If I were simply comparing this against a 'modern ideal of Exploration-Action RPG design' I'd probably give this a 3, maybe a 2. But since it was put out in the late 90s, is 3D, and surprisingly playable, I'll bump it up to a 4.
actually 5 bc brightis #1
COMBAT
Mechanically, this is a hard to control action game with no lock-on mechanic. Your sword hitboxes are small and very directional based on swinging up or down. Moving left or right ALSO turns the camera so positioning yourself properly is tricky, especially during boss fights. There's a complex moves system but you end up sticking to two or three useful moves. Basically the 'move economy' is too close together that it's hard to distinguish the value of one move vs. another - usually I just end up thinking 'a combo would be good' or 'a charge strike could be good for getting one hit in and running off.' The depth of combat doesn't go very far. Usually you just hold block until there's an opening, swing, get away, etc. Some enemies attack through your guard, some move very fast, but for the most part combat tends to feel repetitive, sometimes even annoying - it's hard to precisely line up and easy to get smacked without realizing it.
Bosses, rather than pushing combat into interesting and focused space, end up being battles of attrition, trying to awkwardly line up and smack the enemy before getting hit in the face with a 30% damage attack.
HISTORY
STILL, it's pretty admirable for a time where there were only a few decent attempts at 3D exploration-action combat. By the PS2 era various studios had good attempts by that time - DMC, Kingdom Hearts, Tales of, the Ys 6/Oath/Origin, Xanadu Next - but the PS1 era is pretty slim. You have Granstream Saga (also by Quintet/Shade) (1997), which is more focused in combat scope (I haven't played it), as well as Brave Fencer Musashi, which is simple and 2D zelda-y in combat scope. Alundra 2 has a lot of money put into it but the boss design and combat design are a bit straightforward. Parasite Eve is good, although more of a shooter.
We also have Mega Man Legends, great 3D 3rd-person shooter RPGs, and Threads of Fate.
Of course there's the N64 Zeldas - which feature combat, but honestly more as a 'texture' than as a combat system that was interesting to engage with. Funnily enough the Wikipedia article for Action RPG skips completely from late 90s 2D ARPGs to Demon's Souls...! On the Western side, developers didn't seem to explore the 3D ARPG much? I guess it was just hard to do 3D games then. There's Ultima IX, King's Quest VIII (a personal favorite...although not a very sound game, design-wise, haha).
Anyways, the point is, Brightis did a pretty good and forward-looking job in 1999! I wouldn't be surprised if it was the basis for some of FromSoft's 2000s (also mixed/so-so) ARPGs - Evergrace 1 and 2, those other ones after it.
Alright, back to the game...
SO WHAT'S GOOD ABOUT IT...?
The story isn't too substantial, standard genre dark fantasy fare, but it is fun to revisit the village over time and talk to NPCs and see how they're feeling.
What's neat is the overworld and dungeon design. Though both go stale quickly, the game features a fully connected overworld (with loading pauses), which gives it a very 'lived-in' and hiking feel. As far as I could tell there is no fast travel (if I missed the option then... lol), so you have to walk everywhere. Areas feel like snowy mountains, or ravines, or grassy plains. You'll even unlock a few shortcuts around the overworld.
It goes stale, though, as only a few enemy types roam the overworld. They get boring to fight and also barely give EXP or have a reason to be killed. Still, the overworld spaces always have some interesting visual gimmick to them, but you have to really wish that there was a wider screen at the time or better camera controls. This is a case where the super short draw distance is kind of sad, actually...it hides a lot of the expansiveness the game designers were going for.
Dungeons are interesting - they, too, are 'continuous' and I think, realistically laid out. But it's hard to keep the whole structure in your head because most dungeons are interior hallways. Still, the dungeons are very ambitious - there's a beautiful temple near a lake with sprawling, Shadow of the Colossus-esque mossy ruins, and a tower climbing into the sky. You'll find huge underground caverns, strange ruins... etc.
It was a lot of fun to see these RPG tropes brought to life in a way that reminded me of the later Souls series.
That being said the design gets a little boring, simply because there isn't much to do except walk around and fight enemies with the sort of flat battle system where enemies all have the same strategy and it doesn't control well enough to want to fight. You quickly see why N64 Zelda opted for items and puzzles to spice up their fairly flat combat system. Dungeons feature a 'brightness' mechanic where if you can run out of light and it becomes hard to navigate levels or have a sense of the space. This happens a lot in later levels.
Dungeons generally have pacing issues - you have to clear them in one go without leaving or you lose your keys. This is tiring and also, because you can't get a sense for the whole dungeon layout, it's hard to tell how far along you are. this is quite the headache when you're far along from a save point, trying to figure out where you are, without dying to something..
Still, I think it's brilliant for the time and quite ambitious. It's a shame that Quintet and Shade folded after this or split up, because they really could have done something amazing in the 2000s! If there's anything I've learned about Exploratory Action RPGs, from the '80s till today, is that it's very hard to make one. Everyone's just building off of ideas from the previous games, while trying to push things slightly forward, or finding ways around the difficulty of the 3D view and camera.
Even 3D exploration-action games in 2023 are still coasting (FromSoft included) off of the innovations of Demon's and Dark Souls 1, going down more technically-demanding paths (Nioh), rolling around in the impotent mud of gacha action design (Genshin Impact), or falling into that +0.5% Defense Diablo Garbage Picking Hole. To me the genre feels a bit stale nowadays. It's time for someone to shake it up again!
actually 5 bc brightis #1
COMBAT
Mechanically, this is a hard to control action game with no lock-on mechanic. Your sword hitboxes are small and very directional based on swinging up or down. Moving left or right ALSO turns the camera so positioning yourself properly is tricky, especially during boss fights. There's a complex moves system but you end up sticking to two or three useful moves. Basically the 'move economy' is too close together that it's hard to distinguish the value of one move vs. another - usually I just end up thinking 'a combo would be good' or 'a charge strike could be good for getting one hit in and running off.' The depth of combat doesn't go very far. Usually you just hold block until there's an opening, swing, get away, etc. Some enemies attack through your guard, some move very fast, but for the most part combat tends to feel repetitive, sometimes even annoying - it's hard to precisely line up and easy to get smacked without realizing it.
Bosses, rather than pushing combat into interesting and focused space, end up being battles of attrition, trying to awkwardly line up and smack the enemy before getting hit in the face with a 30% damage attack.
HISTORY
STILL, it's pretty admirable for a time where there were only a few decent attempts at 3D exploration-action combat. By the PS2 era various studios had good attempts by that time - DMC, Kingdom Hearts, Tales of, the Ys 6/Oath/Origin, Xanadu Next - but the PS1 era is pretty slim. You have Granstream Saga (also by Quintet/Shade) (1997), which is more focused in combat scope (I haven't played it), as well as Brave Fencer Musashi, which is simple and 2D zelda-y in combat scope. Alundra 2 has a lot of money put into it but the boss design and combat design are a bit straightforward. Parasite Eve is good, although more of a shooter.
We also have Mega Man Legends, great 3D 3rd-person shooter RPGs, and Threads of Fate.
Of course there's the N64 Zeldas - which feature combat, but honestly more as a 'texture' than as a combat system that was interesting to engage with. Funnily enough the Wikipedia article for Action RPG skips completely from late 90s 2D ARPGs to Demon's Souls...! On the Western side, developers didn't seem to explore the 3D ARPG much? I guess it was just hard to do 3D games then. There's Ultima IX, King's Quest VIII (a personal favorite...although not a very sound game, design-wise, haha).
Anyways, the point is, Brightis did a pretty good and forward-looking job in 1999! I wouldn't be surprised if it was the basis for some of FromSoft's 2000s (also mixed/so-so) ARPGs - Evergrace 1 and 2, those other ones after it.
Alright, back to the game...
SO WHAT'S GOOD ABOUT IT...?
The story isn't too substantial, standard genre dark fantasy fare, but it is fun to revisit the village over time and talk to NPCs and see how they're feeling.
What's neat is the overworld and dungeon design. Though both go stale quickly, the game features a fully connected overworld (with loading pauses), which gives it a very 'lived-in' and hiking feel. As far as I could tell there is no fast travel (if I missed the option then... lol), so you have to walk everywhere. Areas feel like snowy mountains, or ravines, or grassy plains. You'll even unlock a few shortcuts around the overworld.
It goes stale, though, as only a few enemy types roam the overworld. They get boring to fight and also barely give EXP or have a reason to be killed. Still, the overworld spaces always have some interesting visual gimmick to them, but you have to really wish that there was a wider screen at the time or better camera controls. This is a case where the super short draw distance is kind of sad, actually...it hides a lot of the expansiveness the game designers were going for.
Dungeons are interesting - they, too, are 'continuous' and I think, realistically laid out. But it's hard to keep the whole structure in your head because most dungeons are interior hallways. Still, the dungeons are very ambitious - there's a beautiful temple near a lake with sprawling, Shadow of the Colossus-esque mossy ruins, and a tower climbing into the sky. You'll find huge underground caverns, strange ruins... etc.
It was a lot of fun to see these RPG tropes brought to life in a way that reminded me of the later Souls series.
That being said the design gets a little boring, simply because there isn't much to do except walk around and fight enemies with the sort of flat battle system where enemies all have the same strategy and it doesn't control well enough to want to fight. You quickly see why N64 Zelda opted for items and puzzles to spice up their fairly flat combat system. Dungeons feature a 'brightness' mechanic where if you can run out of light and it becomes hard to navigate levels or have a sense of the space. This happens a lot in later levels.
Dungeons generally have pacing issues - you have to clear them in one go without leaving or you lose your keys. This is tiring and also, because you can't get a sense for the whole dungeon layout, it's hard to tell how far along you are. this is quite the headache when you're far along from a save point, trying to figure out where you are, without dying to something..
Still, I think it's brilliant for the time and quite ambitious. It's a shame that Quintet and Shade folded after this or split up, because they really could have done something amazing in the 2000s! If there's anything I've learned about Exploratory Action RPGs, from the '80s till today, is that it's very hard to make one. Everyone's just building off of ideas from the previous games, while trying to push things slightly forward, or finding ways around the difficulty of the 3D view and camera.
Even 3D exploration-action games in 2023 are still coasting (FromSoft included) off of the innovations of Demon's and Dark Souls 1, going down more technically-demanding paths (Nioh), rolling around in the impotent mud of gacha action design (Genshin Impact), or falling into that +0.5% Defense Diablo Garbage Picking Hole. To me the genre feels a bit stale nowadays. It's time for someone to shake it up again!
5 Comments
With Elden Ring, nowadays I'm a bit more positive to it, but I still feel disappointed that it was like From taking the most 'safe' route with the open world stuff. Many great level design moments in isolation (the weird scarlet rot pool place! climbing mt. gelmir! the sad spellcaster town near the swamp... etc) but they didn't mesh together in a way that felt intriguing. It bothers me a bit that the industry frames it as an advancement over Dark Souls, when it felt a bit more like FromSoft "playing by (or even capitulating) modern open world's rules". To be clear it's my favorite open world game by a long shot (simply because its fundamentals are still solid! Even if I'm sort of tired with the dodge-roll formula at this point and I liked the janky looseness of Demon's/DS1 more), but I feel like the 'theoretical capacity' for how interesting an open world could be (vs. one that's even half or a quarter the size) has been reached. Open World AAA will always feel like they're preaching the belief of 'more is always better simply because there is more, and making people stay in a game world forever is good', whereas to me there's beauty and intrigue in limitations and restraint.
But anyways, yeah I'm not equating Genshin with Elden Ring here in terms of quality, but more lamenting, as a fan of Fromsoft's bizarre historical output and innovations, it's sad to imagine that they might continue down a path of these massive open world experiences, which, while they might still have interesting elements to them (like Elden Ring), the design decision of picking an big open world will inherently be limiting because it has to check all these boxes (X areas, Y items, Z repeated types of dungeons, certain progression structures and pacing expectations)
But anyways, yeah I'm not equating Genshin with Elden Ring here in terms of quality, but more lamenting, as a fan of Fromsoft's bizarre historical output and innovations, it's sad to imagine that they might continue down a path of these massive open world experiences, which, while they might still have interesting elements to them (like Elden Ring), the design decision of picking an big open world will inherently be limiting because it has to check all these boxes (X areas, Y items, Z repeated types of dungeons, certain progression structures and pacing expectations)
(In any case, I am working on a Action-y RPG now, which is why the genre and its history as a whole are on my mind a lot. I'd like to return the genre more towards the days of the 80s/90s, maybe even early 00s, where the games were a bit more accessible in length (8-10 hours) and I felt more unexpected and experimental in what they were trying to do, even if they often missed the mark or were janky)
thanks for the reply. i definitely hear you and i don't want to dismiss those open world game design critiques too out of hand because i agree there's truth to that, though as i'm presently midway through my first dark souls 1 replay in several years (being the souls title i've played the most, by far), i'm pretty struck by how vast it still feels, when in my memory it feels so small compared to a game like elden ring. (as an aside, 'loose' isn't how i'd describe it: it feels very 'sticky' to me, having to plant your feet to drink, often having a much longer recovery time after attacks than in their games since, etc.) the way the world is structured gets compared to metroid and stuff like that a lot, there's one key thing that persists through all of these games: if you're struggling, you can go somewhere else and come back later. it's true of the stones in demon's, the complexity of lordran's interlinking passages, and of pretty much any destination in elden ring. and for what it's worth, my opinion is that they didn't sacrifice too much of that deeply considered world structure even in a game as ludicrously big as elden ring.
i absolutely 100% agree with regards to finding beauty in limitations and restraint and think most often the best art in any medium results from that adversity meshing with real inspired creativity... i just think one can absolutely argue that fromsoft have really not lost that feeling of vitality and creative fire, nor their identity within video games, open world or otherwise. it seems clear to me that they're still learning, too, as developers (while their art, their writing and their ideas are all a leap beyond what most video game developers could even come up with in their wildest dreams).
hopefully they'll have more to offer than just a slow homogenization of every game into the open world format. my guess is they will, because they've always dwelt in this very specific dark fantasy space while consistently reinventing. and they've been at it for decades. i say let em have their open world masterpiece.
sorry for derailing! brightis looks super cool, and i look forward to your further thoughts on the subject, not to mention your game. seems to me you'd really shine working in a space like falcom from the late '80s through the early '00s, or something similar. my assumption would be you've already played xanadu next, though if not i can't recommend it enough - and you'd likely be interested in some of its ideas ostensibly preceding demon's souls.
i absolutely 100% agree with regards to finding beauty in limitations and restraint and think most often the best art in any medium results from that adversity meshing with real inspired creativity... i just think one can absolutely argue that fromsoft have really not lost that feeling of vitality and creative fire, nor their identity within video games, open world or otherwise. it seems clear to me that they're still learning, too, as developers (while their art, their writing and their ideas are all a leap beyond what most video game developers could even come up with in their wildest dreams).
hopefully they'll have more to offer than just a slow homogenization of every game into the open world format. my guess is they will, because they've always dwelt in this very specific dark fantasy space while consistently reinventing. and they've been at it for decades. i say let em have their open world masterpiece.
sorry for derailing! brightis looks super cool, and i look forward to your further thoughts on the subject, not to mention your game. seems to me you'd really shine working in a space like falcom from the late '80s through the early '00s, or something similar. my assumption would be you've already played xanadu next, though if not i can't recommend it enough - and you'd likely be interested in some of its ideas ostensibly preceding demon's souls.
Yeah, I like your optimism with FromSoft. Super curious what they'll do with Armored Core and other games in the future. I have the tendency to get too cynical too quickly with anything Open World... I really hope it's something the AAA industry manages to shake off in the next decade or at least scope down. (Like the new Zelda looks pretty fun to play around in, but another part of me is like "Augh, I'm going to have to walk around so much for hours and hours!").
And I started playing Xanadu Next! It's been one of my holes in their 00s ARPG offerings for a while, they're such a great studio. Hoping with our next game we can make something that feels like a continuation from that era.
And I started playing Xanadu Next! It's been one of my holes in their 00s ARPG offerings for a while, they're such a great studio. Hoping with our next game we can make something that feels like a continuation from that era.
zn0
1 year ago
that said, you're absolutely right that action rpgs are largely on cruise control as of late. thing is, and i'm sure you understand this far better than i do (having actually made video games), innovation is hard! especially the level of tectonic-plate-shifting innovation fromsoft achieved with the then completely unique multiplayer systems of demon's souls. i don't think i can even imagine a fresh innovation in game design that huge, and i feel it's important to celebrate games which are iterative as long as they are made with love, rather than business-minded cynicism. i think fromsoft really, truly loves action rpgs and dungeon crawling. it hurts my heart to think that anyone might toss elden ring in a pile with genshin impact! (not that i think that's specifically what you're saying with your final paragraph, but... could be inferred?)
i hope this comment isn't too abrasive and i'm sorry if it is. while i don't know that the rpg genre will ever seem stale to me, i can only agree with you inasmuch as i look forward to seeing what else can be done with it.