bit of Killer7 is here (that TSA had as well) with the enemy designs, mixed-media animation/format, and even going back to the combat I'd say it even has more weird one-off guys that shake up what you're doing, and I hope this is something Grasshopper Manufacturer brings to their other games.
Robin Atkin Downes is so good at just putting a lot of passion into his acting as Travis here and I'd say the voice acting in general in this series is still great.
One-Sided (Story):
----------------------------------------------------------
Travis Touchdown is a 39-year-old man in this game when in the first game he was 29 and entering the “Garden of Maddness” where at the end of that journey, it was laid out that violence would be consistent in his life if he stayed in that “paradise”. Part of the story in this game feels like it really was going to dive more into Travis being older and how things are changing because (spoiler for being alive) time changes people which to me is something TSA actually played into at times.
While I believe this game isn’t a complete failure, I just don’t see anything new here that wasn’t already in the first game or TSA, it’s more twists on the foundation that was made but if the narrative is just going to talk at me the whole time and not let me feel it out, then what is the point. The story here has some nice moments but the fact it couldn’t do anything productive with Bad Man, Shinobu, Bad Girl, etc. besides having cameos that were on par with what you’d get in a Marvel movie just shows how messed up the priorities were here.
I’m a mega fan of Grasshopper Manufacturer but I just find it hard to sit around and think this is anything but middling and too self-indulgent. I’ve read an interview somewhere where Goichi Suda mentioned how if a character from The Silver Case named Sumio Kodai was alive he would be 40-50 and he wanted to continue his story because that passage in time is incredibly interesting ESPECIALLY for that character. The fact that Travis Touchdown barely gets any sort of moment of realization, reflection, or anything new here is enough to go back to my core statement, why did we need another No More Heroes especially after Travis Strikes Again? This game had to answer that question, and it was ignored.
No More (Conclusion)
----------------------------------------------------------
I’ve met so many great people who love the series and the characters, I absolutely get the appeal of seeing more of them but at the end of the day I’d rather see how a fan interprets a character than to have to see said character idle around in a story just so the word “new” can be slapped on to ship out copies. I’m looking forward to seeing what the future holds for Grasshopper Manufacturer, but I want to see them challenge themselves, to push their style and structure and get more people to understand why fans like me adore their games rather than idling and taking the easiest route to appeal to them until they leave.
1998
Today I remembered having this game on my giant iPhone notepad of backlog games and I just decided to buy it and yeah good purchase lmao like legitimately this wouldn’t been really damn cool if it got sequels/spinoffs for the Wii/DS. A very nice combination of utilizing tangible 3D movement with a great puzzle framework to make something along the lines of Puzzle Swap, Tetris, etc.
Highly recommended if you want a fun puzzle game to occasionally open up and play some rounds in (if I ever play local multiplayer of this it’d be too sick fr)
Highly recommended if you want a fun puzzle game to occasionally open up and play some rounds in (if I ever play local multiplayer of this it’d be too sick fr)
1989
Sometimes the 1 hour "this video game protagonist is insane" video can be about YOU
2022
Family Guy
2007
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=podX_cPaIHU
"In games, there are believable lies and unbelievable lies. We want to create realities that are believable."
- Translated quote from Rika Suzuki (https://shmuplations.com/adventuregames/)
Hotel Dusk: Room 215 is the kind of game to make elevator-sounding-music hit different.
Going to start off with the unconventional human-feeling parts of why I like this game but
the premise and the position Cing and the Hotel Dusk ip feel so close (and some have said
the sequel to this game is arguably even closer). Hotel Dusk is a game about being in a small
hotel in the middle of the California desert right before the new year of 1980, something
that very much to me draws in ideas of being alone while finding your way in life as time
progresses. I would say this game is about as accurate to having a feeling that captures
a lonely pre-New Years December and post-New Years January based on my personal experiences lol.
The protagonist of this game, Kyle Hyde, is shown directly at the beginning to
be in a very introspective time in his life where he can't let go of the past and ends up
working as just a door-to-door salesman after being fired as a police officer. I was a bit
worried that this game was going to turn a blind eye to the moral implications of sleuthing
to find whatever items you could use in a situation but I was pleasantly surprised to find
that this game did not let me down at all and only used those aspects to highlight Kyle's
character as well, a guy who absolutely was a cop at some point and is not even remotely
good with people but deep down he wants to listen and understand them. In fact to build on this
point this game is bold enough to hit you with a few "game over" scenarios that you can
quickly recover from which I found to absolutely spike some much-needed tension in the story.
Some other reviewers here (and critics in general) complain about this aspect and I think at
times it can be a bit too harsh but also this isn't Ace Attorney where you're going into a
court room, you are literally some nobody door-to-door salesman grilling people in a hotel
so why the hell wouldn't you back your stuff up or carefully think about what you're saying?
If there's an overall tone/appeal I can say that this game has it's that it can morph between
a sitcom and an intriguing mystery at ease, there wasn't any time where I was wondering why
the tone of the game changed the writing (done by Rika Suzuki) was solid. I was lucky enough
to find this game physically and the form factor of the DS is directly used multiple times
for puzzles, with the DS being turned sideways to be read like a book. With how I was holding
my DS, my thumb was on the bottom right corner of the screen where dialogue would be displayed
so I could quickly continue on with dialogue and I can't help but feel like this was absolutely
used to play into the detective novel aspect of the story while having an easy way to go
through dialogue.
Hotel Dusk is an excellent example of how just good writing (and art direction) and a consideration of the player interface
can trascend something as simple as "an adventure game where you play as a former cop in the 1970's" into something that
can still draw in those who would appreciate the concept today. Hotel Dusk uses the medium of games to draw you into
the mindset and perspective of Kyle with how it lays down character interactions, sets up its user interface to
make the Nintendo DS LITERALLY a book, and a narrative layout that recollects as many times as it progresses a story.
I very much believe this game was intended for a casual audience who probably never played a lot of video games
(or of the adventure game variety), and I think it succeeds in bringing the appeal of detective fiction to the DS.
Although the game is incredibly linear and at times grinds up against adventure game design issues such as
"what do I do to progress the story" and "why do I have to look at these items in that order", there were more times
I was using my head to think about where events could lead in the hotel and I think the focus on a singular setting
absolutely helps this game a lot. Hotel Dusk isn't a game that revolutionizes, it innovates on the kind of emotion
video games are supposed to invoke by playing into basic adventure game sensibilities, hooking you in on the
characters and mystery like a good book you just can't put down.
Hotel Dusk: Room 215 is the kind of game to make elevator-sounding-music hit different. A place
can just be a place but there are always secrets and wishes people have, everything depends on
how you spend your time on this Earth and Hotel Dusk is a game that shows that in the small moments
of nothing you can find something even if you're down on your luck.
"In games, there are believable lies and unbelievable lies. We want to create realities that are believable."
- Translated quote from Rika Suzuki (https://shmuplations.com/adventuregames/)
Hotel Dusk: Room 215 is the kind of game to make elevator-sounding-music hit different.
Going to start off with the unconventional human-feeling parts of why I like this game but
the premise and the position Cing and the Hotel Dusk ip feel so close (and some have said
the sequel to this game is arguably even closer). Hotel Dusk is a game about being in a small
hotel in the middle of the California desert right before the new year of 1980, something
that very much to me draws in ideas of being alone while finding your way in life as time
progresses. I would say this game is about as accurate to having a feeling that captures
a lonely pre-New Years December and post-New Years January based on my personal experiences lol.
The protagonist of this game, Kyle Hyde, is shown directly at the beginning to
be in a very introspective time in his life where he can't let go of the past and ends up
working as just a door-to-door salesman after being fired as a police officer. I was a bit
worried that this game was going to turn a blind eye to the moral implications of sleuthing
to find whatever items you could use in a situation but I was pleasantly surprised to find
that this game did not let me down at all and only used those aspects to highlight Kyle's
character as well, a guy who absolutely was a cop at some point and is not even remotely
good with people but deep down he wants to listen and understand them. In fact to build on this
point this game is bold enough to hit you with a few "game over" scenarios that you can
quickly recover from which I found to absolutely spike some much-needed tension in the story.
Some other reviewers here (and critics in general) complain about this aspect and I think at
times it can be a bit too harsh but also this isn't Ace Attorney where you're going into a
court room, you are literally some nobody door-to-door salesman grilling people in a hotel
so why the hell wouldn't you back your stuff up or carefully think about what you're saying?
If there's an overall tone/appeal I can say that this game has it's that it can morph between
a sitcom and an intriguing mystery at ease, there wasn't any time where I was wondering why
the tone of the game changed the writing (done by Rika Suzuki) was solid. I was lucky enough
to find this game physically and the form factor of the DS is directly used multiple times
for puzzles, with the DS being turned sideways to be read like a book. With how I was holding
my DS, my thumb was on the bottom right corner of the screen where dialogue would be displayed
so I could quickly continue on with dialogue and I can't help but feel like this was absolutely
used to play into the detective novel aspect of the story while having an easy way to go
through dialogue.
Hotel Dusk is an excellent example of how just good writing (and art direction) and a consideration of the player interface
can trascend something as simple as "an adventure game where you play as a former cop in the 1970's" into something that
can still draw in those who would appreciate the concept today. Hotel Dusk uses the medium of games to draw you into
the mindset and perspective of Kyle with how it lays down character interactions, sets up its user interface to
make the Nintendo DS LITERALLY a book, and a narrative layout that recollects as many times as it progresses a story.
I very much believe this game was intended for a casual audience who probably never played a lot of video games
(or of the adventure game variety), and I think it succeeds in bringing the appeal of detective fiction to the DS.
Although the game is incredibly linear and at times grinds up against adventure game design issues such as
"what do I do to progress the story" and "why do I have to look at these items in that order", there were more times
I was using my head to think about where events could lead in the hotel and I think the focus on a singular setting
absolutely helps this game a lot. Hotel Dusk isn't a game that revolutionizes, it innovates on the kind of emotion
video games are supposed to invoke by playing into basic adventure game sensibilities, hooking you in on the
characters and mystery like a good book you just can't put down.
Hotel Dusk: Room 215 is the kind of game to make elevator-sounding-music hit different. A place
can just be a place but there are always secrets and wishes people have, everything depends on
how you spend your time on this Earth and Hotel Dusk is a game that shows that in the small moments
of nothing you can find something even if you're down on your luck.
2001
Pure Fantasy - A game designer's favorite game
One of the most difficult challenges I've faced as someone who has tried making multiple games for a considerable portion of my life is to get the people actually playing my games to even fundamentally have any sort of investment in understanding the mechanics/story of the world I set up, and I'm still working on that.
It really says enough how this game does not explain anything to you so you feel absorbed in just trying to understand it even if it does have a very strong adventure-game/Zelda origin point. The emphasis on realism with the art direction is insane and only serves to make you believe you are actually sending commands to some boy in a box (even the rumble is used for the footsteps of the main person you're trying to protect here).
The map is about as fluid to move through as you could get in this era, puzzles are hidden about, and the combat is basic but plays into your fears and uncertainty.
Ico is a game that isn't really about blowing your mind or making you live in the game for a long time, it's a short fantasy adventure with emotion and heart and I had a pretty good time with it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bOwreeWIz_A
One of the most difficult challenges I've faced as someone who has tried making multiple games for a considerable portion of my life is to get the people actually playing my games to even fundamentally have any sort of investment in understanding the mechanics/story of the world I set up, and I'm still working on that.
It really says enough how this game does not explain anything to you so you feel absorbed in just trying to understand it even if it does have a very strong adventure-game/Zelda origin point. The emphasis on realism with the art direction is insane and only serves to make you believe you are actually sending commands to some boy in a box (even the rumble is used for the footsteps of the main person you're trying to protect here).
The map is about as fluid to move through as you could get in this era, puzzles are hidden about, and the combat is basic but plays into your fears and uncertainty.
Ico is a game that isn't really about blowing your mind or making you live in the game for a long time, it's a short fantasy adventure with emotion and heart and I had a pretty good time with it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bOwreeWIz_A
On one very boring day in 2019 I was walking home scrolling on twitter when I saw someone
posting a giant thread about how this game changed their life and going into some of the little moments that stood
out to them. Deep in the pit of my heart something felt off so I tweeted out (not at them just in general)
about how moon seemed a bit "overrated". I then proceeded to create a Youtube video on Shin Megami Tensei If... that
sounded like it was for a 9th grade class presentation. It's surreal finishing this game now because part of the journey of me finishing
it feels like having a conversation with my past self and thinking about where I am with it, how video games are discussed
on the internet nowadays, and maybe something else.
Moon is a game that I've grown to appreciate a lot over the years, even as someone who kind of showed up with an
eyebrow raised with how much the "anti-RPG" aspect is echoed around online I found a few interesting surprises as it's a game
that really isn't as cheap as that tagline sounds but a genuine artistic game that seeks to do more with the medium
as a whole and the past that it had whether it's critiquing or celebrating it (there's literally a slime and rainbow bridge here).
Just to throw this out for a general summary: moon is an adventure game specifically based on acquiring "love" to
progress. Rather than number crunching as a means to generalize player progression like in RPGs, moon is about managing
your time, observing, and exploring using adventure game mechanics like interacting and using items. You make your way
through moon by assessing the strange land you find yourself in while observing the clockwork movement of people, creatures,
and things. In fact I'd say my core issue with this game sadly boils down to the context of its release as someone
who played this on the Nintendo Switch and didn't necessarily think to look at the game manual at first because of
how many games nowadays are presented but I highly recommend keeping this manual handy.
With moon being a game about observing characteristics and interactivity, what really helps make it stand out to me
is how the world has so many small moments within it that you just really would never find in bigger titles. It's
very obvious as you dive further into it but moon very much was a title developed by a small team and it shows
with the unique characters, references that range from Yellow Magic Orchestra, Freddie Mercury, Blade Runner, etc.
and the game's core theme/action of "love" is about as broad and abstract as it sounds to the point that the ending
even pulled a surprise move on me. It helps also that in this game about observing that there's the unique addition
of a music player with actual specific artsits brought on to bring a variety of tracks, I'm almost certain that even
in 1997 corporations wouldn't even think to do something as (potentially) costly as that for a new IP but it's here
in moon and with characters and a deep love of music that's rooted in here why would it not be.
This game reminds me of a moment when I was playing through Earthbound Beginnings this year where I realized that the repeated phone
calls you got from your dad, although very annoying, were a small game design decision that most likely was related to
a subject this game specifically goes after and it somehow feels like a miracle that I was pleasantly surprised by
how this game handled it because it felt like it came from a group of people that meant it and just wanted to make
something.
posting a giant thread about how this game changed their life and going into some of the little moments that stood
out to them. Deep in the pit of my heart something felt off so I tweeted out (not at them just in general)
about how moon seemed a bit "overrated". I then proceeded to create a Youtube video on Shin Megami Tensei If... that
sounded like it was for a 9th grade class presentation. It's surreal finishing this game now because part of the journey of me finishing
it feels like having a conversation with my past self and thinking about where I am with it, how video games are discussed
on the internet nowadays, and maybe something else.
Moon is a game that I've grown to appreciate a lot over the years, even as someone who kind of showed up with an
eyebrow raised with how much the "anti-RPG" aspect is echoed around online I found a few interesting surprises as it's a game
that really isn't as cheap as that tagline sounds but a genuine artistic game that seeks to do more with the medium
as a whole and the past that it had whether it's critiquing or celebrating it (there's literally a slime and rainbow bridge here).
Just to throw this out for a general summary: moon is an adventure game specifically based on acquiring "love" to
progress. Rather than number crunching as a means to generalize player progression like in RPGs, moon is about managing
your time, observing, and exploring using adventure game mechanics like interacting and using items. You make your way
through moon by assessing the strange land you find yourself in while observing the clockwork movement of people, creatures,
and things. In fact I'd say my core issue with this game sadly boils down to the context of its release as someone
who played this on the Nintendo Switch and didn't necessarily think to look at the game manual at first because of
how many games nowadays are presented but I highly recommend keeping this manual handy.
With moon being a game about observing characteristics and interactivity, what really helps make it stand out to me
is how the world has so many small moments within it that you just really would never find in bigger titles. It's
very obvious as you dive further into it but moon very much was a title developed by a small team and it shows
with the unique characters, references that range from Yellow Magic Orchestra, Freddie Mercury, Blade Runner, etc.
and the game's core theme/action of "love" is about as broad and abstract as it sounds to the point that the ending
even pulled a surprise move on me. It helps also that in this game about observing that there's the unique addition
of a music player with actual specific artsits brought on to bring a variety of tracks, I'm almost certain that even
in 1997 corporations wouldn't even think to do something as (potentially) costly as that for a new IP but it's here
in moon and with characters and a deep love of music that's rooted in here why would it not be.
This game reminds me of a moment when I was playing through Earthbound Beginnings this year where I realized that the repeated phone
calls you got from your dad, although very annoying, were a small game design decision that most likely was related to
a subject this game specifically goes after and it somehow feels like a miracle that I was pleasantly surprised by
how this game handled it because it felt like it came from a group of people that meant it and just wanted to make
something.
"Well, just as I was working on FFVII, Mario 64 was released. The fully three-dimensional spaces and the freedom you had to run around them had a big impact on me. When I told my colleagues I wanted to make a game like that, they said 'but Mario's already a world-famous character. It would be impossible to start from scratch with an all-new character.' "
-Tetsuya Nomura
(https://web.archive.org/web/20150725233103/http://iwataasks.nintendo.com/interviews/#/3ds/creators/11/0)
-----------------------------
Intro
-----------------------------
Kingdom Hearts is one of the main reasons I got into JRPGs, I vividly remember getting into
the series with Chain of Memories on the Game Boy Advance and essentially
most of my childhood was me just playing that and Square Enix JRPGs on the DS (spoiler: Dragon Quest IX was the best one).
Front-loading with nostalgia here because I just want to juxtapose that with
where I am now where I can't help but think about that Tetsuya Nomura quote
about Mario 64 now that I'm sitting here playing through (and finishing) the first game after
all these years (I got Re:Coded when it dropped so I guess technically
I "played" this before lol) even though the only Kingdom Hearts game I've technically finished before
was Terra's route in Birth By Sleep back in 2015 funny enough (if finishing a route in a game even counts as finishing a game).
It's interesting coming back to a game series that is so open with just being a(n overly self indulgent) metaphor for
growing up while also very literally being on that threshold line of "I am young and there's time" and "Wow I'm old oh god".
-----------------------------
Gameplay - "Final Fantasy Limit Breaks with subpar stereotypical-licensed-game-type gameplay"
-----------------------------
Anyways Mario 64, wow they should have played that game more and took some notes on it while developing this one cause it's just so hard for
me to sit down and chill in a game that basically has painted rooms that have puzzle switches and
enemies dumped in to be honest. Kingdom Hearts kind of had to start somewhere and the idea of even making an action-RPG during the early 2000's is a position I could not even imagine being in. That being said,
there are so many moments where the game really does not care to even work on the core
RPG combat because there is so much padding with the level design and gummi ship segments.
Starting off with the world design I'll focus on the progression aspect of it and I'm just gonna be honest with you
there are Lego games that kind of beat this in my opinion. It's one thing to have puzzles/mini-games
when they add variety but it's another to basically make me run around and do chores all day because you just couldn't think of ways
to keep the core appeal of this game going and this becomes apparent towards the end when there's a lot of fighting
(to where it was a bit of a slog honestly). Right from the starting point on Destiny Island it is shown that finding items/people/places
is the main way of progressing the story which feels good in certain instances but to me there were just too many moments where it felt
detached from everything and was just busywork such as Deep Jungle where you are essentially just walking towards whatever area
has a key moment in the story so you can keep.
Going into the combat, one major issue I have with the combat actually is the level design that is used with it, it's at best just a plain arena
to keep fighting Heartless in and at its lowest it is just absolutely unfun and makes the aspect of this still being a bit
in the early full-3D era of gaming a bit obvious. A lot of areas in the game are just filled with obstacles but at times
you might have to deal with traversing levels in an area and the tendancy of the combat to prioritize locking onto a specific
enemy which can throw you frame of positioning in the environment completely off. It's one thing to make it a challenge to climb a tower
but if I can't do any of the sick anime combos without falling all the way back to the base level I'm going to just do my best to
either keep spamming magic or have to wait to get the enemies to be in a better spot. Another really bad aspect
of the level design comes when you have to fight and are either flying/swimming (in this playthrough I skipped the world that The
Little Mermaid takes place in but there's a small swimming level at the end still), from all technical aspects these levels suck out any sort of
fun from the combat. If Kingdom Hearts is a 3D action rpg that has so many abilities that rely on context with just you pressing the X
button, then why would they take away the most interesting input of aerial vs ground combat? It's a baffling decision that
just does not feel fun at all and while it doesn't take up most of the levels here, it was absolutely a slog to go through.
Speaking of padding, the gummi ship segments are neat and add some variety, but I'm really not gonna pretend like it went above "wow that's neat I guess" levels of enjoyment.
Like, I guess someone working on this game thought the segments were fun but they can drag on in my opinion as they are basically plain bread Star Fox 64 with an incredibly
low-poly look that absolutely feels like this was some small side game just to add something to do. I would say that it at least builds on the core action gameplay of
"attack and dodge" but still which could be used to justify the swimming/flying segments for the combat but still I can't say it beats just fighting with
actual variety.
Nowadays the Kingdom Hearts series is known for being an action-RPG series
that streamlines combat for a great anime/Final Fantasy-esc presentation and that was definitely the foundation set here. Besides
having "techs" - a sort of parry that you do when an enemy is attacking by hitting them at them at the right time -
you are essentially just running around and putting as much damage as you can into the enemy as possible when the opening shows up.
It's not bad, it's not insanely good (besides a certain second-to-last final boss that was fun), but hey it's alright.
It's not really too surprising that some of my favorite fights in this game are you just fighting some regular guy
(whether they be a Final Fantasy character, literally Sora, or someone with grey hair) when you take
all these elements together. If you boil down what you do in this game, it's pressing down one button but the
context of the enemies/levels in this game can add some variety to where you can utilize the movement or magic/items.
I'm not gonna pretend like I've played as many action games as I have JRPGs, but I think just based off of my experience with
Devil May Cry 1+3, No More Heroes, a bit of Yakuza 0, Metal Gear Rising, and Resident Evil 4 I think my standard for 3D
action games really is set by the question of "can I have a fun time by fighting guys in an empty room with some vague sort of progression" and this game
to me feels like it is on the lower end of that spectrum, especially with how the ending gauntlet leads into being
something like a Bloody Palace in DMC3.
This is really the kind of video game that would be ABSOLUTELY adored by people who
have nostalgia for it (or are here to poke fun at the premise in general really) in my opinion,
as there are some different gameplay flavors but none of them
really outshine the core action-RPG combat and just feel like small things to do in a game
to pass the time.
-----------------------------
Story - "A childhood rival anime battle between The Heart and Darkness (with a milligram of Star Wars), and whatever we found in the Disney vault clearance bin at Target"
-----------------------------
A lot is put into the presentation and I think the main rule here with the story is "coolness over logic". There's a very evident
rival story going on here with Sora and Riku but if you even remotely think about 1 or 3 details in the story it absolutely
makes no sense but also, this is literally a Disney game (but then again Kingdom Hearts means something completely different now
than it did back in 2002) so who cares that much really. I really don't think it's the worst thing ever to just have a silly dumb anime story though, but I will say
so far I just absolutely prefer games like KH: Chain of Memories and 358/2 Days when it comes to having a story that I actually enjoy
with each step along the way because those games actually bother to have intrigue/characterization over "SOMETHING IS HAPPENING" or "this is how the world works"
every time a character opens their mouth or just following the basic hero's journey guideline you'd see in a high school english class.
I think what really adds to the awkwardness here are the cutscenes and voice acting which can be awkward at times but is charming in its own Kingdom Hearts way (I'm certain if you are
on this website I don't need to show an example of what I'm talking about) which, none of the handheld games I grew up with really had voice acting
so that might just say something a bit but I do have a bit of fondness for how overdramatic the acting can get at times.
Square has kind of always had a deep love for Star Wars (or the tropes it uses) whether it was Golbez in FFIV, Biggs and Wedge, Empires, etc.
and Kingdom Hearts absolutely follows down that pathway in my opinion with "light" and "darkness" essentially being something like "The Force" but
a lot more in your face and constant throughout the world and less uh, interesting. I would also say the game goes on over and over about
"light" and "darkness" a lot but if you really think about how (most of) the Disney properties featured here have villains who are just evil
for the sake of being selfish or evil it really isn't that bad just you know, very simple and too straightforward.
Concerning the Disney worlds, I just do not care for any of the Disney worlds here
and I have always felt like they don't add too much to the story really. I like how in this game there are small moments of building on
the dynamic of the main cast like in the Tarzan world you have Sora and Donald still not getting along, Sora being put in his place
a bit and understanding he still has a lot of room to grow while also proving himself in the Colosseum world thing, and heck
Alice in Wonderland is about as perfect of a starting option of a world as you can get as Sora loses his home and faces a bizarre reality.
Sometimes it works with small moments, but in the long run it drags because you can tell part of each world is just summarizing what their specific movie/show/whatever
has going on to catch up people who haven't seen them and already we're working with a plot that really is kind of just basic. I will say
that it's just so obvious A Nightmare Before Christmas has the best world just for the mere fact that it actually pokes a bit of fun
at the main premise of the game, lovingly puts detail into the world, etc. Overall though, this playthrough didn't entirely change my
stance on the Disney worlds really, they just aren't that good and I think show a lack of creativity in the crossover aspect by being
literal stories crossing into the main story rather than taking risks like with Mickey/Donald/Goofy where they are entirely different
characters that have a base in their original incarnations when it comes to their personality. A good example of this also is with some Final Fantasy characters,
I think it's really cool having Squall/Leon be a sort of older brother figure for Sora (sort of almost like he's Laguna a bit but still the same old Squall)
and there are details of his character that REALLY reflect how he was in FFVIII but also he's still different that the character he was in that game
because this is a different series.
To me the worst part of the story is the last section around/after the climax, it's awkwardly put together and feels
like it was sort of an attempt to at least give the players the chance to do endgame content and maybe flesh some characters out a
tiny bit more but also it's just weird to sit around the same spot when we already know what we need to do to stop the main threat.
I did enjoy the ending and thought it was great, but it was just very obvious that towards the end the idea of having any sort
of pacing for a story was thrown out the window for just enemies showing up and more things to fight.
Overall, Sora's journey is fairly simple (lol) but I think it was at least pretty neat, he's just a kid facing literal
Disney villains (and one anime nihilist) and obviously they set up something for a sequel if this did well, but I really don't think "light" and "darkness"
are too complex here besides very much being literal symbolic devices that just show up a bunch.
-----------------------------
Conclusion
-----------------------------
If the PS1 FF games were an investment on 3D tech to make battles flashy (even with the continued FFIV ATB system), cutscenes that hit harder, and music to be more involved with the scenario then Kingdom Hearts
builds on that lineage with fun button mashing anime action, voice acted scenes with big dramatic moments with rivals/villains, and music that weaves
in and out of the state of the game to where battles blend with traversal. I will be honest I started writing this review with the Nomura quote about Mario 64 to show how Kingdom Hearts
was absolutely the complete opposite of that with almost no sort of exploration in a 3D space besides basic set pieces, but I'd say honestly while that's a criticism I have
with this game there's at least a bit of freedom in expression in combat that works with the 3D space. Instead of Square's RPG mechanics and action being limited to separate states in a game system,
they blend in as one in a space with the player having options to express said action and that's at least an obvious goal this game had that I think it accomplished pretty well even if it is hidden
behind boxes of lazy/mediocre game design.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fqTd7YZ8cu4
-Tetsuya Nomura
(https://web.archive.org/web/20150725233103/http://iwataasks.nintendo.com/interviews/#/3ds/creators/11/0)
-----------------------------
Intro
-----------------------------
Kingdom Hearts is one of the main reasons I got into JRPGs, I vividly remember getting into
the series with Chain of Memories on the Game Boy Advance and essentially
most of my childhood was me just playing that and Square Enix JRPGs on the DS (spoiler: Dragon Quest IX was the best one).
Front-loading with nostalgia here because I just want to juxtapose that with
where I am now where I can't help but think about that Tetsuya Nomura quote
about Mario 64 now that I'm sitting here playing through (and finishing) the first game after
all these years (I got Re:Coded when it dropped so I guess technically
I "played" this before lol) even though the only Kingdom Hearts game I've technically finished before
was Terra's route in Birth By Sleep back in 2015 funny enough (if finishing a route in a game even counts as finishing a game).
It's interesting coming back to a game series that is so open with just being a(n overly self indulgent) metaphor for
growing up while also very literally being on that threshold line of "I am young and there's time" and "Wow I'm old oh god".
-----------------------------
Gameplay - "Final Fantasy Limit Breaks with subpar stereotypical-licensed-game-type gameplay"
-----------------------------
Anyways Mario 64, wow they should have played that game more and took some notes on it while developing this one cause it's just so hard for
me to sit down and chill in a game that basically has painted rooms that have puzzle switches and
enemies dumped in to be honest. Kingdom Hearts kind of had to start somewhere and the idea of even making an action-RPG during the early 2000's is a position I could not even imagine being in. That being said,
there are so many moments where the game really does not care to even work on the core
RPG combat because there is so much padding with the level design and gummi ship segments.
Starting off with the world design I'll focus on the progression aspect of it and I'm just gonna be honest with you
there are Lego games that kind of beat this in my opinion. It's one thing to have puzzles/mini-games
when they add variety but it's another to basically make me run around and do chores all day because you just couldn't think of ways
to keep the core appeal of this game going and this becomes apparent towards the end when there's a lot of fighting
(to where it was a bit of a slog honestly). Right from the starting point on Destiny Island it is shown that finding items/people/places
is the main way of progressing the story which feels good in certain instances but to me there were just too many moments where it felt
detached from everything and was just busywork such as Deep Jungle where you are essentially just walking towards whatever area
has a key moment in the story so you can keep.
Going into the combat, one major issue I have with the combat actually is the level design that is used with it, it's at best just a plain arena
to keep fighting Heartless in and at its lowest it is just absolutely unfun and makes the aspect of this still being a bit
in the early full-3D era of gaming a bit obvious. A lot of areas in the game are just filled with obstacles but at times
you might have to deal with traversing levels in an area and the tendancy of the combat to prioritize locking onto a specific
enemy which can throw you frame of positioning in the environment completely off. It's one thing to make it a challenge to climb a tower
but if I can't do any of the sick anime combos without falling all the way back to the base level I'm going to just do my best to
either keep spamming magic or have to wait to get the enemies to be in a better spot. Another really bad aspect
of the level design comes when you have to fight and are either flying/swimming (in this playthrough I skipped the world that The
Little Mermaid takes place in but there's a small swimming level at the end still), from all technical aspects these levels suck out any sort of
fun from the combat. If Kingdom Hearts is a 3D action rpg that has so many abilities that rely on context with just you pressing the X
button, then why would they take away the most interesting input of aerial vs ground combat? It's a baffling decision that
just does not feel fun at all and while it doesn't take up most of the levels here, it was absolutely a slog to go through.
Speaking of padding, the gummi ship segments are neat and add some variety, but I'm really not gonna pretend like it went above "wow that's neat I guess" levels of enjoyment.
Like, I guess someone working on this game thought the segments were fun but they can drag on in my opinion as they are basically plain bread Star Fox 64 with an incredibly
low-poly look that absolutely feels like this was some small side game just to add something to do. I would say that it at least builds on the core action gameplay of
"attack and dodge" but still which could be used to justify the swimming/flying segments for the combat but still I can't say it beats just fighting with
actual variety.
Nowadays the Kingdom Hearts series is known for being an action-RPG series
that streamlines combat for a great anime/Final Fantasy-esc presentation and that was definitely the foundation set here. Besides
having "techs" - a sort of parry that you do when an enemy is attacking by hitting them at them at the right time -
you are essentially just running around and putting as much damage as you can into the enemy as possible when the opening shows up.
It's not bad, it's not insanely good (besides a certain second-to-last final boss that was fun), but hey it's alright.
It's not really too surprising that some of my favorite fights in this game are you just fighting some regular guy
(whether they be a Final Fantasy character, literally Sora, or someone with grey hair) when you take
all these elements together. If you boil down what you do in this game, it's pressing down one button but the
context of the enemies/levels in this game can add some variety to where you can utilize the movement or magic/items.
I'm not gonna pretend like I've played as many action games as I have JRPGs, but I think just based off of my experience with
Devil May Cry 1+3, No More Heroes, a bit of Yakuza 0, Metal Gear Rising, and Resident Evil 4 I think my standard for 3D
action games really is set by the question of "can I have a fun time by fighting guys in an empty room with some vague sort of progression" and this game
to me feels like it is on the lower end of that spectrum, especially with how the ending gauntlet leads into being
something like a Bloody Palace in DMC3.
This is really the kind of video game that would be ABSOLUTELY adored by people who
have nostalgia for it (or are here to poke fun at the premise in general really) in my opinion,
as there are some different gameplay flavors but none of them
really outshine the core action-RPG combat and just feel like small things to do in a game
to pass the time.
-----------------------------
Story - "A childhood rival anime battle between The Heart and Darkness (with a milligram of Star Wars), and whatever we found in the Disney vault clearance bin at Target"
-----------------------------
A lot is put into the presentation and I think the main rule here with the story is "coolness over logic". There's a very evident
rival story going on here with Sora and Riku but if you even remotely think about 1 or 3 details in the story it absolutely
makes no sense but also, this is literally a Disney game (but then again Kingdom Hearts means something completely different now
than it did back in 2002) so who cares that much really. I really don't think it's the worst thing ever to just have a silly dumb anime story though, but I will say
so far I just absolutely prefer games like KH: Chain of Memories and 358/2 Days when it comes to having a story that I actually enjoy
with each step along the way because those games actually bother to have intrigue/characterization over "SOMETHING IS HAPPENING" or "this is how the world works"
every time a character opens their mouth or just following the basic hero's journey guideline you'd see in a high school english class.
I think what really adds to the awkwardness here are the cutscenes and voice acting which can be awkward at times but is charming in its own Kingdom Hearts way (I'm certain if you are
on this website I don't need to show an example of what I'm talking about) which, none of the handheld games I grew up with really had voice acting
so that might just say something a bit but I do have a bit of fondness for how overdramatic the acting can get at times.
Square has kind of always had a deep love for Star Wars (or the tropes it uses) whether it was Golbez in FFIV, Biggs and Wedge, Empires, etc.
and Kingdom Hearts absolutely follows down that pathway in my opinion with "light" and "darkness" essentially being something like "The Force" but
a lot more in your face and constant throughout the world and less uh, interesting. I would also say the game goes on over and over about
"light" and "darkness" a lot but if you really think about how (most of) the Disney properties featured here have villains who are just evil
for the sake of being selfish or evil it really isn't that bad just you know, very simple and too straightforward.
Concerning the Disney worlds, I just do not care for any of the Disney worlds here
and I have always felt like they don't add too much to the story really. I like how in this game there are small moments of building on
the dynamic of the main cast like in the Tarzan world you have Sora and Donald still not getting along, Sora being put in his place
a bit and understanding he still has a lot of room to grow while also proving himself in the Colosseum world thing, and heck
Alice in Wonderland is about as perfect of a starting option of a world as you can get as Sora loses his home and faces a bizarre reality.
Sometimes it works with small moments, but in the long run it drags because you can tell part of each world is just summarizing what their specific movie/show/whatever
has going on to catch up people who haven't seen them and already we're working with a plot that really is kind of just basic. I will say
that it's just so obvious A Nightmare Before Christmas has the best world just for the mere fact that it actually pokes a bit of fun
at the main premise of the game, lovingly puts detail into the world, etc. Overall though, this playthrough didn't entirely change my
stance on the Disney worlds really, they just aren't that good and I think show a lack of creativity in the crossover aspect by being
literal stories crossing into the main story rather than taking risks like with Mickey/Donald/Goofy where they are entirely different
characters that have a base in their original incarnations when it comes to their personality. A good example of this also is with some Final Fantasy characters,
I think it's really cool having Squall/Leon be a sort of older brother figure for Sora (sort of almost like he's Laguna a bit but still the same old Squall)
and there are details of his character that REALLY reflect how he was in FFVIII but also he's still different that the character he was in that game
because this is a different series.
To me the worst part of the story is the last section around/after the climax, it's awkwardly put together and feels
like it was sort of an attempt to at least give the players the chance to do endgame content and maybe flesh some characters out a
tiny bit more but also it's just weird to sit around the same spot when we already know what we need to do to stop the main threat.
I did enjoy the ending and thought it was great, but it was just very obvious that towards the end the idea of having any sort
of pacing for a story was thrown out the window for just enemies showing up and more things to fight.
Overall, Sora's journey is fairly simple (lol) but I think it was at least pretty neat, he's just a kid facing literal
Disney villains (and one anime nihilist) and obviously they set up something for a sequel if this did well, but I really don't think "light" and "darkness"
are too complex here besides very much being literal symbolic devices that just show up a bunch.
-----------------------------
Conclusion
-----------------------------
If the PS1 FF games were an investment on 3D tech to make battles flashy (even with the continued FFIV ATB system), cutscenes that hit harder, and music to be more involved with the scenario then Kingdom Hearts
builds on that lineage with fun button mashing anime action, voice acted scenes with big dramatic moments with rivals/villains, and music that weaves
in and out of the state of the game to where battles blend with traversal. I will be honest I started writing this review with the Nomura quote about Mario 64 to show how Kingdom Hearts
was absolutely the complete opposite of that with almost no sort of exploration in a 3D space besides basic set pieces, but I'd say honestly while that's a criticism I have
with this game there's at least a bit of freedom in expression in combat that works with the 3D space. Instead of Square's RPG mechanics and action being limited to separate states in a game system,
they blend in as one in a space with the player having options to express said action and that's at least an obvious goal this game had that I think it accomplished pretty well even if it is hidden
behind boxes of lazy/mediocre game design.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fqTd7YZ8cu4
1999
Originally played this at an arcade back in 2016, I didn't even know what SNK was at the time but this game was so cool that I held onto the memory of "that video game that looks like a sunday morning comic strip where you turn into a mummy" until 2020 when I finally ended up buying the game for my Nintendo Switch where once every other week I will boot up the game and casually play through it because it's just that much fun to start a round.
1986
There used to be a time period where if you wanted long D&D-esc adventures to play on your own you essentially had to play PC games developed by creative programmers who also suffered from the archaic nature of software development in the 70’s-80’s with over-complicated control schemes, incredibly tedious mechanics that sounded way cooler in their head, and vague stories that basically required you to look at a piece of paper (and also write on one) while you played.
While that style of RPG isn’t even remotely bad, it was the opposite of user-friendly and it’s why we celebrate Dragon Quest so many years later because very literally it brought that style of adventure to casual players with way less memory. Obviously by the standards of today there isn’t a lot going on here but the progression of your character on a journey is something that (especially to me) pulls players in and makes RPGs unique from other genres.
Dragon Quest is a fantastic example of the importance of user interface and game design over spreading an adventure too thin.
While that style of RPG isn’t even remotely bad, it was the opposite of user-friendly and it’s why we celebrate Dragon Quest so many years later because very literally it brought that style of adventure to casual players with way less memory. Obviously by the standards of today there isn’t a lot going on here but the progression of your character on a journey is something that (especially to me) pulls players in and makes RPGs unique from other genres.
Dragon Quest is a fantastic example of the importance of user interface and game design over spreading an adventure too thin.